IAS 380R Teaching Teachers

Large Cultural Proof

For part of my work this year, I was given an extra assignment of team-teaching an English conversation class for primary school teachers every Tuesday evening. Every week my colleague and I would research topics or prompts to get the teachers talking in English. We had many interesting conversations, and often compared subjects such as education, politics, holidays, religion, and geography between France and America. We met usually as a fairly small group, which even then was a much more successful turnout than they've had previous years, where only one or two teachers would show up. The meetings were held in separate building of a library, and the six or sometimes seven of us would sit around a table and talk.
     I remember some conversations more specifically than others, but we always tried to come up with prompts that would be interesting for everyone involved. Because we were all working in the schools, we spent a couple of classes talking about education.
We often made charts, lists, or diagrams on a board to compare French systems with American, French grammar with English, and even spent one class playing card games.
We talked about the way elections work in France and the US, politics, energy conservation. Nathan and I were honest about the less pleasant aspects of American culture, for example the fast food epidemic and our not so eco-friendly habits. There were a few times however, when Nathan would go in my opinion a little over the top with negativity towards America, and at one point I remember pointedly telling him that was enough. I didn’t want those teachers to think that Americans have no national pride. They understood, however, that there are all different kinds of Americans, just like there are all different kinds of French. But that wasn’t an excuse to ungratefully list any negative aspects of American citizenship.
    We spent on particularly interesting lesson talking about stereotypes. I of course asked what stereotypes they had about Americans. One teacher wrote down “cool” and another wrote down “religious” because whenever an American wins a medal at the Olympics or something he’ll almost always say that he’s grateful to his family, his coach, etc. and God. The teacher said that in France they would just say it was because they worked hard, but Americans say it was because of God. There were some moments when the liberality of the teachers irritated me a bit. We were always diplomatic. All of the teachers are atheist, at least from what I gathered throughout the year, except one, who I know works at a private Catholic school. She never voiced her opinions against the atheists, but I assume she must’ve been Catholic. As far as politics go, I remember a teacher saying, regarding a politician's private life, “We like to know, but enough is enough. What he does is his business.” They all thought it was quite funny the way the American’s were so up in arms over the Clinton scandal.
    One lesson we had a Galette de Rois party and talked about Christmas traditions. Even though we spent a full hour talking about this tradition, I was still not at all prepared for it to last well into February. I loved those galettes as much as the next person, but after my 7th or 8th party, I thought if I saw one more galette I would puke, and I didn’t even care anymore who got to be the king! I was told crêpe month was coming up soon, but it couldn’t come fast enough.
    Although teaching this class was a lot of extra work, I really used it to discuss French cultural topics that I was interested in or that confused me. Nathan and I really formed a friendship with those teachers that came regularly; one of them had hens and brought us fresh eggs every week. Another one gave me a book with animal sounds in French the week following our discussion on the topic. At our final celebration, we ate a mixed up meal of French and American foods, from brown gravy to broyés to pinwheel almond cookies. I know that they appreciated having native English speakers to practice with and answer their questions, and I appreciated all that they were willing to openly discuss and teach me about the more subtle aspects of French culture.