the cast of jean macé

Although I spend a good amount of my time in France with kids, part of my experience is the interaction I have with the teachers at my school. I am graced with the opportunity to be in an environment where my colleagues are genuinely pleasant and fun to be around. There is a certain bonheur present in the teacher's lounge where laughs and jokes are passed around over coffee or lunch, making my job as a language assistant all the more worthwhile. To further enlighten you, dear reader, on the drama about my everyday life at the Ecole Jean Macé, I hereby present a résumé of the characters who take part of it. (Names have been changed to protect the innocent.)

Pierre: A native of Strasbourg, this quirky Alsacien is the most eager of the teachers to embrace English in the classroom. Always desiring to practice his own understanding of the language, he insists on speaking only in English with me and chastises the other teachers who don’t. Obsessed with the correct pronunciation, he drills his students to the extreme in order to overcome those natural linguistic barriers, such as the th and the r, that menace the French speaker. “No, that is not the good pronunciation. People will then know you are French.”

Penelope: A fun-loving and chatty CM2 (5^th grade) teacher, Penelope is quickly the life of the party. Best friends with Pierre, whom she calls lapin (rabbit), she is the only other teacher who attempts to speak English with me with a cheerful,“ ‘Ello, Dan-ee-kah! ‘Ow ar you?” Never taking no for an answer, she always finds a way to solve whatever problems she’s faced with – which are quite numerous – in a humorous and tactful way.

Elyse: Rather composed in nature, Elyse also has an aggressive and humorous quality that I admire. She is also a very snazzy dresser (although some of the others have poked fun at some of her clothing items) and vraiment belle. She easily listens to my advice and has complete confidence in me when I take over her class for English lessons. In addition, she is especially curious about my perceptions of the French as an American and absolutely insists that I try escargot before I leave. (In French) “Dan-ee-kah, have you tried them yet? They are delicious and you’ll be sorry if you don’t.”

Augustine: With an open heart and loads more patience than her colleagues, Augustine teaches the CLIS (classe d’intégration scolaire), or the students with academic difficulties and disabilities. Since her kids are not obligated to learn English, I instead help out with French reading and writing. In the classroom, I can attest for how much she truly cares and provides for her students. She explains to me frequently how she tries to incorporate new methods in order to help her students learn material and willingly allows me to suggest ideas and take part in assisting her students in any way I can.

Jean-Jacques: Jean-Jacques is among the youngest of the teachers at École Jean Macé, which he makes known frequently during conversations. Whenever a reference to a famous singer or television star from several decades back is made, he makes a smart comment about his age in relation to the others. It annoys his colleagues but makes me laugh. It also makes me laugh when he makes excuses to the elder Pierre for not speaking in English with me, “What you meen I don’t speek Een-glish? I say, ‘Dan-ee-kah, eet ees raining outside. Where ees your umbrella?’”

Bernadette: Bernadette is adorable and like Pierre, she takes her English lessons a bit more seriously than the others. (However, she prefers to speak in French.) Unlike her colleagues, Bernadette has a calm personality and is less likely to snap and shout at her students, a common occurrence in the French school. So sweet and amiable, she politely reprimanded me on the need to use patisserie paper with the oreo cheesecake I made back in November. Nevertheless, she quickly forgot about it when she tried it...as it was her who enjoyed it the most.

Geneviève: Actually the resource teacher at the school, helping kids who struggle with their schoolwork, Geneviève is the only one I don’t work with in the classroom. However, I have gotten to know Geneviève pretty well outside school with our weekly bilingual conversations over coffee. During these hour conversations, we spend half of it in French and the other half in English with the goal that the native speaker will assist the foreign speaker through friendly dialogue. We’ve talked about an array of subjects, such as American literature and films to French absinthe and politics, which has allowed me to not only another opportunity to speak French but also provide English language assistance at a more advanced level.

Francine: Although she initially seems like a petite and quiet woman, Francine firmly holds the reins of the CP (first grade) class of 25 students. Knowing hardly a word in English, she is eager to have me come in and teach the kiddos simple songs about colors or animals once a week. Instead of sitting in the back grading notebooks or what not during my time, she actually sits up in the front of the room with her students, encouraging them to participate in the singing and graciously volunteers herself when they are lacking energy. At the end of the sessions she always expresses her gratitude, “Zzank you vehwy much!”

Voltaire: As the director of the school, Voltaire is always running around making phone calls or busy talking to parents and teachers. Nevertheless, he still shares teaching duties with Jean-Jacques in the CM1 (4^th grade) class whose students are extremely affectionate. (I get several requests from them for hugs and bisous when I walk down the hallway.) Although he is a bit absentminded and has senselessly procrastinated the commencement of his English lessons, Voltaire is ultimately a sweet old guy who embodies the epitome of franc-comtoise congeniality.

griffonnage

Last week, I helped a second-grade class create New Year's cards for their British correspondents. Once we finished brainstorming together on what could be said and drawn on the cards, the children began to copy down the scattering of vocabulary words I had written on the board.

As soon as everyone had taken out their notebooks and dug through their pencil cases for the perfect writing utensil, a hand flew up.

"Dan-ee-kah!” the child projected, “Quelle est la lettre après le ‘e’?” Demanding to know which ‘e’ he was speaking of, the little boy jumped up to the board and pointed to the word ‘New.’ I explained that it is a ‘w’ after the 'e' and the boy nodded in agreement as he walked back to his desk.

Two seconds later, a little girl tapped my elbow. “Dan-ee-kah, comment écrire le mot 'chocolat'?” Correcting her that it was 'chocolate' in English, I pointed her attention towards the board. At this time, the girl next to her asked me what was that long line in the middle of the same word. Was it the number one? Or a fancy dash? Confounded, I quickly solved the problem by walking up to the board and looping the ‘l’ so it resembled its cursive counterpart.

Immediately following this action, a swarm of small children came up to me and started to ask me questions about my autography. Some of them were the same questions I had previously answered. Others were more complicated, such as how to write a capital 'H' in cursive. I shook my head in shame to say that I didn’t really know, elucidating in French that I grew up learning a different system of cursive writing than they did. Although they were absolutely fascinated to discover that there are other types of penmanship, it distracted them from the original lesson on New Year’s greetings. Then it finally came to my attention: I really ought to learn the French style of writing.

So I sought out an écriture exercise book made for early elementary school children. There were plenty to choose from in various sizes, styles, and focuses. I eventually chose one featuring le Petit Nicolas – a famous puerile French cartoon character – simply because it was adorable and inexpensive. It must be understood that children in France immediately start writing in cursive in the kindergarten and elementary levels. Reading through the introduction, I found out that children are actually first introduced to the lower-case script before they tackle the upper-case letters. (This would be why a second-grader would still be unfamiliar with the capital ‘H’.)

The book is organized by different “profiles” of letters as opposed to alphabetical order, explaining that certain letters share similar characteristics. I went through and copied the different letters to get a sense of what French cursive was like. In general, the lowercase letters are mostly identical to what I am habituated to. The uppercase letters are a different story, tripping me up on various curlicues and extraneous loops. And to my discovery, the H indeed is especially challenging.

But after some practice, I've started to get the hang of things. Taking me back to the days of penmanship lessons in that dingy 3rd grade classroom at Noah Webster Christian School, I recall the frustration of patience and control necessary to produce a legible and neat line of writing. Although it still has a bit of a juvenile quality, I've at least been able to properly crank out my name in French cursive (line 4), under what I would call my versions of ridiculous kindergarten print (line 1), normal print (line 2), and normal cursive (line 3).

There is still work that needs to be done, but I am a step closer to getting the French all figured out. Yet knowing that a complete understanding of the French is an impossibility, at least I will no longer be pestered by my kids about what is written on the board.

la vie en rose

Ah, it's the new year. C'est merveilleux, a time to unload those heavy burdens from yesteryear and start off anew. Of course, this elated vision eventually dissipates as we cross the days off our calendars and begin to pick up once again the cumbersome loads life hands us. Nevertheless, I evade to let this realization hinder my ability to see la vie en rose. Inspired by this concept and also the fact that I have just mentioned one of the greatest French ballads of all time, I have created a list of new year's resolutions that go hand in hand with various Edith Piaf song titles. Like the robust singer, I intend to get my voice heard, refusing to let the padam...padam... get in the way.

Avant l'heure
I have an allergy to waking up when my alarm goes off. Miraculously I always manage to get to where I need in the knick of time, but it's preceded by huge rushing and swearing on my behalf. Every year I try to correct this fault by giving myself more time in the morning, but by the end I am still too close with my snooze button. This year I'm determined to succeed.

L'accordéoniste
Okay, actually I don't have any intentions to play the accordion. (Although it is a pretty sweet instrument.) Instead, I want to seriously learn how to play the guitar so that I could closer identify with la guitariste. Already have a few basic chords under my belt, but practice is necessary to hone my guitar strumming abilities. It's always been a dream of mine to be part of some hippy, indie, folsky band in which I have a guitar in hand, singing la chanson bleue like Edith Piaf herself.

Kiosque à journaux
Let's face it, we all should read more. Not just newspapers and magazines that are found at a newsstand, as Edith suggests, but also books. Lots of good old-fashioned books. With my new Kindle, I really have no excuse.

Mon manège à moi
Et moi...it's time to figure out what my ride is in life; what exactly do I want to be when I grow up? While I don't intend to completely solve this enigma in the following months, there are still decisions to made. Whether it means I stay in France for another year and hang out with schoolchildren or perhaps spend a year in the Cities and hang out with schoolchildren, something will happen. Grad school applications are also on the horizon.

Du matin jusqu'au soir
From morning to evening, I want to try making all sorts of different things to eat. Already I've experimented throwing together different types of salads, pasta dishes, and even stir fries...but there is so much more I could do. Vegetables are becoming some of my best friends and I intend to keep it that way. C'est l'amour.

Simple comme bonjour
In sum, keep things simple. Even though wearing those rose-colored glasses on all the time is incredibly naïve - and may resemble too much like Barbie's dream world - it's nice to at least hold on to a little bit of optimism. With them, la fête continue.

And non, je ne regrette rien.