School Daze

After three weeks in school I have made some strides. I can now walk up with confidence to the coffee machine in our cafetaria and select between "café sucre" and "café non-sucre" and know what I am getting. In my "labo" I no longer sound like someone speaking an African "click" language and Madame Y has not hit her head upon the desk in quite some time.

However, all is not well. Yesterday in class Madame "X" finally had enough with the "Heathers" girls. It was more of the same that morning with the group of six: the passing back and forth of notes, the snickering, the talking, the cellphone beepings, and the insincere "desolé" (I'm sorry) being offered to the instructor after each of their various infractions.

For thirty minutes Madame went off an impressive tirade. She did not raise her voice but she made it emphatically clear that this type of behaviour was juvenile, infantile in fact, and that she would not stand for it any longer. And then she managed to repeat this same message about four different times, sometimes pausing and speaking in English to make sure that she was understood. By the fourth time I think I got all of the French. During the first two repetitions two of the "Heathers" began talking to each other again as if nothing was going on...it was quite a show of total disrespect or total obliviousness.

But then Madame X turned to me and began to refer to me as her colleague, something that she has done in class before. However, now, as her "colleague," she wanted my opinion on the situation and also if this sort of behavior problem takes place in American universities. Ouch! Talk about being put on the spot. It was clear that she wanted me to voice some criticism toward the "Heathers." It is not that I had any sort of "allegiance" to the Heathers but on the other hand I was a fellow student as well and I did not feel that it was my position to also start scolding them as well.

Conveniently, my bad French came to the rescue for as I began to mutter something about how when I taught in Alabama the situation was different and then my voice reverted back to making various clicks and grunts. Madame became impatient with both my ability to make a simple declarative sentence and also my reluctance to become her classroom ally. She then turned to other students in the class (the non-Heathers) asking them what they felt about the situation, putting them on the spot. I found refuge in my notebook and my artistic doodles. Perhaps this is what inspired Leonardo.

The put-upon students also hemmed and hawed as well as they did not want to be on the spot and have the "Heathers" see them as traitors. Madame then repeated her litany a couple of more times for measure, turned to me once more and asked me for my comment (I was right in the middle of perfecting my perpetual motion machine and had no idea what she asked me) and I just nodded, "Oui." That seemed to satisfy her as she resumed her scolding but I did notice the "Heathers" began to scowl at me as a result.

Unexpectedly, one of the other "Heathers" began to defend the offending "Heather" (sorry if this is confusing) with the amazing defense that it was Madame's fault by saying that the instructor has "... established a class atmosphere that..." when she cut off by an even more angry (justifiably so) Madame who said that impolite behavior is never justified. Even if the student was wrong I was impressed by her temerity (or maybe unconsciousness) in starting such a commentary that it was the instructor's fault.

Madame's last tirade finally had an effect. The "Heather" in question began to well up with tears and started sniffling. Madame noticed this and then went on another assault saying how sad it was to cry over this situation. "One cries over love, death, hate," etcetera, "but one does not cry in class because of a scolding." My stomach began growling for lunch.

Either Madame heard my stomach or she lost steam. It was just after twelve so she decided to end class a few minutes early. That was a good thing for I cannot imagine that we would have a very spirited discussion in the minutes remaining.

Of course, I did agree with about everything that Madame said. The problem was is that her explosion was about three weeks too late. As my fellow instructors reading the blog all know that one establishes the classroom culture with the students in the first few days and that it is nearly impossible to try to change it well into the course. Especially since we have two remaining days of class...

None of this was in the school brochure!