When I say "possessive tense," I may or may not have been on crack. What I meant was that is was reflexive verb. It was written like "m'a tuer." It's being used incorrectly on purpose, to demonstrate what will happen to the educational system. I just haven't slept in a while.
Here
are the links to the online articles, including one video which was shot
throughout the day by one of the other teachers and publicized thanks to Ouest France:
Monday
was a very busy day in terms of schools around France, and not just in the happy-fun-busy
variety. Two other elementary schools in
the region held protests, as their Académie de Nantes is cutting an entire
class in each school: bad like whoa. In
addition, you may have read about the racially-charged school shooting that
happened in Toulouse. A gunman suspected
in a second racially-charged shooting last week in nearby Montauban this time
turned his gun on a Jewish school, killing a teacher/rabbi, his two children
ages four and five, and the seven-year-old daughter of the principal, who died
in her father’s arms. France2 made a
comparison tonight to the Washington snipers from 2002 and how the two
different police forces dealt with two similar crimes. The journalist made a comparison favorable to
the U.S., saying that the American police would give press conferences every
day, even if they had nothing to say, in order to keep the public informed and
vigilant but not panicked. The French
police haven’t divulged much about what they think the suspect looks like, even
if they’re going door to door in Montauban and Toulouse trying to look for
clues. Dear France: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
It’s
been all over the news morning, noon, and evening, all over the papers, and
people have been talking about it in the staff room. The fact that it happened in France, a
country that prides itself on being the country who produced the Droits de l’homme manifesto and likes
looking down its nose at other countries’ civil rights problems, makes this already
heinous crime even more bruising. At 11 this morning, all the schools in the country
observed a moment of silence, though I wasn’t in class in order to see it in
action. Since it has experienced two
shootings in less than a week, Toulouse is pretty much on lockdown as police
search for the killer, with ten departments and the entire region of
Midi-Pyranées are at terror alert stage “scarlet,” which has never happened
before in France. And authorities are
worried that he’ll strike again on Friday, the next minority day of prayer (for
Muslims). What’s even worse is that the
Minister of the Interior Claude Gueant now says the killer filmed his latest
rampage with a camera around his neck. I
can’t even imagine what breaks in someone’s head in order to make him want to
kill another human being, but then to kill children and then to film it?!
Tonight,
on the news, France2 showed a hearse with yarmulke-capped men surrounding and
pressed up against it. One man slid the yarmulke
from his head and cried out, “Que tout le
monde le voit! Que tout le monde le
voit!” May the entire world see this.
Well. Let’s end on an up note, shall we?
Despite
the fact that there were only a couple student protestors on Monday, student
representatives (actually some of the ones at the protests) entered the staff
room this morning to tell us that they were planning their own movement, and
they were looking for our support. They
wanted to blockade the school tomorrow morning, letting no teachers or students
inside. Of course, they immediately met
with resistance. Before our own day of protest,
there was dissention in the ranks as to whether or not it was a good idea to
try to save jobs by skipping out on them, but in the end, the group decided
that one lost day was for the greater good.
But with the kids threatening to make the same point in a similar fashion,
Tierry one of the union liaisons had to counsel them against such action; kids
can’t deny other kids their education.
(Though, through twisted logic, I guess teachers can? Again, we’re in Mushy Logic Land, kids.) Because of their less than warm reception
this morning, they scheduled a student at-large meeting for during lunchtime to
discuss the matter and promised to return in the afternoon.
They
had clearly rethought their tactics, because when they returned during the recré/break at 4 PM, they offered a
different solution: let classes go on as normal tomorrow, but they want to
block the school for a certain period of time on Thursday and, after the
blockage, walk to Place Henri IV like Monday.
They would take the initiative and alert the media and the police as to
the protest route. Whether they said for
an hour or for the entire morning, I’m not sure; one of the German teachers
tapped me on the shoulder to ask me whether or not the bell had rung. I do know they’ll let classes go as normal
Thursday afternoon; what makes sense to me is an hour of blockage, as they didn’t
want the non-participating students and teachers to be punished, and then the
rest of the morning would be used to walk to Place Henri IV and protest. They wanted to know if the teachers would be
behind them if the students took this course of action.
The
silence in the teachers’ lounge was total.
Most teachers, including myself, looked towards Tierry to see what he
thought about this scaled-down but still almost counterproductive protest. When no one said anything, the student who
acted as the porte-parole/spokesperson
(who I have in my literature class with Karine!) offered to come back at the
end of the school day to see if things would snowball or not. I had a Skype date with Jenny at 6, so I had
to leave before a final decision could be announced, so we’ll see what everyone
has to say tomorrow morning.
I
don’t want to seem like I’m against their protest: I’m not. I’m beyond proud and excited that Lycée d’Estournelles
de Constant has raised at least a handful of children that want to take their
futures into their own hands, that care enough about their futures to stand up
for their education. However, they could
have done it Monday. They were already
out of school, had the support of the teachers, and had des manifestations ponctuelles, or protests that follow a
schedule. I’m 1000% for their civil
disobedience, but they have to do it smartly.
And creatively. If they had a
read-in, or sat on the soccer field in the middle of the school and sectioned
themselves into classes of 35 and tried to “hold class,” then they might grab
more attention. Y’know, if the kids
could be convinced to not just take half a day off and hang out in centre ville. Again, we’ll see.
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