Forget FERPA

For the past five years, for different reasons, I have had FERPA (the Family and Education Rights and Privacy Act) drilled into my head. “And what do you say,” I can still hear the Dean of Students from Pacific University saying, “when a parent calls saying that she desperately needs to get in contact with her son?” And I can hear myself as part of a chorus, repeating: “I can neither confirm nor deny that your son is even a student at this institution.” In other words, you need to get in contact with your son? Call him. Don’t call the school. We are not the middle man.

This is what I practiced for years – from being a House Tutor/Academic Resident Assistant at Pacific to being a writing instructor at Oregon State. I learned these rules well. You don’t share information about your students with other faculty members. You don’t tell outsiders about your students’ progress. And you certainly don’t let other people’s parents know how well other parents’ children are doing in class. That’s just wrong.

Not so in France. At the beginning of December, I attended what is called a “conseil de classe,” or “class council meeting.” You see, French high school classrooms are constructed much like American elementary classes, where each year students have the same classmates for every class. They do not change individually from class to class like American high schools, but rather the class as a whole moves from subject to subject. As a result, the “conseil de classe” can evaluate the entire class on its behavior and academic progress.

Yesterday’s meeting discussed a class of Terminale STG – in other words, these are high school seniors who have not chosen to specialize in the sciences, humanities, or business, but rather more hands-on subjects (sometimes the STG are stereotyped as the kids who take shop class instead of AP European History). I work with these students once every week, so I was allowed to sit in on the meeting. Here are some of my notes:

In attendance: 2 student delegates, 1 parent delegate, about 10 teachers (all the teachers who work with this particular class), the Vice Principal, and me.

Without the delegates: The vice principal has projected a screen with an Excel document of every student’s individual file, as well as statistics for the class as a whole. From a FERPA perspective, this is dangerous information. There is everything on every student, from personal information to their class rank to their individual grades and comments. Wow.

I was shocked by the opening remarks: “Let’s start with so-and-so. His father is handicapped and lives in Paris.” Inserts “ohs” and “now, I get its” here. (?!) Another girl’s record of absences was discussed. It was suspect, was the general opinion. “She’s, ummm…particular, that one,” one teacher said. Particular.

Enter the delegates, 2 students from the class and a mother of another student.

One teacher gives a long interlude on his opinions on the class as a whole. Their work is too mediocre, he announces. Not sufficient to sustain them through the BAC exam. “Oh, and have we mentioned that they had a total of 251 absences in one trimester?” Insert more disturbed “ohs” and “now, I get its” here.

The vice principal continues the speech, turning to the student delegates and warning them about the dangers of failing the BAC. “You must work hard this year,” he tells them. “This is serious. If you don’t pass the BAC, there isn’t any guarantee that you will have a place in the class next year.”

The vice principal allows the parent to speak. She first begins with benign comments: “oh yes, I agree with what you have said. I have heard similar comments from other parents…” etc. Then she got a little defensive: “My son was really lost at times this trimester. He didn’t know what to do to prepare for the BAC.” Was she pointing fingers at the teachers present? Or simply reiterating what she had perceived?

The vice principal allowed the students to speak. One said that he agreed with the comments, but had no idea that there were so many absences. Were the numbers correct? Really, he said. I had no idea there were that many.

The rest of the session focused on individual critiques. What the teachers did was evaluate each student, looking at his or her grades and teachers’ comments, and write global comments and suggestions on their report cards. For one student, all the teachers agreed that she was fragile. She needed encouragement. So, on her global commentary, the vice principal wrote, “Keep going! Keep pressing on.” And to the teachers, he instructed that they encourage her more, both in her studies and in regards to her behavior in class.

Other commentaries were not so nice. “Student A has an attitude,” one teacher explained. “I mean, wow…look at her grades. Insufficient.”

And another: “Student B was held back (“She’s getting better!” someone yells out). If she’s a 5th year senior, she needs to work a little harder. And seriously, she’s getting a 9 [out of 20; approximately a C] in gym class? What is she doing there?”

But even the best student in the class could not escape criticism. His grades were unspeakably good – all high As, except for in philosophy (might I add that the highest grade the philosophy teacher gave was a 10/20 – in other words, a C?). The vice principal and teachers were ready to write, “Way to go! Congratulations!” when the philosophy teacher raised his hand and said, “I don’t think his work is good enough for a “Congratulations!”. Can’t you tone it down to a simple “good work”? The vice principal looked disappointed, but relented to the request. “Good work,” he wrote.

It’s a pretty bleak world when the best student in the class is reduced to a simple “good work” instead of a “congratulations!” But that is the strict nature of the French education system. Everything is noticed. No one gets out unscathed.

And everyone knows about it.

Guestbook Sign In: Please Reply

Rumor has it that there are quite a few people reading my blog these days. I have no idea if that is actually true, as my mother started that rumor, so it could just be her reading my endless ramblings. To satisfy my curiosity, can you please reply to this post? I'd like to know who I have been writing to all these months. If you'd rather not, you may email me at sgallup@pacificu.edu, but I'd love to know who is out there. Consider this your Christmas present to me. I would love it.

Thanks!

The strike, the wind, and the beat go on...

Today is Day Five of the students' strike, and Day Three of having no school. I heard this morning through the grapevine that the administration is still hesitant to let the mob of students in because of events elsewhere in southern France that have turned violent. In Carcassonne, the tourist town about 1 1/2 hours from Perpignan, a school administrator was attacked and hospitalized by the outraged students. In Prades, a village just to the west of Perpignan, a window in the school building was broken by protestors. In light of these events, the school has stayed closed...for the security of everyone involved.

In other news, the famous Perpignan Wind has come back with a vengance. Today we are having winds up to 120 kl/hr (75 mph), I heard -- and I believe it! Walking to the teachers' lounge just a few minutes ago nearly knocked me right off my feet! The Perpignan natives don't seem to be bothered by it. "Oh that," they'll tell me. "You just have to get used to it." Ha!

And, as teachers are disappearing for the holiday season, I bidding them a quick adieu before I, too, head out. I am leaving for Paris on the 23rd, where I'll spend Christmas Eve with my friend Vicky (another Fulbrighter) and her boyfriend at the restaurant on the Eiffel Tower. Should be a lovely time. After Christmas, I will be heading down to Poitiers to see my two host families. I am very much looking forward to going back to My Little Town. And afterward, I will return to Perpignan and (hopefully!) spend New Year's in Barcelona. Still waiting to hear about that one.

And, what's more important, tomorrow I move into my apartment! I am very, very excited about that!! Not excited about the cost of living there (anyone have a money tree growing in their back yard??), but I am looking forward to having a place of my own in the city. Especially since it has internet access.

Sorry, Teacher, but the Mob ate my Homework

On Friday morning, I woke up to the sound of yelling and chanting outside my window. I looked outside to see a mob of students walking down the road around the school, holding picket signs and screaming in unison. There were hundreds of them, lining the streets and circling the school.

Upon leaving my room, the cleaning ladies filled me in on the details: the older students were on strike, opposed to Sarkozy’s new school reform laws, and, according to them, it was “really bad” when the students went on strike.

I went to class as usual, but there were only 12 out of 30 students there. The others were either a part of the protest or were unable to get in because the mob outside had barricaded the school entrance. Once class started, the teacher had to stop for a few minutes to allow his students to peer out the window and wave to their friends. Halfway through the class, the students on strike flooded the hallways, yelling and screaming, and throwing things at the doors as they passed by. But don’t be worried – when the French are on strike, they are rarely violent; more often than not, they just like to be loud and obnoxious in order to get their point across. This became even more evident when one of the protesters pulled the fire alarm, and our class (by law, of course) had to evacuate and wait outside until we were called back in.

So why, you ask, are these students on strike in the first place? First, French President Nicholas Sarkozy and his Minister of Education have proposed new high school reform laws, and students (and some teachers) are against these reforms, hence the protest. But every time I ask what the reforms entail (and, believe me, I’ve asked many times), I get this answer: “Well, Sarkozy is reforming the high schools, and the students don’t like it.” This, to me, is the pinnacle of French logic. I ask what reforms are being made, and they respond with the obvious: the students don’t like the reforms, so they are on strike. I asked a classroom of French students on Friday what the reforms were, and none of them could tell me, which begs the question: do these students even know what they are striking against?

Yesterday, the strike seemed to be a half-hearted effort – at least, from my view. The mob had diminished to around two dozen students or so, but they were still able to barricade a few people outside and not allow them to come in. Apparently, there were trash cans strewn about in front of the school. This is all that I noticed, but according to one of the teachers, threats had been made.

And now today there is no school.

It’s a little like a snow day, only without the snow. The students who live in the dorms with me are required to stay inside, so at 11 am, they are still in their pajamas, watching TV downstairs. The teachers, however, have the more unfortunate day: even though their students are not coming, they are required to be here, since they are being paid to teach today. I, being a mere non-tenured language assistant, have the advantage over everyone in the situation. Not only may I leave the dorm (because I am not a student), I am also not required to stay at the school. So I’m thinking of going into town to watch a movie. Maybe I’ll buy some stuff to make Christmas cards. In either case, I’m the only one free to do whatever I want today. And I like that feeling.

Who am I?: And Other Experimental Classroom Activities

Yesterday, I tried something new and it ended up failing miserably. I guess that’s one of the fun things about teaching: experimenting with new ideas. Sometimes they work; sometimes they don’t. And something those new ideas surprise you in ways you’d never expect.

But anyway, yesterday I wanted my students to write out a long skit. I broke the class into six sets of pairs, and each group wrote a very short section of the skit (I had written their section out on a piece of paper: “You are a bank robber. You suddenly regret your actions. Why? What do you do next?”) The scenes were supposed to flow together with a semi-coherence that could have been funny. But one group didn’t prepare anything. Another group couldn’t stop laughing. One group spoke too quietly.

I left class disappointed in my activity, so I set out to revise it. And in doing so, I came up with something completely different that turned out to be a huge success when I tried it out in class on Friday.

I wrote names of famous people in U.S. culture (not all from the U.S., though) on a piece of paper. I made sure they were people my students would know: Barack Obama, J.K. Rowling, Angelina Jolie, Steven Spielberg, Michael Jordan, Rihanna, etc. I tried to get people from many aspects of culture: music, movies, politics, literature, sports, etc.

Sadly, I couldn’t pick many people that I consider important: Jon Krakauer, Jane Goodall, Dave Bartholomae. As much as I would choose these people as important, my students certainly would not know who they are…unless they happen to appear on French radio. And last I heard, DB hasn’t recorded any pop songs. But who knows? It has been a while since I read CCCs.

On each piece of paper, I wrote basic information about that particular person. About Tiger Woods, I wrote “Professional golfer, born in California, married to Elin Nordegren.” For Hillary Clinton, I wrote “Politician, future Secretary of State under Barack Obama, former senator of New York, married to former president Bill Clinton.”

What I did was tape a person’s name to each student’s back. The other students would giggle when they saw that it was Britney Spears, or say “I have no idea who that is!” when one girl got Oprah Winfrey’s name. The students then mingled with their classmates, asking only “yes” or “no” questions about their character.

“Am I a woman?” They would ask. “Am I a singer? Do I sing rock music?”

“Am I an actor? Did I play in westerns? Do I direct movies now? Was ‘The Changeling’ an amazing movie?” (in other words, “Am I Sarah’s favorite actor?”)

“Am I a politician? Am I a man? Was I ever vice-president of the U.S.?”

What is important to note here is that they were speaking in English. Not French. By the end of class, two students had not figured out who they were (Sarah Palin and Eva Longoria Parker), so the whole class huddled around, sticking firm to the rule of only answering “yes” or “no” and not divulging any extra information.

The bell rung just as the two guessed who they were. And on their way out, one girl said, “C’est cool, ça” (that was cool)!

And I beamed.

In the Land of Many Paradoxes

It’s amazing to me (and to other foreigners, as well) how much I can simultaneously love and hate the French. I love their culture – their way of looking at life, the way they pay such strong attention to detail, and how strong their relational bonds are – and yet I seem to ask myself “why do they do x or y?” every day.

Some things they do make absolutely no sense to me. For example, Carlos, the Spanish assistant from Colombia, and I were talking the other day about registering at the local university. Enrolling in a French university is much easier said than done. For one, there is no online course catalog. If you want to search for classes, you must look at the paper registry plastered to the walls outside of each department’s building. Want to take an English class? You must go to the Language and Literature building, and scan through the long wall of possible choices. Want to take a Biology class? You must go to the Biology building, and so on. It’s impossible! And then, to enroll, everything is done via paper. Yes, paper. Does the internet exist here? Yes. But apparently, the French didn’t get the memo. Carlos said, “I come from Colombia. Colombia. And we register online. I mean, who do these people think they are?” At least I’m not alone.

But what confuses me the most has only become visible to me now during the holiday seasons. I was told before coming to France about the “no hat” rule. In the past few years, France expanded their secular rules in Academia by passing a law which says that students may not wear anything deemed “religious.” In other words, no necklaces with crosses on it, no WWJD bracelets, no veils for Muslim girls. I was told that this was primarily because girls would come to school in burqas, and it was (and I quote) “distracting.” So, no hats, no veils, no scarves, no headbands. Nothing on anyone’s head.

And yet, despite this strict law, there is a large Christmas tree in the school cafeteria. Colorful garland hangs on the walls. And the staff room welcomes faculty with a hearty “Joyeux Noel” (Merry Christmas) sign. I have nothing against these symbols, of course, but I mean…where’s the consistency? Seriously. It’s odd.

I love being in a country as rich and complex as France. I am constantly learning, constantly being challenged in many areas of my life, and, of course…constantly, completely, and hopelessly confused.

“Whoever Smelt it Dealt it”: Or, the Story of the Worst Class Ever

Before each class period begins, students line up outside their classrooms and wait for the teacher to arrive. When he or she does, the teacher keys into the class, and the students enter by twos, each greeting the teacher with a “bonjour” or “hello, good afternoon” if it’s English class.

They all file to their own seats but remain standing until the teacher has sufficiently arranged homework, lesson plans, etc. The teacher might rattle off a set of announcements or ask for questions, but the students remain standing. When the teacher is ready (no matter how long that may take), he or she then tells the students that they may sit down, and the lesson begins. This is how the students learn to respect their teachers.

For some, however, the standing has become a mere formality, as invisible as tying their shoes in the morning or bringing pencils to class. They remain standing, but talk back to their teachers or hit the student next to them. It is unfathomable the things I have seen here. And makes me grateful that I have chosen to teach in a university setting.

Further evidence of this came on Tuesday, when I was asked to begin working with a class I had not yet seen. It was a class of 30 boys and 7 girls. Yes, you read that correctly. 30 boys and 7 girls. They entered the class not by twos but by clumps of boys hitting each other and jumping on each other’s backs and slamming into the walls. “N’ayez pas peur,” one of the kids said to me. Don’t be afraid. Yeah right, I wanted to say back in French. Too late for that.

It took the teacher ten minutes to calm down the whooping and hollering 30 boys and 7 girls. Then she let them sit down. I was allowed to take half of the class, and somehow, as luck would have it, I got to take the wretched half of the class. “The other half is better,” the teacher would tell me later, “but it was this group’s turn.”

The hour couldn’t go by fast enough, and it dragged on forever. First, the students wouldn’t shut up, then they were running around the classroom, then someone was calling a boy names, then someone’s nose started bleeding…

And then that smell.

“Ewwwwwwwww!” Somebody yelled. “What do they feed you at the cafeteria?” I had to go run and open a window, and several other students did the same. It was wretched. And I was appalled that a student would actually do that in my classroom. The culprit was named, and as much as I wanted to giggle along with my students (okay, so I’m mentally still back in junior high), I had to stand at the front of the class, hands on my hips, with a stern face. “That’s not funny,” I managed to say with a straight face. “Sit down. And don’t talk.”

My students don’t often see Angry Sarah – they are more likely to meet Tired Sarah, Disappointed Sarah, or Oops-I-Need-to-Quickly-Rewrite-My-Lesson-Plans Sarah – but this class got to see the angry version very quickly. Still, since they are immune to yelling (seems teachers here do it often), it didn’t frighten them. So I resorted to my preferred method of discipline: a little something I like to call “distraction therapy.”

Douille housse pic n’glisse? I wrote on the board.

The students stared at the board, their mouths clamped shut, and their heads tilted a little to one side. Everyone was silent. They all knew it was French, but didn’t make any sense. I could see their lips moving, trying to figure it out in their head. Finally, one of them shouted, “DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH??” And they all figured out my game.

Marie qui se masse, I wrote. “Madame,” one said, “Marie who gathers what?”

“No, no,” another said. “Merry Christmas! It says, Merry Christmas! You have to say it out loud.”

Pretty soon, they were all shouting, “More! More!” and answering my riddles. They loved it when I wrote “Guy vomit sous mon nez” (literally: Guy vomits under my nose), which sounds like, “give me some money.” And they especially liked “Ame coquine” (literally: flirtatious soul), which sounds like, “I’m cooking.” Seems that distraction therapy wins, after all.

Too bad I didn’t think of that before someone farted.