Strasbourg, France

Strasbourg, France

This city isn’t just a few hundred years old… It is more like 2 million years old! Strasbourg was an old Roman camp during 12 B.C. and the camp grew and morphed into the city we know today. In Strasbourg the first French and German allegiance document was forged in 842 and in the 13^th century the walls that surrounded the city till WWII were built. Many of the buildings in Strasbourg date to the 1500’s and 1600’s and usually are covered in the medieval fashion of wood timber. The old buildings also have very small windows at the top of the houses that are made just big enough to fit a gun through during times of war.

Strasbourg’s famous landmark is the Cathedral started being built in 1277 with each century adding its own take to the architecture but mainly embraces the gothic nature of the medieval times. Inside the Cathedral is a famous astronomical clock that was designed in 1570 by a mathematician and it worked on its own till 1780 until it had to be repaired. This clock has a figure of death and every 15 minutes it rotates so that a child, man, old man, and then nothing walk in front of Death. Every day at 12: 30 the clock chimes and all 12 Apostles walk in front of the figure of Jesus.

Everywhere you look in Strasbourg is picturesque from the old houses in Petite France to the huge palaces around the cathedral! The town truly shows both the German and French influences throughout time. The town is filled with breathtaking churches (Protestant), Museums and gardens.

Strasbourg is also famous for being the town that Gutenberg created the Printing Press. They have a statue dedicated to him in a plaza.

The museums range from modern art to taking a look at what life was like in the Alsace region during medieval times!

Strasbourg is also known as the Capital of Christmas with extravagant lights and a huge open market throughout the holiday season.

The town also has an amazing transportation system of trams and buses to keep pollution down. The city is in a valley so the pollution from Germany and Paris like to fall into this area. L

During WWII the Alsace region was one of the first regions of France to fall to Germany and the men of the region were forced to fight against their own country. During the Battle of Strasbourg American and French soldiers had to break through the leftover medieval walls in order to free the city from German Nazis.

Strasbourg is absolutely breathtaking and so full of history and culture J. 

3rd Week at Gymnase Jean Sturm

3^rd Week at Gymnase Jean Sturm

This was my final week in the school L. I will miss the students, who have all been so nice and always answered my questions and wanted to get to know me. <3

Monday: The students were very rambunctious today. They usually are on Mondays, I guess because they can finally see their friends after a few days of not seeing each other. The students are so busy with classes during the week that any extracurricular activity that they participate in has to take place late at night or on the weekend, so there isn’t really a lot of time to hang out with friends.

The first class of the day was Careers and cultures and the students had to present their talents to the class. We had one student solve a Rubik cube, another student’s PowerPoint wouldn’t work so he just talked about his hobby which is painting figurines and he passed his examples around. We also were instructed on how to make a paper crane with an origami lesson. (this was a great way for the speaker to practice her English skills, because instructing a whole class to follow instructions is hard work especially when you don’t know all of the words (such as crease)). Another student showed up pictures of her talent which is horseback riding, and she talked about all of the competitions that she’s been to, and finally another student showed us a bunch of pictures that she took that involved picture taking as her talent. It was amazing getting to know the students and watching them interact with the classroom. J It is great for them to participate in presentations, especially in a bilingual program.

*One student kept talking during the presentations so my mentor teacher made him come and sit by her. We also had a discussion on a problem student after class. The student was falling behind, wasn’t turning in papers, and wasn’t really trying to pay attention or read along in class… The student is at risk of being kicked out of the Bilingual Franklin program, but no parent conferences or discussions with the student seem to be helping. This really makes you think about how home life, the student’s attitude, and so many outside forces can keep a student from succeeding to the best of their abilities.

I got to keep getting to know my students in the next class of Sociology because the 10^th graders took a test and then we all sat around and played Apples to Apples! J It was fun and we had to be hushed because other students were taking tests, oops. J

The 11^th graders got to discuss what they want to do next year; it is amazing to see their engagement and the student choice that my mentor teacher provides for them!

Tuesday: The world history classes went really well today. With the 8^th graders I was asked to read an excerpt from Huckleberry Finn that way I could really show the students the dialect that is really confusing to read out loud. This lead to a discussion about the derogative term in the novel and the internal struggle that Huckleberry is facing about betraying the woman who raised him, and helping Jim to freedom. The students had not yet fully understood the concept of Satire so they were really concerned with Huck’s struggle.

The 9^th graders looked into the Cold Ward and compared SSR communism and USA capitalism. This lead to the discussion of Welfare. My students got a good kick out of making fun of the students’ writings from the English as a foreign language class because their poems didn’t really make a lot of sense at all. We had to tell them to be nice. The students also really wanted to share their essays and what they found out about researching their countries during WWII.

We closed the day by watching videos about paranoid schizophrenia and I had the opportunity to talk about my experiences with my uncle’s struggle with the disease and the impact that it has made on my family.

*Students are graded out of 20 pts. Here 10/20 is passing and all of the students have a 13 or above average in all of their classes.

*In France there is a reward system in place to promote big families. It isn’t welfare, but big families get coupons for food as a reward for having a big family. Jobs can also provide coupons for food for their employees so there isn’t only the poor using food stamp like material in the stores.

Wednesday:  This was a different kind of day for us!! J we got to help the 6^th and 7^th graders (who are still at the elementary school) They are all making decorations for a play that they are conducting. So I sat with the 7^th grade boys and helped them make a wreath out of tissue paper. They spoke a lot of French especially after I told them I didn’t know any, but you can still tell when they are gossiping about other people in classroom. We worked with them and I was very skeptical of believing things that they told me because they would speak in French and then talk to me. :p This was John’s first experience with middle schoolers hahaha :p

*New insult! You’re a piece of a mushroom!- baby insult instead of saying you are a piece of something else. There wasn’t a large discipline in place at all for friends picking on friends, even though in the middle schools I have seen if they say one thing mean to their friends then they get in trouble even if they are joking.

Thursday: Final day L In sociology the 10^th grade students went over their tests. They had vague but correct answers, so next time she wants the students to work on going into detail with their answers. The students took boring text book exams because they are the ones that resemble the Bac. test that they will be taking.

I also got to have some bonding time with the 11^th graders by walking around and asking them about what projects they will be pitching to my teacher to see what they will be doing to close out the year. The students work well independently and don’t need any push to keep working at all.

This was such an amazing experience! I am so pleased and blessed to have been able to participate at this amazing school! I will carry all that I have Learned into my classroom and share my experiences with everyone I can. 

Teacher Training in France

Teacher Training in France

On the last day at the school my mentor teacher told us just how lucky we are not only to be studying abroad, but to have a student-teaching experience. In France new teachers do not go through student-teaching. They take their classes for their Master’s degree and then are placed directly into the classroom; and the classrooms that they are placed into are usually the least desirable ones to be placed in.

There is no student-teaching in France. The classroom is considered to be a sacred place for only one teacher, and the idea of sharing it with someone learning is unheard of. The new teachers are left to fend on their own because of the isolation that is promoted with teachers in the French education culture. Not only are they by themselves after having absolutely no experience interacting and teaching children, but they are on the bottom of the totem pole and end up in miserable positions. The French school systems works with points; if you are married, have kids, or years of experience you have more points and their fore have your choice of what classes you want. New teachers usually don't have any points so they are left with the classes that the other teachers have picked over. This wouldn't be a bad thing if the new teachers had experience interacting with students and actually teaching them, or if they did not have to be isolated in their classroom due to the “sanctity of the classroom culture”.

My mentor teacher informed us that break downs happen all the time with first year teachers in France, in fact it is more common for first year teachers to have them then not have them.  This is an interesting article to help show that the teachers receive purely classes before entering the classroom. http://www.european-agency.org/country-information/france/national-overview/teacher-training-basic-and-specialist-teacher-training

Knowing this I feel so blessed… I have had the opportunity to work the 7^th, 8^th, 9^th 10^th, 11^th and 12^th graders ranging from co-taught to honors! I have seen a public school system in WV functions, been to Faculty Senates, PLC’s, and Parent-Teacher conferences, and now I've even seen how a foreign public school works all before I have my own classroom! All of this really makes me wonder about the certification process to teach in WV… I feel that as teachers we really need to have a long learning experience in an actually classroom, so we can see how students work and find our teaching styles so that the first year of teaching comes with ease. Our first year should be celebrated, because we will be learning so much, not a thing to fear and hate.