After a weird mini heatwave, Lyon has cooled down and I’m back in my winter coat and hat. Winters in France are very mild compared to North America, but they can really make you feel depressed if you’re not prepared. It never really snows here unless you’re in the mountains, and the sun rarely shows its face. it’s just gray, cloudy, rainy and sunlight begins fading just as soon as it’s starting. Nonetheless, happiness and comfort can be found stopping into a café on a cold and wet day, ordering a mulled wine and just staring at the wet, gray world revolving outside the window. Wrapping your hands around the warm glass and letting your thoughts drift away with the sound of cars passing by, splashing up water and the hydraulic hiss of city busses braking.
Thanksgiving came and went and if I hadn’t given lessons on the history of the holiday to my students all last week I just may have completely over-looked it. I did host a rather successful dinner on Thanksgiving day. There was me, three other Americans, a Frenchie and a Brit. We feasted on turkey filets, red-skin mashed potatoes, gratin and uncongealed cranberry sauce, watched tacky 80s music videos and reveled in conversations mutating from one random topic to another.
As I mentioned before, I gave lessons on the history of Thanksgiving and also let them draw and color hand turkeys which was something I could tell they really enjoyed doing. I let them be as imaginative and creative as possible with their drawings after being reminded at how much the French education system seems to suppress creative thinking. I experienced this when I went to the school here (I’m reminded now how it was a large reason why I didn’t continue my studies here after high school) and ever since I’ve been teaching here, it is starting to aggravate me that these kids need to be told every little thing what to do. For example, whenever I write something on the board, the kids copy it down to a t. Hell, they even copy my handwriting! No joke. None. Kids are taught to write in cursive as soon as 1st grade here and the teachers are very strict about everyone writing letters the same way. So whenever I write something in my sloppy, cursive/block letter hybrid, they write the letters as exactly as is written on the board. I’m like, “No! My handwriting is hideous, write the letters like you normally would!” They’re also huge fans of underlining. They love to pull out their rulers and red pens and underline important information. There are times I’ll be teaching them how to correctly pronounce a word and I’ll just inadvertently underline the word to accentuate sounds or syllables and sure enough, I see a dozen rulers being pulled our and underlining what I just did. I’ll also just write stuff on the board anywhere I can find a spot and either I get asked if they should skip a line, two lines, above, below, two squares from the margin, start a new page. I even had one kid freak out on me and raising his hand when he ran out of room at the bottom of the page and wouldn’t be able to write something under a sentence like I had written on the board. I had to literally tell him to start a new page.
So in short not only is it aggravating and a waste of time, but it breaks my heart to see such bright, smart and funny kids slowly transgress themselves into dependent robots. I now understand why it’s so hard to people in this country to think outside the box or exert some kind of effort into getting something done. They’re taught from a young age to do exactly as they’re told and when that guiding hand isn’t there then they feel there’s nothing they’re responsible for doing. You see this all the time at government offices where you need to bring and sign specific documents for whatever and if you don’t have exactly what they need, they freak out and don’t know how to work around it. My step-father also found it frustrating working with the French when he lived here because nothing would get done unless they were given specific instructions.
But I will say this in their favor: it’s been quite a breath of fresh air to see kids with some backbone. I can’t recall the amount of times in the States I’ve heard kids this age cry or whine or complain because of the stupidest things. Like falling, or a kid saying something they didn’t like, or losing at a game. They’re so used to Mommy and Daddy coming to the rescue and making everything better, they can’t defend themselves. Here I’ve seen kids fall flat on their faces and get up without a tear. If someone loses they just go “Ah, non!” and move on with their lives. Hell even if a kid ever does start throwing a fit, the other kids look at him/her and flat out tell them, “Crying isn’t going to help anything.” Of course this is a country where spanking a child is a totally acceptable method of child-rearing - and I’ve seen kids here in public get hit pretty hard on the tush. Am I condoning such actions? No, but damn, there really has got to be a middle ground.
