I mean, I just got here

The next two weeks

The next two weeks aren’t anything too fancy. In fact, they’re probably best used as an opportunity to work on my own projects. I’ve had a taste of what the rest of this semester is going to be like. I’ll be working only twelve hours a week, but it is structured such that I will end up spending much longer at the school. Fortunately, I quite like it there so far.

The teachers are passionate about their work or their students, and sometimes both. Actually, I did some teaching last week.

Last week

Unlike much of my previous teaching experience, I am specifically not asked to prepare a curriculum. Moreover, according to a colleague, they are not supposed to confer with me ahead of class time to prepare a syllabus. Rather, I’m to show up to class — ready for whatever — and go with whatever the teacher comes up with. It’s an adventure every day.

So, my first class was pretty simple. The teacher had me take half the class for half of the hour block, and then we swapped. I was to help them revise for an upcoming exam. We were coming up right at the end of a section for most classes, so most classes I’ve been attending have been review and revision.

I borrowed a guitar from the music teacher earlier this week, and when I went to return it I was asked to stay and hang out a while. That turned into two hours of observing two classes full of really engaged students and a teacher who loves her job. The first class went over Vivaldi and looked at a recomposition of the Four Seasons. The second class had a contrôle¹ and then they started rehearsing The Moulin Rouge — in English.

I’m gonna have to break some legs.

There are a few pronunciation issues to fix, which is not all that bad.² The biggest issues are in committing to the stage. Half-hearted acting, half-memorised lines. It’s early yet, and they show promise. Still, they don’t quite understand the piece. I see now why auditions are such a big deal. As a casting director, one is looking for someone who can understand a character (or at least their role in the larger piece), often with little preparation. For film, the gamut of actors and actresses is so wide as to permit looking for those who play a role without having to act, per se. In the theatre, this is a luxury far more rarely encountered. We have the harder task — if their is any true comparison — that of getting the best possible performance from a much more limited set of possible performances. I’m looking forward to this. I’ve been honorarily inducted into the class. Although I don’t have any intention of being on stage, I do intend to involve myself in the production of the piece.

Both groups of students, who decided to choose music as an elective, participated on Friday in what was called le midi musical.

Le midi musical

I had class on Friday morning, as I had the past two days, with my professeure référante, Mme P—³. There was actually another observer in class that morning, along with a teacher who stays with this particular group of students. I do not really understand what it is that she does, aside from boss the kids a little from time to time, as though to remind them of her presence. At any rate, with Mme P—, the student’s teacher, and the observer included, I was one of four non-students in the room. This other observer is a student at l’Université de Rouen who has a stage to do and was able to come back to his high school to do it. Once a week, he’ll be around. I actually may bump in to him some, but not as much since he works pretty much only with an English teacher I don’t see much.

After class, we had some time before lunch, so we sat in the salle des profs and talked a little. I told him that I usually don’t hang out in their since it’s not usually a very social place (as far as I’m concerned anyhow). But this was quite the exception. He asked if he could interview me, a few questions, and we were interrupted almost constantly. I met a few other teachers, including one who looks and acts rather like a slightly older 尚平⁴. And I met K—. He is also an English teacher⁵, as well as a Spanish teacher.

At any rate the interview didn’t get very far, and it was soon lunch time.

The observer — his name is G—– — and I ate lunch together, which was a good experience. He talked to people more than I do usually, and that led to me meeting some of the younger school staff. Two run and stock the chem lab⁶; they came up and sat with us after our first interlocutor left. He is a minder, more or less. Un surveillant. He told us that what he really would like to be doing with his life is coaching soccer. Preparing people for competition.

G—– had brought to my attention that the canteen opens at eleven thirty, a whole half hour before I had expected. So we’d gone then, and it was about 12h15 and I had finished when I remembered le midi musical. I’d already heard some of the songs that were to be played, but I hadn’t expected anything like the experience of le midi musical. They had prepared a set of a couple dozen songs, almost half in English, to be performed some solo, some in groups. Not one of them was to be played with a backing track or anything so petty. All the music was played live, all the words were sung live; and the phones flashlights waving in the air at Jeff Buckley’s “Hallelujah”, and the cheers for “Viva la Vida” were moving. They audience went wild when Nekfeu was laid down with skill by a talented rapper, and when the same student laid out some bass rhythms I’d be proud to hear again in the next year. And he is just one example of the kind of talent, practice, courage, and effort, that these students put into this. I was supposed to return to class after the first hour. When I did, Mme C—– pretty well shooed me back.

So I got to hear the rest of the show, and the performance of “Eye of the Tiger” that I’d seen them practice already four times in nearly as many days. It was beautiful.

I spent much of the performance in the side-stage corner, talking with the students, and playing some an electric guitar unplugged.

Que commencent les vacances

I’ve done a little bit of shopping. I got more muesli, since I ran out, and since the canteen will be closed for the next two weeks, I’m on my own for most of my meals.

It’s a little shocking to be alone all of a sudden.

I’ve got a few plans. A visit to the D-day beaches. A day visiting a colleague. If I can find a round-trip ticket for cheap, I might visit Paris.

I’ve been working some on this site. I have a better handle on some of the background elements that make it work. I’ve learned one method for embedding playable music.

I’m learning handlebars; trying to get up-to-date on a clean, simple version of html5; using Krita, Inkscape, and Scribus to create and export graphic art; and I’m going to look for a place that will sell me peanut butter without taking an arm and a leg.⁷