I’m a teacher… sort of

While reading this blog, it might be easy to forget, as I occasionally do, that I have a job. The job that brought me here to French Guiana, thankfully to Kourou and not to Iracoubo where my situation would be much harder. The other day while I was sitting in class, I was thinking about how I don’t write a whole lot about school, I was telling myself this is normal, no one wants to blog about their job….boring. But then a 13-year-old student stood up told her teacher to f*ck off and flipped us both off as she walked out the room. Then I decided, maybe I can blog more about my job.

I work for 8 hours a week at the middle school. I work with 4 different teachers and do different things with each one. With one teacher, Marcel, I get my own classroom next to his and force the kids to speak to me in English. It is hard to get them to say anything, even though I have heard them speak a little English before. I enjoy these classes, and I feel like I actually do something. There are two teachers with whom I do very little, sometimes just read things from the books or on occasion, I give a presentation (like on Christmas in the states). The last teacher I work with is named Albert, he is Spanish and did not know French when he got here a few months ago. His French is improving quickly, but the students are very mean to him. I typically run his class and work on readings and grammar with the kids.

Most of my students at the middle school are very nice and even sad that I am leaving. However, they are a handful. They have so much energy and there is a massive lack of respect within the school. The kids say things to the teachers that I could never have even imagined. I went to ‘good’ schools in the suburbs and I rarely witnessed a student talk back to a teacher. I imagine inner-city schools in the states are similar to the schools here, but the teachers here get no respect and have little authority. They give detention, but kids don’t care. They yell, the kids yell back. They say a bad word, they get in trouble. The kids say a bad word, detention (which I think they might even like) and cheers and respect from all the other students. Some classes are exhausting, the teacher yells the whole time and nothing gets done. But on the positive side, some classes are great, students want to learn and they participate in class.

At the high school, I have my own classroom and half of the class comes to me while the other half stays with the teacher. The high school kids are much easier to handle- even though I work only on Friday evenings. They are very tired and generally have a some respect for the professors. The only incident I have had with them was in one of my first classes. Two girls started yelling at each other, in creole of course so I had no idea what they were saying. They started taking off their jewelry to fight, but calmed down before anything actually happened! Apart from that, my only complaint with the high school kids is their apathy. This is where I often find myself saying Bueller, Bueller, after any question I ask because it is very hard to get them to participate (they don’t understand the Bueller thing and just give me weird looks if they are paying any attention to me at all). Now that I speak French with them, they talk a lot more, but not as much in English. Every Friday, I hear “Madame, I don’t speak English” at least 10 times!

At the beginning of the year, I told them that I spoke no French. I would say bonjour with a horrible American accent and say that was the extent of my French. It was a good tactic in that they would try very hard to speak English with me. On the downside some of them just wouldn’t try to speak with me at all. I started responding to questions that were in French, but I would respond in English. I even acted as a dictionary for any word they did not know, and they did not pick up that I spoke French. Before I went home, I needed to tell the high school students that I would miss some classes, so I had to speak French. One class did not notice, the next one was shocked and I think a little mad that I had lied to them- so I lied again and told them that I learned to speak French while I was here. They said wow you speak well and I told them that is what happens if you study! Now I have gotten lazy, and I use French all the time, which has resulted in their lack of English use, but at least they understand me when I explain things to them! I get compliments all the time, my favorite is “wow teacher, very good teacher”.

My contract is for 12 hours a week. I have Mondays off, I work Tuesdays from 10-11, Wednesdays from 7-11, Thursdays from 10-12 and from 2-3 (two-hour lunch break), and on Fridays, my only day at the high school, I work from 2-6.

I want to include pictures in this post, but I have no pictures with my students. I only have 2 weeks left of school, and I plan to take pictures with the students and will eventually post them!

A Middle School Kid’s Nightmare

Yesterday I found myself standing in front of a room full of teenagers. Although this is a typical activity for me, yesterday was different. After learning different ways to describe different parts of the body, the kids had the task, or opportunity (depending on how you look at it) to describe yours truly. I instantly became self-conscience wondering what problems they would point out. I imaged that at best they would say “you’re very sweaty” and I didn’t dare to imagine the worst.

But they were great! They told me I was beautiful, I have great teeth, a pretty smile, shiny blond hair, I am not ugly, I have a lot of ears (they intended to say I have a lot of earrings, but earrings is a tough word), I have cute freeekls (freckles), I was wearing a brown skirt and a blue shirt, I have a tattoo with stars and ‘l’amour est’, and I am white (in fact they said you are very blanche madame). The best part is that I think they enjoyed this little Kate-is-awesome-fest as much as I did! Any day when I am feeling a little under the weather, I think I might just do this exercise!

School

I am currently sitting in the teacher’s lounge (yeah, I’m a teacher) at Collège Omeba Toba, in Kourou. I am here because there is a general strike today in all of France (yes, I am in France). The strike is about retirement; tomorrow parliament will vote for or against changing the age of retirement from 60 to 62 for a partial pension and from 65 to 67 for a full pension. Naturally, all the children at my middle school are participating (despite the fact that at least 30% of them will never work and 60-70% of them will not work until the age of retirement). They are kids, and even if they do not understand what the strike is about, they are excited at the possibility of a day off. I arrived at school at 7am, but the teacher I was supposed to assist did not come. Sometime between 7 and 8, the students blocked the road, and will not allow any more teachers to enter the school (I can leave now, but I think it will be a little tricky!).

I have yet to actually start teaching. So far I have just observed classes and spoken with a few students. Their levels of English range from none at all to quite good. So it will be a challenge to work with them all, especially because I have to pretend that I do not speak French. I am excited to get started!

The Iracoubo situation is finally solved! I am not going! This is a big relief, no 4 hour commute for me! Instead I have been assigned 4 hours at the highschool in Kourou. There are only two high schools here, luckily I am not at the professional highschool, where some of the students are older than me, and generally do not care about their education.

When I learned that I would be at Lycée Gastor Monnerville, I went to introduce myself to the staff. They were VERY upset that I am only working there for 4 hours a week. They have asked me to work extra hours, I told them I can work 4 a week. This puts my work week at 16 hours… I know super stressful! For the extra hours, I get paid 34€ an hour.. not bad, except for the fact that it is very hard to get paid. I do not have a timetable for either school yet (because of the strike of course), and will not properly start at the highschool until after the vacation.

Yes, I already have a vacation! It starts on Friday! I am going to Cayenne on Saturday and then going on a two-day jungle trek! Then I will return to Kourou to host (in my unfurnished house) many of the other assistants, who are coming to Kourou to watch a ROCKET LAUNCH! We will “do the party” as we say in French, and then head to the Ilse Du Salut for the second weekend of the break!

Despite all the frustrations and mosquito bites, I am really lucky to have this great experience! I will be sure to post more once I have internet, and of course there will be pictures galore of the jungle and rocket!