Fifteen Minutes

Wow! Too much time has passed since I last updated my blog. The last couple of weeks have been full and fun. Since the ten day vacation at the end of October, I’ve settled into the routine of teaching three days a week (which feels like a whole lot after not working at all). Although it is only twelve hours a week, I do teach thirteen classes and I see over three hundred students. In fact, I run into my students all over town nowadays and they shout, “Hello Whitney!” I am teaching them to say “hi” instead, because it sounds less formal. They feel as if they have been lied to all these years when I explain that in the States, we don’t use the word “hello” very often.

I’m becoming more familiar with the personalities of my schools too. My initial impressions have shifted slightly, and I can say that I like all three schools. A few of the teachers at Henri Crevat, my Thursday school, have been the most friendly and one of them even invited me to lunch at her house one Thursday. Another teacher from Camus has invited me to spend the day with her family next Sunday. I think we are going to check out one of the nearby villages with a chateau.

I try to teach generally the same information to the kids, depending on their level. Sometimes the activities I’ve planned go really well, everyone is engaged and we all have fun. Sometimes the kids act like wild hooligans and we can’t get through too much of the material. This week we are starting on food – breakfast actually – and “I like” and “I don’t like”. I think they like learning new sentences, because it allows them to share an opinion, and make a decision in English. Even my most hyperactive class, the one at the end of the day on Mondays, seemed to like this lesson.

I got myself involved in a comic French bureaucratic debacle that endured many weeks. It was all due to a short fifteen minutes - fifteen minutes that I thought might do my small Pertuisienne world some good. Here it goes:

My French contract stipulates that I am to work 12 hours a week. As our pedagogical advisor taught us during our three hour “formation” (during which we were supposed to glean all necessary information to teach this year), that twelve hours was not actually twelve hours in front of the students. Each hour includes fifteen minutes of prep time. So, if we do the math, that is nine hours of time in front of the students and three hours of prep. Not bad, right? Perhaps as a result of my American work ethic, that sounds like almost no work time at all, and if we were in the states, those hours would easily stretch into more hours. Like, if you are supposed to work until five, you stay until after five to make sure the boss knows you are working hard, right?

Anyway, at my Monday school, La Burlière, a couple of the teachers of the small second graders – CE1 - thought they were getting short changed by having to share forty-five minutes a week of my time. I offered to teach an extra fifteen minutes so that they could have a half an hour each. If only I had known the trouble this gesture would cause… The director of the school (the one that looks a bit like a witch) didn’t know if this was cool. Who knows why, but this prospect troubled her. According to the two teachers who were pushing for the fifteen minutes, it was a way for the director to piss them off. And it worked. When the director refused this change in my schedule, the teachers insisted that she call the Inspector to ask his permission. She did, and was told that as the director, it was her job to lay the ground rules.

Of course, this was all happening behind the scenes and I didn’t know about any of it, accept that the teachers kept telling me what a pill the director was and they were working on the problem. Plus, I swear I could see La Directrice glare at me from the corners of her eyes. I kept trying to find out what was going on, but only got vague answers. Meanwhile, my schedule didn’t change. A couple of weeks had already passed when I found out that both Pascale and her colleague Christine (the two pedagogical advisors) were now involved in the debacle. As Jen and I rode south to the Cote d’Azur with Pascale for the vacation of Toussaints, I asked her to explain what the hell was going on. I told her that I wanted the tousle to end – that a measly fifteen minutes wasn’t worth the trouble. I didn’t feel good at all that I had somehow, inadvertently sided with the teachers against the director. She nodded in agreement and told me that the discussions would soon be concluded.

Pascale told me that there were legal issues with me working the extra fifteen minutes. The director claimed to have refused my request because my contract stipulated I work a certain amount, and if I exceeded that amount under the sanction of the school, I could sue the school for exploitation. I’m serious.

Not only could I sue for exploitation, but my insurance would not cover me during that extra fifteen minutes, and if I were to slip on a banana peel and accidentally impale a student with a pencil, the school would be up shit creek. Are the French insane???? Yes, at moments I truly think they are.

Not to beat a dead horse, but I need to point out the fact that rarely do people (ESPECIALLY TEACHERS) work the number of hours that they are paid for – they work far more. Completely separately of my extra fifteen minutes that the whole Aix-Marseille Academy is fighting about, I work at least fifteen minutes extra every day. Not that I give a hoot! I know that I spend at least five or ten minutes more in each class than I am scheduled to. That’s just how it goes. So this whole discussion is laughable. Oh, and I’m not kidding about the whole Academy being in the know about my “situation”. The Inspector contacted Madame Lehman, the Rectorat in Aix (you know, the buffoon I described in an earlier entry), to ask her about the legalities of the fifteen minutes. Oh Whitney, that trouble-maker in Pertuis!

The first thing I did at the end of the vacation was to return to La Burlière and march up to La Directrice and apologize for having stirred up trouble. I hoped she understood that my intentions were good and that I would follow any direction she cared to give. She seemed appreciative of my approach and told me that all discussions would soon be concluded. I wasn’t sure what discussions this meant, but having expressed myself to both her and to Pascale, I felt that my opinion was clear and I need not worry any longer. Meanwhile, Geraldine one of the teachers, told me again how “penible”, or troublesome the director is, even when it comes to the benefit of the students.

At this point, I admit that I had become skeptical of what the teachers were telling me. Its not that I didn’t like them anymore, but something didn’t feel quite right. If everyone was telling the truth, this problem wouldn’t have gotten so out of hand. That meant that someone wasn’t telling me the truth. And the implication that I got from Pascale was that it had something to do with the teachers.

A couple of weeks passed and I didn’t hear anything more about the situation. I think I almost forgot about the stupid thing. Then, I walked into La Burlière on a cold Monday morning and I looked up at the information board in the teacher’s room. In big letters, I see the announcement, “Meeting for Geraldine and Laurence with the pedagogical advisors Pascale and Christine regarding American teaching assistant.” I looked wildly around the room to see if anyone else had noticed. Laurence walked in and I asked her what this was all about. She said that it was to finally put an end to drama. In a very French manner, I told her that I was upset and dismayed that this situation had gone so far. I felt like I was caught in the middle of a personal issue between the teachers and the director. She said this wasn’t the case, and she apologized to me for having to go through this. Geraldine repeated the apology later in the morning. Sorry that the French system is so screwed up. Sorry you had to experience the screwy French system. Neither took responsibility for their role in all of this. Whatever.

Pascale called that night to ask me to attend the meeting the following day during lunch. I was grateful to be included and told her so. Unfortunately, the director was in Avignon for the week attending a training session for all the new directors in the Aix-Marseille Academy. Boy that might have been a showdown.

Pascale, Christine, Geraldine, Laurence and I met the following day and sat around a miniature table in miniature chairs made for second graders. I knew going into the meeting that there were going to be things that were likely to go over my head. Not the words themselves, but the nuances of the tensions between the aforementioned parties. I listened extra close to try and pick up on these things. Geraldine’s feathers were ruffled. Christine laid down the law right away. She didn’t have a lot of time to spend on this and the problem had already consumed more than she could handle. She said straight out that the teachers were saying one thing and the director was saying another. Pascale pulled out a letter that the director had written to the Inspector as proof. The two teachers looked at it and reacted in horror. Oh no! They never meant that!

If the teachers ever had any questions about issues of this nature, they were to contact Christine or Pascale directly for the answer. Was that clear to them? Oh, yes, now it is very clear.

I took the brief letter into my hands when it was my turn and I honestly could not fathom what they were reacting to. It seemed straightforward. The director was asking permission from the Inspector that I work the extra fifteen minutes. She said that the teachers had spoken to Christine and she had given her ok. The teachers would like their students to each have 30 minutes of English with the American Assistant each week, and the assistant had agreed to work this extra time.
Blah blah. The meeting continued for another ten minutes or so and it was clear that Christine and Pascale (and therefore the Inspector) were trying hard to work it out so that the teachers could have what they wanted. That extra little fifteen minutes a week. And they came up with a way to fit it into my contract without going over the number of hours. Don’t ask me how. I could care less.

After the meeting ended, and every one seemed to be on good terms, I walked up the street with Pascale and asked her to explain what had happened and why that letter was so important.

It turns out that when the director initially refused to grant permission for the fifteen minutes, Geraldine had gone over the director’s head and over the Inspector’s head to his higher-up to find out of it was possible for me to work those fifteen minutes. Supposedly, she was told that I could. Geraldine then told the director that she had spoken to Christine and Christine had agreed to the new terms. This conversation with Christine had never happened. That’s why the director mentioned it in her letter to the Inspector, to alert everyone to what Geraldine was claiming, knowing full well what Geraldine had actually done. She knew what had really happened because the Inspector had called her to tell her about Gerladine’s phone call to his boss. You see where this all goes in the end.

So after six weeks, the debacle finally came to an end. I witnessed the horror of trying to change a broken and incomprehensible system, as well as some questionable human behavior. Needless to say that I don’t trust Geraldine to have my best interests in mind. But I sure did get a kick out of it all.

Pardon me again for having waited so long to write. I’ll be better. Thanks for making it through this entry.