Lycee Honore d'Urfe

Schools in France are much different from here in the US, some of the differences at my lycee being: many buildings (like a university campus where students walk around outside in between classes), school set in a park with a few soccer goals but no other sports fields, teachers change classrooms also so not many decorations on the walls, no extracurricular activities (children go to them outside of school), school is from 8am to 6pm, no school buses (they take public transportation if they need to), no student parking lot because you can't drive until 18 in France, many student smokers because you can smoke at 16 (so the gates to the entryway were flooded with smokers after the new law in February forbid smoking on school campuses), no computers/tvs in classes and a very small lab, paper attendance, students without binders but having a carnet notebook where they glue in all of their worksheets, everyone is precise about having good handwriting and using whiteout if they make a mistake, often teaches in the the front doing most of the talking and less games/groupwork than in the US, no school dances, detention is called "la colle"-glue haha, full time teachers work 18hrs, no school announcements, tardiness is not as big of a deal even for teachers, classes don't meet daily (English 2 to 3 times a week), they have at least an hour for lunch, and cafeteria food is actually really good (4 course meals!).

In the end I'll miss a lot of things about the French school system but I'm glad to be going back to work in the system I know. I'm glad I experienced it to explain to my future students and to use some ideas in my future lessons. It was odd being on the other side of the language spectrum, but I was proud that I was able to understand them when they would say "What is the English for..." and they would ramble off a huge phrase in French. Or they would use a French gesture (like the pinkie for skinny) when they didn't know the word and luckily I knew what they meant. It was nice at the end to have students give me cards saying that it was nice to see a different style of teaching or that they liked my silly drawings that helped them learn and wake up with a laugh at 8am. I wish I could have seen each of 7 teachers I taught with teach to get some of their ideas, but it was interesting that I could get a bit of their style just by how each of my classes differed (in ability level, in discipline, etc). I hope I could give them a different idea about Americans and opened their eyes and minds to my culture more than the media and the celebrities and politicians represented in it do. I hope next year I'll have an American equivalent of Mustapha whose laughter was contagious and whose booming voice could be heard all over campus saying "Hello Mlle! How are you?!"