Things at school started off a bit rough this term, which involved me having to have a 35 minute phone call with the Ministry of Education as a certain teacher had called them to say I missed a day of school when I missed the bus. If you miss the bus here you are screwed as there is no public transport here and taxis cost a bomb, Said person wanted to know what to do in the event that I missed a day of school, which sent the Minister up in arms! It's not like we could have made an agreement that I made up the time I missed is it?! Good. Great. Sorted now.
However, things are looking up!
I have met a lovely person at the school called Pascale who is probably the sweetest person in Quebec! I met her at the skateboarding display and fashion show that she organised at the school. We then bonded over me not understanding anything that the police were trying to do with the kids in lunch time about phrases to do with law keeping. The equivalent of "Don't Drink and Drive" etc. She drove me to Quebec before I went to New York so that I could catch my flight, despite there being a massive snow storm and bad traffic. I baked her some mince pies to say thank you! She hadn't had them before but really liked them! I hope I am at least doing one thing right and spreading my culture around the school, albeit via the medium of food! She is only 25, so the closest person to me age wise. We always have chats and she has given me some really good advice on how to survive in the school. People here talk a lot about each other behind everyone's backs. Pascale's advice was to stay out of it all and don't talk about anyone yourself. She is always so keen to help me out as she says that I don't have anyone here like family, so if she can help she really wants to. Such kindness and generosity have never been more appreciated.
I am really enjoying teaching the kids. There are a few that just don't want to participate but this week (21/01/2013) I have been working with the older and enriched groups, who are so much fun! There is a German kid called Johann, who is so interested in the English culture and he is always telling me about which English TV programmes he has been watching or something that he found out about England. He is a big Monty Python fan and he loves the Royal Family! I told him I loved Angela Merkel! Whenever we see each other in the corridor we do the walks from the Ministry of Silly Walks Monty Python sketch.
All of the kids have fantastic senses of humour. There is one set of boys that, when ever I see them, tell me about Jean-Francois's biceps! I also have a set of girls that I call the one direction fan club and when I saw them today they all happened to be wearing a piece of 1D memorabilia! There is also a guy in Sec 5 enriched called Etienne and he is great fun! He sings in a band at school and always takes part in the lunchtime concerts. He has a great voice and tells me he takes lessons, which is great to hear! He decided to eat his work in class the other day and I told him not to as it would give him constipation. His response was "Madame, with the amount of cereal I eat, I will be ok!" Amazing kid! An amazing moment with Jonathan, the very-intelligent-but-would-rather-mess-around kid when Stephane was making them do grammar exercises on line and Jonathan was just playing on games. I found online some grammar games and when I showed him he laughed in defeat as he knew I had won on that one!
I am helping with the Inter-School Spectacle every day 4 and 8. This is basically a talent show for dancers, singers and musicians. It is Cindy (the events co-ordinator), Guy (the music teacher) and me who are helping out with it. If they are singing they have to sing in French, which makes telling them how to do certain parts of the song very difficult when you haven't understood all of the words! But anyway, I worked first with a girl who was singing a pop song. She didn't have any stage presence or any contact with the audience to begin with, but quite a good singing voice. After we had all worked with her, she was doing a bit better but her friends were in the auditorium so she wasn't performing properly. As part of the rules of the competition, the students are only allowed 20 minutes of master-classes in total. I really wish I had more time to work with her as she was starting to come out of her shell and she wants to get things right. I wrote her a list of things to work on and she found me today and thanked me for it. I hope she follows it and can become more comfortable with the song and being on stage. There are music schools competing, so I want to make sure my kids have a good chance against them! The second group I worked with was a guy called Jean-Francois (not the one with the biceps!) and a girl playing the guitar called Francesca. He had a great voice and was so receptive to instructions. When I had gone through staging with him and facial expressions, the events co-ordinator looked at me and was absolutely stunned! A job well done! I was coaching them in French and they could actually understand what I wanted them to do, which was a relief!
There was a woman called Dianne who works for the school board that came to see how the school was doing on Wednesday. She was such a lovely lady and we got on really well. We chatted the whole day (apart from when I was working) as she is from Ontario so speaks English as her first language. She is also very intelligent, which I very much appreciated. She gave me a $5 off coupon for Val Cartier Winter fun park, which was very sweet of her!
After all the grief with Stephane last week he actually said today that he thought we made a good partnership in class when we team teach, which was good news.
I got bumped off the school trip to New York as all the teachers going are male and if I went, I wouldn't be able to room share with them ,which would make things difficult. A bit gutted as I really wanted to return to New York, even if I was just watching kids in the Pokemon store! As mum says, "they probably all just want to go and hang out in gay bars!". Good advice!
So that is all from school at the moment!
Thanks for reading! xx
No comments:
Post a Comment