Filed under: Corona 2020 | Tags: Castex, Chamonix, Children, Confinement, Covid-19, ego, elementary, Emmanuel Macron, Enfants, enseignant, France, Haute Savoie, health, Jean Castex, l'ecole, L'organisation mondiale de la sante, Les Houches, Macron, primary, professeur, Sante, school, science, Securite, WHO, Xavier Roseren
Bonjour Monsieur,
J’ai lu (Le Monde et Les Echos) qu’il n’y avait pas de prĂ©cautions de sĂ©curitĂ© Covid-19 pour les enfants des Ă©coles Ă©lĂ©mentaires de moins de onze ans dans toute la France au retour des Ă©coles le mois prochain. Est-ce vrai? Si oui, comment est-ce possible? Il a Ă©tĂ© largement dĂ©menti que les enfants ne peuvent pas attraper le virus (100000 aux Ătats-Unis cette semaine, Reuters), il est largement admis qu’ils peuvent le propager, et l’immunitĂ© collective signifierait 60 Ă 70% de la population testĂ©e positive pour Covid -19.
Mon enfant de neuf ans comprend certainement le protocole de santĂ©, mais c’est un enfant qui est impuissant face aux autoritĂ©s adultes, et qui ne pourra par la suite pas maintenir des distances de sĂ©curitĂ©, se laver les mains rĂ©guliĂšrement, garder ses effets personnels des autres enfants, ou aĂ©rer le salle de classe dans laquelle il est assis toute la journĂ©e (ou insistez pour que les classes soient Ă l’extĂ©rieur lorsque cela est possible) s’il n’y a pas de rĂšgles en place que les adultes doivent exĂ©cuter et suivre pour le bien-ĂȘtre de tous. Comme nous lâavons dĂ©jĂ vu avec le port de masque «obligatoire», de nombreuses personnes ne suivent pas ce protocole, mĂȘme s’il est dĂ©fini par la loi, mais nous devrions essayer de dĂ©finir des paramĂštres.
L’Organisation mondiale de la santĂ© et divers syndicats d’enseignants (y compris le mien) conseillent d’Ă©taler les salles de classe pour permettre la distanciation tout en permettant une frĂ©quentation rĂ©guliĂšre en classe et le port obligatoire de masques par les enseignants et les travailleurs pour assurer un retour en toute sĂ©curitĂ©, ainsi que des fenĂȘtres ouvertes, un lavage rĂ©gulier des mains (il n’y a jamais de savon dans les salles de bain de l’Ă©cole de mon fils!), des entrĂ©es / couloirs se dĂ©plaçant dans l’un ou l’autre sens, et une dĂ©sinfection rĂ©guliĂšre des surfaces. Ceci afin de permettre Ă la fois d’aller Ă l’Ă©cole mais aussi de ne pas infecter notre population avec Covid-19 peu de temps aprĂšs avec une augmentation des «clusters».
De plus, nous vivons dans un endroit trĂšs touristique, et cet Ă©tĂ© a de nouveau Ă©tĂ© extrĂȘmement occupĂ© par les voyageurs – Ă la fois ceux qui viennent et ceux qui sont en vacances dans d’autres pays. Je connais plusieurs familles dont les enfants frĂ©quentent l’Ă©cole locale et qui ont voyagĂ© Ă destination et en provenance de diffĂ©rents pays avec peu ou pas de respect des protocoles de sĂ©curitĂ©. En consĂ©quence, leurs enfants pourraient ĂȘtre asymptotiques, ou malades, et nous ne le verrons pas complĂštement se manifester avant la fin septembre, aprĂšs le retour des enfants pendant deux ou trois semaines.
Pourquoi agir de maniĂšre Ă ne rĂ©pondre qu’Ă la crise? Pourquoi ne pas anticiper la crise et agir en consĂ©quence? Encore et encore, les professionnels de la santĂ© et les scientifiques disent que NOUS AVONS LE CONTRĂLE avec ce virus si nous avons simplement un leadership clair et la discipline pour adopter des mesures de sĂ©curitĂ©. Quelle excuse avons-nous pour ne pas faire ce que nous pouvons?
Enfin, Ă part une brĂšve communication en mai du bureau du maire disant que la frĂ©quentation serait obligatoire pour tous les Ă©lĂšves, nous n’avons reçu aucune information de l’Ă©cole ou du bureau du maire local concernant les protocoles de sĂ©curitĂ© pour nos enfants ou les attentes pour nous parents. C’est nĂ©gligeable. Si nous n’avions pas eu l’incroyable professeur de classe que nous avions, nous n’aurions rien su, et de nombreux amis se sont retrouvĂ©s dans cette position, s’appuyant plutĂŽt sur des ouĂŻ-dire (ce qui Ă©quivaut Ă la dĂ©sinformation et Ă la panique).
Nous devons faire mieux si nous voulons Ă©viter un autre confinement ou, bien pire, une sociĂ©tĂ© trĂšs malade et contagieuse qui entraĂźne la perte de nombreux ĂȘtres chers.
Merci d’avoir pris en considĂ©ration ce que j’ai Ă©crit ici en tant que parent, professeur, et membre de votre Ă©lectorat trĂšs prĂ©occupĂ©.
Veuillez recevoir, Monsieur, mes salutations distinguées.
Filed under: In Vino Veritas, In Aqua Sanitas | Tags: alcohol, anxiety, Children, depression, global affairs, human dynamics, humanity, intellect, liver, Mean Girls, mediocrity, melancholy, mental health, society, stress, Tennessee Williams
Depression is melancholy minus its charms – the animation, the fits. Susan Sontag
My mind has been playing tricks on me all day. I almost convinced myself that my bad liver was a result of my candy intake. Seriously. For a moment, it seemed real. So real, that it almost justified my drinking at 9am. The rest of the day, Iâve been thinking that Iâll try to make it through fifteen more years. Thatâs the goal. Ten to see my son off to university, then five more years to have fun, do what I want, potentially decimate my body. Then, like a cat when its ready to die, Iâll quietly go off somewhere by myself. These morbid thoughts give me comfort. I think, âI can make it through today…â Then, âI can make it through the next year…â Then, âI can make it for ten more…I think…â âThatâs all, thatâs all…â But that âallâ is everything.
Itâs horrible to feel this way. Itâs heavy and dark and bitter and mean and uncomfortable. I want to escape me. Barring that, I want to go to bed and pull the covers over my head and just pass time. The day, the year, the ten years, the fifteen. However, there are always people around me. My husband would interrupt this. Not because he would be concerned, but because it would annoy him that I was in bed âlolling aboutâ while he was taking care of our child, our house, and âbusiness.â Then, of course, thereâs my son. My precocious, sweet, talkative boy who hums and sings to himself as he skips up the stairs, heads out the door, or plays by himself. He zones in on me like Iâm a beacon whenever heâs home and demands I engage with him. Not in a pushy, aggressive manner, but because he likes me and wants to show me things, talk to me about what he has seen or done, and to hear what I have to say about it. Heâs still cuddly, even as I can see the man that he will become, and heâs way too big for me to lift up. I try to engage with him. To pay attention to what heâs saying. I try to put a smile on my face. I try to pretend not to be me for him.
Itâs entirely for him that Iâm not drinking and inhaling to my heartâs desire. Or staying in bed all day. Or running away to somewhere else more suited to my real self. Somewhere dirty, large, and anonymous. Heâs the reason I stay. Heâs the reason I try at all. Heâs the reason I will make myself go to the grocery store to get food, even as I absolutely dread the inevitable prospect of running into someone I know. Heâs also the reason that we have any semblance of a social life. As an only child, or a âuniqueâ as the French say, he wants playmates. As a naturally curious and social boy, he wants company and activity around him. As heâs still very young, he canât arrange them or go by himself, and his father is unconcerned with having a social life, happy, instead, to be a homebody. So, I must arrange âplay datesâ and social plans. Then, I must stay for a âhello,â and a âhow are you?â and sometimes a cup or glass of something to be friendly. However, I find these interactions very hard. I feel as though I am perpetually masquerading as a ânormalâ person, and consequently, am such a fraud. I donât know how to have small talk when Iâm sober, and I know people donât want me to launch into âseriousâ talk, which is a âdowner.â Having to interact with adults and children alike is painful and anxiety provoking for me. And now thereâs no reprieve from the stress of it all.
Moreover, âthe slings and arrowsâ of children and their parentsâ politics are very hard for me to observe, digest, and remain calm about. âCookie cutterâ type kids and their parents are popular. Theyâre confident about asserting themselves. The kids spot the âAchilles heelâ of any child and exploit it cruelly. The other kids gravitate to these types. Prompting me to wonder if there isnât some truth to the idea that people, in general, do like dictators â someone to tell them what to do and how to be. Tennessee Williams notes in âNight of the Iguanaâ that humans are the only creatures that wonât do anything to get out of a trap, such as bite off a foot or an arm. The kids âfisty cuffsâ are generally all forgotten relatively quickly, but itâs terrible to watch when you consider that these human propensities begin early. Ugh, and the little clusters of cliques, with those who are the âhenchmenâ to the popular kids often being the meanest. Girls seem to be the worst. Or the best, depending on how you look at it. I think of the film âMean Girlsâ frequently. Even among the hierarchies of adults. I hate observing these dynamics. It âwinds me up.â It makes me feel like Iâm in grade school or high school all over again. I hated those years. I felt like a captive.
I keep looking for justice and signs of human thoughtfulness: to notice the person who picks up after himself when leaving the cinema. Or notice the car that uses only one parking space. Or notice the person who lets someone in front of them in the line at the grocery âcause they only have three items and the other person a trolley full of goods. Or see âthe chancerâ get fired summarily. But itâs so hard to do when I feel so fucking bad. And, it often makes things worse âcause I donât see these things everyday and then Iâm angry. Then, like the masochist I am, I sling abuse at myself for being âso negative.â I tell myself that itâs MY fault that I see the âbadâ things about people in the world! Iâm sending out that âenergyâ and itâs causing a reverb by bringing negativity to me!â âIf I could only change my perspective then it would all be fine. All would be different.â âItâs how I see things thatâs the problem.â âItâs me. I suck. Iâm horrible, beastly, angry, critical, and judgmental.â âI should relax and not think âtooâ much.â Problem is, the only way I donât think too much is to ingest a mind-altering substance. If Iâm to make it another fifteen years, I canât. Itâs already âdiceyâ that Iâll make it that far with what Iâve already done to myself.
And thatâs when I want to spend my day in bed. Itâs then that I see little point in venturing out into the world. Itâs then that I return to the idea that Iâve had a good run and Iâm eager to be done with it. Iâm tired of watching imposters get ahead. Iâm tired of bullies dominating society â both on a micro and macro level. Of mediocrity reigning. Of the rise of pride in ignorance and the consequent disdain of intellect. Of no one really giving a shit about anything. Iâm tired of it all. Iâm tired of me.
Filed under: In Vino Veritas, In Aqua Sanitas | Tags: Children, guns, loss, mental health, NRA, right wing, schools, security, society, Spain, students, teachers, USA, violence
Posted today on Twitter. I think it says it all…
Filed under: In Vino Veritas, In Aqua Sanitas | Tags: Children, economic, Education, hypocrisy, Ignorance, learning, public, society, student, teacher, teaching, values
âEducation is not preparation for life; education is life itself.â John Dewey
The state of public school systems throughout the world is generally deplorable. Itâs disheartening to consider how this reflects societal values and itâs frightening to consider the implications of this culturally now and in the future.
I spent a year observing classrooms in England, the USA, and Switzerland before I decided to re-train as a teacher. What I saw in public schools (not âpublicâ in the English sense) was alarming: overcrowded classrooms, horribly behaved students, excerpts of books taught rather than entire books because there isnât enough time or motivation to teach the entire book, and teachers privately asking me how to get âgigsâ writing literature guides, as I did at the time, rather than âhavingâ to teach. I remember crying one day as I walked back to a friendâs house in London after having spent a day observing classes at a local academy. I felt, then, as I do now, as though there is little hope for future generations given the incredible challenges for public schools as a result of the lack of social and governmental support for them.
Because the quality of training, support within the schools for teachers, the general behavior of the students in the classrooms, and the curriculum of the international baccalaureate, I did my practical training at a private school in Switzerland while I simultaneously completed my pedagogical certifications at a school in England. When I graduated, I went to work at another private school in Switzerland for the next four years. Having seen the kids through their courses and off to university, I decided to take some time out. I was fed up with the level of privilege I saw, and what I perceive to be the growing inequity in society between kids with money who are able to have superior educational experiences (such as smaller class sizes, teachers paid well and consequently not âburnt outâ, and a level of general expectation from both parents and administrators that education is key to success personally and professionally) and kids who do not.
So, I offered myself up as a substitute teacher in a local high school where I live in France. It wasnât teaching literature, as I was trained to do and which I am passionate about, but, rather, English as a foreign language for an eight-week placement, full-time, 200 kids per week. Even so, I was excited to get in there and to bring IB philosophies to students who had not likely been exposed to it before. How naive I was. The kids did not understand that the games I played with them in the classroom had learning objectives. They were so unused to play and autonomy, that they became over-excited and consequently disruptive, thereby destroying any possibility of an appropriate learning environment. My desire to reason with them, to model respectful and open-minded behavior, was seen as weakness to the majority of them. Most were only responsive to base punitive measures. My carefully constructed lesson plans which integrated visual, oral, written, and kinesthetic activities, were never completed because I spent much of my time each class, each day, managing poorly behaved students. Exercises that I assigned that involved their having to create, imagine, make connections between ideas, were simply too difficult for most of them to do. They preferred rote exercises and prescriptive worksheets. The majority of them do not value education â they want to be âcelebrity bloggers,â or âinternational sports stars.â When I tried to reason with them that IF they became, for example, a professional sports figure â and thatâs IF they were good enough and opportunities presented themselves â their careers would be over very early. What, then, would they do to earn a living? I was met with blank looks to this question. When I tried to speak to them about how âcelebrity bloggersâ should be able to write, to observe and to process cultural trends, they could not see the connection. This doesnât surprise me, given that many of the parents donât value education or encourage respect for teachers. For example, one English parent over a casual dinner told a friend of mine shamelessly and stupidly that her son had pretended NOT to speak English âjust to mess with me,â his substitute teacher. The child of a friend of mine at the school (who was not in one of my classes) wants to be a filmmaker when he grows up but does not know what a literature class is OR the point of being able to deconstruct stories in order to make good films. His parents, likewise, also do not make the connection. Another parent of a very naughty child in one of my classes simply rolled her eyes at her daughterâs continual misbehavior and said that she never did âgo inâ for school. (She has already been held back a year and sheâs 12). Another parent told me that literature and the arts are âuseless,â and her child â who was in one of my classes â refused to do âextensionâ work in literature (while I taught fundamentals of English to the French kids) âcause âthereâs no point to it.â Under the influence of parents like this, ignorant of the role of education on the quality of their childrenâs lives and for the betterment of society collectively, who donât value respectfulness towards teachers or peers, opting, instead, to reward Darwinian competitive behavior, and who believe sport, and maybe science and math (which of course trump the humanities and the arts), then itâs no wonder that their children have the values they seem to, behave in the classroom as they do, and require constant âsticksâ to maintain order, rather than âcarrotsâ.
But here is the crux of the trauma for me â my colleagues and the school, itself, should have known better. As it was, most of my colleagues at the school were disdainful of me, opting, often, to put on English language films for their classes to watch (to students who couldnât spot a verb if it bit them or string together a rudimentary English sentence, much less understand a film in English) and saw me as a disruptive idealist who didnât know how to teach âproperlyâ and who made them look bad. The administratorâs gave me zero support: I had no computer in the classroom, no way to project images, no sound system, no books, no dictionaries, just, literally, chalk and a chalkboard. Adding to this, I would intermittently be moved to random classrooms when there were visiting seminars or intermittent meetings, thereby disrupting any rhythm I might have had, as well displacing 200 students in the process. Wouldnât it make more sense to assign the visiting class to another room? Each week, I would write up a brief report of the material I had covered in each class as well as the comportment of the students, and then send it by email to the Vice Principal and the teacher I was âcoveringâ in order to keep them informed. Over eight weeks, I did not once receive even a response of âreceived and readâ to any of my Saturday morning emails, which would have been a simple courtesy. When I completed my contract (a mighty challenge as I frequently wanted to run screaming from the school) out of professional courtesy (and even as I had a date with a very large cocktail), I went to the Vice Principalâs office to shake her hand, let her know Iâd tidied the classroom, returned the keys, and was finished. She made me wait outside her office for twenty minutes while she chatted and laughed with a friend, then she limply shook my offered hand and did not say a single word to me â not a âthank youâ for teaching kids who had had NO teacher for five months before I came in, or any kind of acknowledgement for the hurdles that had been placed in my path by the school itself, my colleagues, the parents, and the students.
With the parents, administrators, and the teachers themselves â often absent for months at a time with no substitutes in and without any recourse to their positions and accompanying wages â disrespectful, over-extended, exhausted and âcalling inâ their lessons, or, ironically, too ignorant and lazy to exemplify the ideal of being a lifelong learner, it is no wonder that the majority of children arenât motivated and enthusiastic about learning. For the last few weeks since I left this school, I have had an existential struggle: do I ever want to teach again? Having been treated with such disrespect every day, all day, for these weeks, how can I regain the confidence that I am, indeed, worthy of respect? And if I canât regain that confidence, how can I ever command a classroom again and consequently create a positive learning environment? With parents who donât give âa figâ about education, much less the humanities, who implicitly and explicitly indoctrinate their children with the same notions, what hope is there in communicating its importance to their children? Why bother?
However, the fact is that in several of the classes, there were students that were interested, engaged, and who appreciated my efforts. I know this because they made âgoodbyeâ cards for me, I received many hugs upon departure, a few classes stood up and applauded me and then shook my hand as they filed out of the classroom, and one child cried. Even so, exhausted, saddened, and angry, I have perversely turned this positivity to negativity because I now criticize myself for not protecting THESE students when the foolish students were being disruptive. I should have kicked these kids out of the classroom. I should have been harsher to them in terms of punishment. But I was operating under the arguably misguided ideology that they, too, were worthy of my respect and patience.
Upon reflection, I suppose Iâve learned a few things, both good and bad. I think that I canât work in a public school system because there are little resources financially, many parents often view school as a ânecessary evilâ or a type of day care, so there is little support there for oneâs efforts. This breaks my heart because I have ALWAYS been a staunch advocate for public schools, believing theyâre the lynchpin of a successful society. I also feel that Iâm a coward, walking away from a necessary and important fight to educate children for a better world. In a day and age where politicians and the general public are complaining about public school teachers asking for a living wage, and are braying idiocies such as âThey already get their whole summers off!â and âThey leave work at 15:30 each day!â I should be trying to fight the good fight by attempting to effect change, to reach a few, bright, motivated students, modeling idealism, curiosity, and a life spent learning, both formally and personally, as the true measure of success. But I canât at this moment. I feel injured and confused. Right now, I donât even want to speak to people outside of my closest friends and my immediate family, because Iâm horrified and saddened by where societyâs values seem to be, and, subsequently, the cultural trajectory weâre collectively on. Where fame and money are the ultimate measures of âsuccess.â Where intellectualism is seen as a âbadâ thing. Where kindness and sensitivity are signs of âweakness.â Where itâs okay for children to be impolite to their elders because their parents donât discourage this behavior and are unwittingly creating narcissistic, entitled future adults.
Also unsettling is that my son is destined for the same public school that I worked in and saw close-up. There are no private schools within practical proximity, so going to a private school would require uprooting him from a gorgeous environment and an ideal lifestyle, where he learns so much about the natural world. Moreover, my husband argues that our son is, and always has been, a good student, a respectful child to his teachers and elders, and that the onus for fortifying his general education is, ultimately, on us, his parents. There is reason to what he says, and I think that Iâm up to fighting this righteous cause…But what about teaching again? I have always honored the profession and I once loved doing it. I know that I was an effective teacher and that I changed many of my studentâs lives because they and their parents have told me so repeatedly. Do the few who I am able to inspire through my love of literature and the disciplines it touches upon (geography, politics, philosophy, culture, film, history, psychology) become the fortifying force that keeps me âin the gameâ? Do I keep teaching despite the troglodytes I encounter, or, perhaps, because of them? Do I return to teaching in private schools â even as my own son is not in one and even as I ideologically donât condone them â because the comportment of the students is better, the resources and support available to teachers is good, and Iâm paid exponentially more than what I get paid in a public school? Or, is this being complicit to a global system that actively does not want the masses to be able to think?
ADDENDUM:
A few English friends have seen this piece as an attack on the French system and the ‘heart’ of France itself, without my considering context. This was absolutely NOT my intention. As a result, I have included my response to one such friend’s feedback:
May 2, 2019: An article from The Guardian on education and general poverty, which is NOT unique to England or the UK. It’s an epidemic throughout the world.
Filed under: From the Soap Box | Tags: Children, Education, France, Macron, Provincial, Trump, USA, Xenophobe, Xenophobia
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180702-the-epic-story-of-the-map-that-gave-america-its-name
Yet another way France and America are historically connected…
Ironic, however, how few of the French I meet everyday understand this affinity. The French (in general) view the English and the Americans as “the same thing” (the next one who says this to me directly will get the question as to whether they regard themselves to be the ‘same’ as the Swiss-French, given that they speak the same language, which they will most emphatically deny).
What’s worse, is that an anti “Anglais” is spreading throughout France. For example, the little French boy that is my son’s dear friend, told him the other day at school that he âhates the English.â My son’s response was to say that he isnât English, he’s American. The boy responded, âTheyâre the same thing.â This did not stop the boy later that day and the next morning from coming to ours hoping to play with my son. I understand it’s the influence of the grandma – sheâs a provincial person – but one sees how quickly the kids pick up these ignorant statements, even as they don’t understand what it means (much like those who propagate these types of ideas). I joined a field trip with my son’s class the other week, too, and a teacher had a ‘go’ at me for speaking English with a group of little boys (who are Swedish, Danish, English, and American) when it is a French speaking school. I gently admonished her not to be so parochial, that the children speak two or three languages and easily switch between them depending on their audience – “what a gift! So international!” Later, I heard her gossiping about me to a few of the other teachers, which I chose to ignore.
It also irritates me that the local, everyday French (in general) loathe Macron. Don’t get me started on their flawed âlogicâ when they ‘explainâ why heâs so “terrible.” They also refuse to answer my question as to whether they prefer the Front National – and I do ask. Their lack of a response is an implicit response. These people remind me of Trumpsters in the USA with their bandwagon statements, hypocrisy, misinformation, and incomplete information/ideology.
It makes me so sad how the general populace of any place is ignorant of context, history, theory…so limited in critical and logical thinking and reasoning…and so naturally disposed to tribalism (lending itself to xenophobia) and aggression…