Strikes and students

There was another strike this week--Thursday--again because of proposed changes to the way teachers can be required to teach more hours or else lose part of their salary. Also, concern over cutbacks in available posts. For me, this meant smaller groups of students, or even whole classes that didn't show...probably because their main English prof had told them beforehand that s/he wouldn't be coming. If they don't have regular English, they seem to figure that they don't need to go to the English assistant's class, either.

I read that some American schools are thinking of extending their school hours. Here, we start at 8am, go as late as 6pm, but are these kids realllly getting that much out of school? The French system seems very rigorous--my terminales (in their last year of high school) seem to have spent their whole term preparing for the dreaded oral exams. Same thing with my prepas kids (those who have finished high school and are now taking a sort of technical or business 2-year course, to prepare them for entry into the prestigious "grandes écoles"). It reminds me of proficiency tests and the way teachers had to "teach to the test." It IS different though...at least in English, it doesn't seem to revolve around rote memorization. The students are learning methods...not just how to speak English, but how to use that language to effectively present a text, an image, an issue, etc. In any case, one thing definitely seems to be the same, wherever you go...some kids will put forth the effort, some are going to sleep through or skip class. If you don't care about being there, it doesn't matter how many hours you're at school.

In other news...

We made one heck of a curry last night. It's a sad day when your wok is too small, and last night we pushed that envelope. But all turned out well.

Today sounds windy and slightly threatening, so it seems to be a good opportunity to lounge around with a book and some tea. While I have been told that "Les Trois Mousquetaires" could substitute for your average sleeping pill, I am liking it so far. Also need to prepare presentation for French class: we're each presenting a poem from our country over the course of the next few months, and my turn is this coming Tuesday. I chose EE Cummings' poem l(a. Try translating THAT one into French though...