Warning: Polemics Ahead

The images of the Loire icing over are cooler, but it's a slideshow, so you get frozen vineyards instead.

 Yes, I haven’t had a class of more than four kids all week.  Yes, the buses are kinda-sorta-not-really running again (only 25% in Sarthe, and none still in Maine-et-Loire).  Yes, vacation starts for me at 9:50 AM tomorrow. 

But no, that’s not what I want to write about today.

Remember that teacher post elimination I talked about last time?

It’s reality.

Without communicating with the teachers at all, the principal Mr. Briand decided to get rid of multiple posts in multiple departments, and emotions are running high.  As far as I can tell, they’re eliminating posts in both English and History/Geography — two in English, in fact.  Since Romain is a stagier/first year teacher, and the state is moving him to the Parisian suburbs at the end of the year, they simply won’t accept another stagier next year, but that means another real English teacher gets the axe.  Marc is old enough to retire, but he’s not ready yet, and no one is going to force him.  That means that the person who’s been here the least amount of time will get booted.  And that means Karine.

When Thiery, the union representative, gave the “official” news to Muriel, I actual thought I saw her eyes well up.  Valérie and Nathalie tried finding other ways around it; other teachers proposed having the “leaving” teachers shared between the pôle générale and Ampère, but Thiery looked doubtful.  The sense of frustrated helplessness makes the staff room absolutely reek.  Everyone’s been subdued all week because of this news, and today was the worst, with everyone and the English teachers in particular swimming through the mud of this news.

No one wants anyone to leave, and not just because it means classes of 30-35 students, and how the hell do you teach a foreign language to that many kids and be in any way successful.  They’re a family, especially within the departments, and keeping your job while having to watch someone else leave, become a victim of something as simple as time, is . . . whatever’s worse than heartbreaking.

No one knows how to act around the named teachers — okay, well, I don’t know how to act around Karine, doubly so because I don’t know if she knows.  She’s one of the reasons this year has been one of the best years of my life; she’s been an older sister, a second mom, a guardian, a champion, a best friend when all of my others are chez moi.  And even though technically I’m also out of a job come the end of April (or two months later), she has a teacher husband and three children and, damn it, it’s not fair.

That’s really what it comes down to: it’s not fair.  I would feel this way if it had happened to any English teacher, or any other teacher, really.  I remember well the frustrated helplessness that settled in my stomach when one of my American friends was laid off from her teaching job, and it’s hitting me just as hard here.  Why, in a world where being educated is no longer a privilege or even an option; when learning what’s happening in the rest of the world, how to communicate with them, how to get along with them is more important than ever; when the world sets the bar higher and higher every second . . . why are we eliminating teachers anywhere in the world?

Governments should be bending over backwards for these people, building schools like the true temples of learning they are, gilding the halls in gold, and paying teachers a king’s ransom.

But all of that pales in respect to just that: respect. Both in America and France, it seems, everyone pays lip service in public to the teachers that “changed their lives” while in the privacy of the ballot box or school board room they stab them in the back with their own rulers.  I’m sure most teachers wouldn’t mind that king’s ransom, but I’m also pretty sure they’d settle for the consolation prizes of job security and overall respect for the enormously difficult job that they do.

And respect is what my school’s administration lacks.  Thiery and Muriel and Catherine and every single teacher I’ve listened to/eavesdropped on laments — no, is beyond pissed off that Mr. Briand went ahead with all of these cuts and decisions without even speaking with any of them.  They all say that Mr. Briand is very good with PR — what comes to mind is when that kid attacked a teacher on the Ampèreside, and he had to speak to the press — but when it comes to HR, all his smooth moves turn inwards, protecting himself and his own interests instead of the staff.  I cannot say that I disagree with the teachers.  Making such sweeping changes without anything but rumors as a warning is not only unprofessional, but it’s just plain mean.  Many teachers feel that if Mr. Briand had just talked to them, tried to work with them instead of against them, then everyone could feel that at least all avenues were explored before such drastic and devastating actions had to be taken.  But they can’t even say that now.

Since Lycée d’Estournelles de Constant is public and therefore part of Education Nationale, I don’t know how they go about . . . reallocating teachers.  In France, if you become a public school teacher, the government places you in a certain school in a certain area.  They take into consideration your family situation (whether you’re married with children and therefore settled, or are single and just starting out) when they place a certain teacher, but they still have final say of who employs you and where.  Maybe when one school no longer has a need for a teacher, Education Nationale will place them somewhere else instead of just letting them roam free in the wild.  At least, that’s what I’m telling myself; then Karine will be okay.

I’m sorry I went all polemical and everything, but I’m truly very upset about this whole situation.  And the fact there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it — that anyone can do about it — just gets under my skin and irritates the perfect, antagonizing spot.  I feel untethered; I feel adrift; I feel feeble.  I feel sorry.  Which is probably exactly what Karine wouldn’t want me to feel.

Well this is a happy post right before I go on vacation. I’m going to Strasbourg and Sessenheim to trace some family roots before visiting Jenny in Stuttgart for less than 24 hours.  Then I’m meeting up with Verity for a tour of central Europe: Budapest, Prague, and Bratislava.  Normally, the teachers ask me my vacation plans just so they can laugh at me for traipsing through Europe, but this time, I think my reputation is earned.  Get ready for a whole host of fun times when I get back.