Why I'm glad I went to school in Flesherton, not Lille

Like everything else in France, the school system here is ridiculously and unnecessarily complicated. A colleague of mine (I have colleagues! I feel so.... grown up) tried to explain how high school works by drawing a road map of the whole process, and the result was this:

So all I really know is that a high school is called a Lycée, the students work harder than I ever did when I was sixteen, and it's a good thing I'm not in charge of arranging my own work schedule. For the first couple of weeks I am simply "observing," which means I supposedly get to know how the school day works (uh, riiiiight... see chart, above) and how best to work with the kids. Er, students. In one class the students had prepared questions to ask me using the cutest English vocabulary ever, and one of them asked what my favourite food is in France. The word "pizza" was flashing neon lights in my brain, but that seemed like a very un-French thing to like and I didn't think "wine" counted as a food, so I panicked and said Nutella. Which isn't too far from the truth, except that it really has nothing to do with France since I ate it by the crateload in Montreal.

I think a small tour of my school is in order now! I actually live here, on the high school campus, in a university-like residence. My school, Faidherbe, boards about 500 teenagers (total student body is about 2000 large), and there's a little corner of the residence saved for the foreign teachers. I have a giant bedroom with another giant room attached, which makes for a lot of empty space when you've only got a 23kg suitcase worth of stuff to work with. So pictures of my "home" will have to wait until I've finished redecorating!

For now, though, here's the outside of my building. My window is the big one right above the bushes in the second photo. I face a basketball court where kids play fierce games of ball before classes start each day, so the first thing I hear every morning is a colourful string of French swear words. I'm trying to think of it as a cultural experience.


The school is surrounded by an imposing network of giant iron fences, which gives it a prison atmosphere, especially on weekends when no one else is around. All of the boarding students have to leave the residence before 1pm on Saturdays and they can't come back until after 7pm Sunday evenings, so the place gets pretty quiet. I have this heavy set of keys to open all of the gates on my way out to the civilian world, and I usually pretend I'm either a jailer on patrol or an escaping convict, depending on my mood.

Alejandra the Escaping Convict makes her move:

One thing I really like about Faidherbe is that it feels kind of university campus-ish, which is comforting because that's a world I actually know. There's a science building, a building for the younger students, and a building for the mega-intense "prépa" students who are studying their brains out for some kind of massive finishing exam that every student in France dreads. The buildings are connected by outdoor corridors to create the illusion of shelter from the rain that falls 90% of the time here (don't let the sunny pictures fool you):



All of the different buildings have these 80s-style giant letter boxes to designate them. Seems so undistinguished compared to the rest of the school's presentation!


The next picture is of the cantine, where student and teachers alike all collect to eat a big, giant meal at noon. There is a lot to say about the plolitics and available beverages of this meal, but that is for another entry at another time (and needs some covert photo-snapping first).

I am going to be dividing my time largely between buildings A and B, either with students who are terrified because they're just starting high school (building A) or students who are terrified because they're facing that big life-altering exam soon whose purpose still kind of mystifies me (building B). I think I am going to have a difficult time maintaing those blogging boundaries that everyone knows about, like Thou Shalt Not Write About Thine Employment On Thee Internets. There will surely be many funny stories over the next few weeks as I begin to work with actual students. But I guess those will have to be told on an individual level! Buy me a beer and I will regale you with tales of ESL shenanigans!

I particularly like building A, because it seems to be under construction without any actual sign of construction workers anywhere. There are bit muddy tire tracks in the lawn outside and DANGER signs all over the inside, but no machinary or actual danger to be found.

This week I face the mandatory immigration medical exam in order to get my long-term stay permit. I am very unclear about the invasiveness of this exam; will it be stirrups and a paper gown? I am having nightmares.