I Am The Weakest Link

The three classes I had this morning went better than last week; a few students are starting to open up a bit, which helps. And just when I was starting to feel an eensy bit of confidence... I went to a teacher workshop.

My colleague Cécile proposed this as a field trip: we would cancel our afternoon classes, have lunch downtown and then go to some sort of lecture at the art museum. So at noon, we hopped in the Deux Chevaux, picked up Guillaume, a history teacher (and the only other teacher at school who also owns a Deux Chevaux) and headed to town where we met Valérie, who used to work at our school but just this year transfered to the snotty uber-rich high school downtown. (I'd pretty much give up a kidney to work there, but I kept this to myself.)

Lunch was delicious but too much-- I am constantly amazed at how these tiny French people can wolf down food like nobody's business. We each had the special, a plate of lettuce, sliced tomato salad, beef, chicken, turkey and cheese. And of course, bread. And of course, dessert. And of course, coffee. I thought I'd puke about halfway through and I was the only one who failed to make a happy plate. How do they do it??

After lunch we walked a few blocks to the museum, where the woman in charge started rattling ninety to nothing about... something. After a while it became apparent that there was dissent about our course of action; the workshop leader wanted us to "choose" our piece of art and start "working" (I'd missed the bit about what we were supposed to do). There was a brief skirmish over the lack of labels on the paintings (the museum lady said they were irrelevant because the kids never remembered the information anyway, and some of the teachers got their feathers ruffled), then we stood around while two people argued over whether we should start working or take a brief tour first; the museum lady objected to this as a waste of time, though by this point we'd been standing and arguing for 20 minutes and wasted time was a moo point.

After the museum lady explained her reasons for not wanting to start with a brief guided tour, she started with a brief guided tour. (Honestly, sometimes I wonder if it's a language barrier or a sanity barrier.) We were shown various paintings she felt would be well adapted to the... thing we were supposed to be doing. Cécile selected a series of paintings related to Paul Scarron's Le Roman Comique, which I had once pretended to read in a 17th century lit class. (Evidently it's set in Le Mans, which I have no memory of, although it does explain why one of the cafés downtown is named for him.)

What happened next was a painful lesson in French education: we proceeded to stare at the paintings and describe them in great detail. This is exactly what happens in class, too. "There is a man. He has a long gun. Perhaps he is hunting for birds or rabbits to feed his friends. In the bottom right corner, there are two men. They appear angry. Perhaps they are quarreling. There are two cows, and a donkey. The donkey is eating hay." And on. And on. And on. Is it any wonder these kids hate school? We skipped the best part-- we did the first three paintings in the series, but in the fourth there was a huge, knock-down drag-out fight in which theatre spectators wielded chairs like they were on Jerry Springer, and at least one person appeared to be getting spanked on his naked bum. And yet, the other teachers remained convinced that the first three were enough. But... but... we skipped the good stuff.

After that, all the groups got together in one of the exhibit rooms and sat in a circle on the floor to discuss our projects. They were all talking too fast for me, so I zoned out. You know that kid in class who's always staring out the window? That was me. Everyone else is scribbling notes, nodding, applauding each other's creativity, and I'm sitting on the floor picking at a scab and wondering where I might find a piece of gum.

The philosophy teachers were the worst; I had no idea what they were talking about. Something about still life and the symbolism of vanity, blah blah. (In the meantime, I was admiring the clear plastic zip-top bag said philosophy teacher keeps her pens in and wondering where she bought it, and whether I could ask her where she bought it, and how precisely to formulate that question, and what her response might be so I could rehearse answers.)

And yes, I did say philosophy teacher. It's a required subject for all seniors and comprises part of their graduation exam. Every year after the exam, the questions are published in the newspaper so the general public can complain about how much harder the questions were when they were in school and kids today just don't know how easy they have it. Examples of last year's questions:

Does objectivity in history suppose impartiality in the historian?

Does language betray thought?

Is it absurd to desire the impossible?

Are there questions science cannot answer?

Again I say, no wonder these kids hate school. And no wonder I feel like an idiot all the time.