TooMuchInformation

Pictures of some of my students at Lycee Vaucanson

Des Etudiants de Vaucanson

When I got to Lycee Vaucanson this morning I was met by the familiar sight of a large group of students mingling outside. The front gates were blocked, again, by dumpsters. I greeted a few of my students and then, as the pattern’s become, walked down to the teacher’s parking lot entrance.

Today was a little different though. Normally, a staff member stands inside the gate of the parking lot opening the door for students and staff. Today there was a second group of students and more dumpsters blocking this gate. ‘Hmm,’ I thought.

I watched a teacher drive up in her car. She inched in, honked a little, waved a lot. A student went to her passenger side window and they spoke for a bit. She parked the car halfway in the street, emerged, and walked up to the gate with her magnetic swipe card. The gates didn’t open. She got back in the car and drove away.

Then another teacher walked up and we spoke for a bit. I can’t remember what she said. My mind was running through ‘How do I say in French ‘Should we climb the fence?’ followed by tyring not to imagine her doing it in her 6 months pregnant condition. Then she told me we could try the service entrance on the other side of campus. So, we walked around the block and were met by a staff member at this third entrance. He let us in. There were no students or garbage blocking the way.

The teacher I work with at 8am was already in the classroom. Alone. I asked her how she got in. “I’m a wreckless driver,” she joked. (She arrived at 7:30, before the students) Four students showed up for class, all of them boarders who were blocked in just as I had been blocked out. I wondered if they knew about the service entrance.

Everyone I spoke to was surprised that the strikes continued. After Tuesday’s large national protest the major unions called on the government to withdraw the CPE before April 17. Everyone thought that the strikes would be on hold until then. I guess the students thought otherwise.

At exactly the same time this morning - 8:16 (+1GMT) - the cell phone and the land line rang.  I had only been out of bed for 2 minutes.  Confusion followed.

I answered the land line, assuming it was Douglas calling from Germany (he’s there for work).  Instead it was a husky sounding French woman.  She blabbed on.  My brain tried to figure out exactly where in Kansas we were.  ‘French,’ I deduced.  “Pardon?” I said.  She repeated herself. “Oui, c’est Tyrus,” I said.  It was my French teacher Charlotte.  She has the flu and was cancelling class.  I may have said “Merci!” too robustly. 

Then I checked the voicemail on my cell phone.  The teacher I work with on Tuesdays - Rachel - was calling to say “stay in bed, I have a doctor’s appointment today.”

It’s like Saturday all over again.  But without the hangover.

I am now fully awake.  What should I do with my day?

My first meeting with the chair of the Languages Department was enlightening.   “The students aren’t that bad,” she said.  This of course made me assume that they were, in fact, that bad. ”And if you need to send one to the office, always send two - one as escort.”  I sat their calmly.  All the screaming was inside my head.  ‘Why is she going over security rules and regulations with me before even discussing what sort of ENGLISH things she needs from me?’

It’s now the end of the semester and it’s true that “the students aren’t that bad”.  Except of course for the few who are. 

Last week I had the first fight in my classroom.  Every Monday I have a group of twelve 17 year olds.  They’re a lively group.  And by “lively” i mean “loud, inattentive, and rotten”.  I do have a softspot for one of these lively kids though.  In my head I call him “Unibrow”.

Unibrow was absent from my first month at the lycee.  He had been suspended for fighting with “Frank Reed” on a school trip.  He lives north of Lyon and boards at the school during the week.  He has a full class load, works on the weekends, and travels over an hour by train twice a week.  Typical of the North African students, his English is better than his classmates and he’s more willing to make mistakes. 

Unfortunately those mistakes are often physical. 

Last Monday, after a backpack was bumped off a desk, he and “Matrix” postured, cursed, and eventually struck one another.  Repeatedly. 

It was over in about 30 seconds.  Two other students pulled them off each other. 

What did I do?  Nothing.  I’m not paid enough to get clobbered.  Initially I thought ‘They didn’t cover this in our orientation.’  Then I thought ‘is there a bell or whistle I should ring/blow?  should I run next door and get the real teacher?’  Then I thought ’so this is what a fight looks like.  Interesting that no one’s pulling hair or kicking.’  And then it was over.

And we resumed reading the material on “Michael, Arden, and Erika” for the remaining 20 minutes.

I spoke with Unibrow after class.  He threw the first punch.  I asked him why.  “He looked at me with crazy eye” he said.  Fully believeable.  Matrix wears a floor length leather coat and has expressed interest in vampires.  Now that I’ve seen him fight I might start calling him “Columbine”.  “Yeah, he’s crazy,” I said, (probably not smart to tell a student about another student) “but why’d you hit him?  You’ve been in trouble before.  Do you think after this the headmistress is going to let you stay?” 

He digested this and finally said “I should try harder.”

Which was warming for me simply because verbs like should, could, and would are difficult for them.

“No,” I said, “you will try harder.”

“Yes, I will try harder,” he said, probably lying.

A week earlier, another student mooned one of the teachers I work with.  He was suspended for three days.  Three days seems to be the going rate.  Unibrow and Matrix/Columbine will be out the first three days after vacation.  And then, Monday afternoon, back in my classroom.  Along with Frank Reed. 

My first week at the Lycee, my students asked me a variety of interesting questions about life in the US.   “Do you have a gun?” and “How big is your car?” were common, class after class.  My favorite question though was “Have you ever met a celebrity?”

– Well, my real favorite was the kid who asked me if I smoked crack.  I pretended not to understand his accent.  “What?  I can’t understand you.  What are you saying?  What is that word?” It’s a neat trick. –

Anyway, they were thoroughly unimpressed that I haven’t met Eminem, Tupac, or Puff Daddy.  But here’s my Joan Rivers story.

This summer, in New York, I was in an office building elevator on a hot day.  Very hot.  No AC in the hallways or elevators.   And the elevator was slow.  SLOW.  Finally it arrived and I pushed the lobby button to head home.  Almost immediately, the elevator stopped on the very next floor, with me sweating and cursing.  In walked a short woman and a fat man.  She was blabbing away asking him about their schedule.  “When are we in Atlantic City?”  and it occured to me that I know the voice.  Out of the corner of my eye I look down and see the taut skin of a thousand facelifts.  ‘That’s Joan Rivers!’ I think.  Suddenly the slow elevator and the heat weren’t so bothersome. 

We continued down, she continued to babble, and the elevator stopped again, this time on the 3rd floor.  She moved to exit, her companion (manager? attorney?) stopped her, “Not our floor Joan” and she looks at the man getting into the elevator and says, rapid fire, ”You can’t come in!  It’s too hot!”  He smiles (who wouldn’t at the shock of having Joan Rivers yelling?) and she says “OK! but hurry up!  This guy’s been waiting even longer than me” and she points to me.  

And I said ……. (drum roll please)

“I know! I was thinking of making you wait.”

which made her laugh.

and that made me feel good.

This week I’ve been asking the students to tell me what’s going on.  “Explain to me the situation in France,” I say.   Blank stares, confused looks.  “The rioting,” I say.  Minds turning, “what is rioting?” someone asks.   Finally some recognition.  “Ohhhh, the burning of the cars!”  The smart kids translate to the rest of the class and they’d be off.  Shouting, jumping, slamming desks.  “In English, please,” I say, “and one at a time.” 

For two nights now, there has been “rioting” near Grenoble.  I put it in quotes because I only know one person who actually saw anything and no one is acting concerned about it.  The French are cool as cucumbers.  And even though Grenoble is a small city (I can walk the width of it in 45 minutes) it appears that any unrest will stay within a one block radius.  It appears. 

The overall attitude from my students is not to worry and to stay away from Paris.  And that the Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, is a bad man.  He’s in charge of the national police force.  In televised comments about the death of two boys running from the police two weeks ago, Sarkozy used street slang to refer to them.  Imagine Dick Cheney calling angry, displaced Hurricane Katrina survivors “niggaz” and you get a pretty close comparison.  Add a good dose of media hype and international attention and it’s easy to see how anger spreads. 

One class today told me only to worry if i own a car (apparently burning roller blades isn’t on anyone’s agenda) and that I should avoid the outskirts of town.  They also said that there is alot of media hype.  The only burning cars any student has seen was on TV.  A large portion of my students live in ”hot spots”.  And there is one near the school.

Which I visited Monday during my lunch break.  It’s called Mistral.  It’s a grouping of 5 or 7 high rises (maybe 12 stories tall) around a green square.  It has a cafe, a small market, a hairdresser, a bakery, etc.  About one third of the balconies have satellite dishes.  It also features a fair share of anti-Sarkozy grafitti. 

A rumor I heard last weekend had it that the rioting is being masterminded by a hidden source.  The spreading to other cities is calculated, the weapons and supplies warehoused and waiting.  The students and teachers at Lycee Vaucanson don’t give this much validity.  One student compared the spread of the rioting to a competition.  If Lyon and Marseille want to gain some street cred, they have to out do each other and try to catch up with Paris.  With a largely hated man in charge of quelling the riots, unemployment in low income neighborhoods as high as 50%, and images on television showcasing even the smallest disorder it looks like the game is on.

After ten days of rioting outside Paris, the hooliganism has spread to other cities.  But not Grenoble.  Lyon, Lille, Toulouse, Nice, even Cannes and Annecy have had burning cars in their streets.  But not Grenoble.  “Not yet,” Laurianne says.  Laurianne works at the art house theater around the corner from my apartment.  I sought her ought Sunday night to get her opinion.  “Not Grenoble,” she said, “not yet.”

Douglas and his classmates told me the rumors they heard.  “It’s an organized national effort” and “there’s a puppet master orchestrating everything” they said.  “Paris is just the beginning, they haven’t started in Grenoble.  Not yet.”

“When it starts in Grenoble it will be in Mistral,” say my students, referring to a housing project near the school.  “But don’t worry.  It hasn’t started.  Not yet.”

During lunch a teacher told me she watched cars burning near her home in Echirolles Sunday night.  “We’re not panicking though,” she said. “Not yet.”