Meeting My Daughter’s New French Teacher…

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Back To School, Family, France, French, funny, Humor, Parenting, Relationships, school, stay-at-home Dad, teachers

 

I go to the wrong door. This is the second time this week I’ve gone to the wrong door. That’s because today is Wednesday and it’s dinner-time. All the other days I’ve collected my daughter from her Maternelle at 4.30pm*. They move them after dinner-time you see.

 

They also change the teachers.

 

So the teacher I have met the other two days this week is not the one I meet today. Today is the day I meet her actual class teacher, not one of the other ‘cool-down’ teachers – the ones that seem to take them when all the hard, morning work is done, and they just have to keep them awake till their parents take them in the afternoon.

 

Or should that be evening? I only as as they keep saying ‘bonsoir’ to me. When does afternoon become evening? I would ask but I don’t know how to.

 

But I digress.

 

So this is the first day I’m meeting my daughter’s new teacher, and also the first day she is meeting me. As I approach the door a pleasant looking middle-aged lady is there to greet me. She looks at me quizzically at first and I peer in the door and pause.

 

She’s probably meeting lots of parents today for the first time, I think to myself. Lots of parents may not be able to pick their kids up at dinner-time, so it may fall to their other half, or grandparent, to collect them. I could trade her in, I think. Maybe get one of the less aggressive (when it comes to food) ones. Or the less violent (when it comes to cuddling me) ones. Or maybe I could get another boy? I’ve always fancied having two boys around the place.

 

My eyes scan the room. So many options.

 

But probably best not to pick one of the Chinese ones.

 

I’d save a fortune on biscuits, smoothies, marbles and psychotherapy-for-cats sessions (oh yes, I do believe that’s in the future). I wouldn’t have so many bruises on my arms, legs, torso, face etc etc. I would be able to eat my food, without someone else constantly monitoring the quantities consumed. Without someone else asking me, why I’m eating more of something? Why I’m having another one? Why am I wearing that top? Why am I having a shower? Why am I going outside? Why are we going in the car?

 

Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

 

But it would just be the same, I realise. So maybe it’s better the devil you know?

 

Well, that plus the whole kidnapping another kid, getting arrested etc. etc.

 

So I admit who I am, forever dooming myself to coming to collect this bundle of questioning fun, that eats all my food, makes me buy her marbles, and gives the best – if slightly violent – cuddles.

 

Oh well, if I change my mind there’s always next year’s new teacher….

 

 

*In case you are wondering my partner always, always drops her off in the mornings, and I take my son to his school, just across the road. My daughter is very clingy to her mum in the mornings and my son likes me to chase him to his school. I’m better at running. My partner is better at being clung to.

 

We did try it the other way round once. We call that day ‘The Day Of Tears’. We won’t repeat that.

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Sick Beds And Trapped Bees At The New School In France…

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Bees, children, education, France, French, funny, Humor, school, teachers, Traditions, training

One of the actual classrooms we went in, this one is where you learn English – I did have to point out though that ‘Britain’ is not spelt with two ‘T’s. Whether this will have enamored me to our new host or not, only time will tell.

It’s a miserable wet Tuesday morning and my son, my daughter, myself and the (French) mother-in-law are visiting my son’s new school. We are visiting it during the school holidays and the head-teacher has very nicely agreed to open it, so that we can all have a look around and see what my curly-haired boy thinks of it.

It’s a huge building which, the headteacher informs us is ‘Very old…deux-cent’ (200 years). There are many rooms with all kinds going on in each one and, obviously, lots and lots of French writing. I find this daunting and I’m not the one that will be attending, but my son loves it.

We enter one room and the headteacher motions to my children to approach a large box on wheels that appears to be some kind of cabinet. He then, in a very magician-esque way, pulls off one of the panels on the cupboard/box/thingy to reveal BEES! Lots and lots of bees. The idea, he says, is that the kids look after the bees, the bees make honey, and the kids eat the honey.

After showing us both sides of the bee-box he then puts the cover back on, sealing the bees away. ‘What a holiday they are having!’ I say in broken French to my belle-mere ‘The kids go off on vacation to the lakes, or the south of France, and they get to spend two weeks bumping into each other in the dark in a big box’. Potential bee-right violations aside it’s another great idea that this school has – they also have some mini-allotments at the entrance to encourage the kids to start to grow their own food.

Bit too close to the entrance if you ask me – if this was England anything they grew would get plundered when they reached a ripened state.

We carry on and enter the staff room, dominated by the head-teacher’s desk in the centre of the room. He then shows us the other parts of the room (It’s very Scooby Doo – there seem to be doors that lead off into other areas all over the place) and indicates the sick bed.

Now I can’t speak for everybody but in my village back in England the school there had a very simple approach to sick children. If you cough too much – you go home. If you are sick – you go home. Look a bit pale? you go home. It was an almost knee-jerk reaction in its speed the way in which the school would get in touch with you if your child exhibited the slightest indication that they were sick.

I’m told – after telling the head-teacher that these don’t exist anymore in England – that they do this because they understand the difficulties of working life for people with children. If your child is a bit unwell, or is sick, they take them to the sick bay and monitor them for an hour or so. If they perk up then off they go back to play/learn/whatever. If not then they will contact the parent (s).

This is another great tradition that I experienced in my lifetime that has sadly disappeared from the UK – too ‘risky’ these days I suppose, in our culture of blame. So I’m pleased that it still exists over here, in our new home.

My son is pleased as punch with his new school, which eases my mind. He’d been a bit sick the previous night and we were both worried that it was due to worry about his new, somewhat ‘alien’, learning environment. This is clearly not the case though, as he happily runs from empty class to empty class, admiring the old traditions that sit alongside newer technologies – touch-sensitive whiteboards for example.

We reach the cafeteria as our tour comes to an end and, the headteacher informs us, he will be able to dine with his sister as the nursery and the school eat together. This pleases my two children no end, ‘We will have dinner together’ they happily shout.

We head off back to the mother-in-law’s for dinner, walking down the high street, which is beautiful despite the miserable weather. As we do we pass by the local florists. ‘Look daddy!’ my son says, pointing to a bunch of flowers. ‘Oh yes, they are very pretty’ I say to him. ‘No look, there’s a bee!’. He’s quite right, there is, crawling happily over the…whatever it is (I’m not a horticulturalist, OK?). ‘It’s escaped from the school’ I tell him, and he looks back at me with huge eyes. ‘Bad bee!’ he says, ‘We’ve got to get it back!’ ‘We’ll tell the headmaster next week’ I tell him ‘He’ll send out the bee-police’.

This seems to satisfy him and we head off down the high street hand-in-hand, all four of us, looking forward to the future.

Staving Off Cabin Fever: The Half-Term Holidays Day Two – The Joy Of Godparents

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children, funny, holidays, Humor, kids, outdoors, Parenting, teachers

It’s an early start today, breakfast down the hatch (es) and then everyone is bundled into the car for the one-hour-or-so trip to Skipton, Yorkshire. It’s a leafy town set amidst rolling hills, with some quite breathtaking scenery. I’m not taking the kids just to admire the view though, oh no. As well as lovely scenery, Skipton is also home to two other items of particular interest: the kids’ godparents.

We roll up outside said godparents’ house and, before we even knock on the door, we are greeted by the godmother. We are quite lucky in our choice of godparents, particularly when it comes to school holidays. Godmother is a teacher, so it means you are guaranteed to be able to see her when school’s out. The godfather works in a cafe in the train station, and his hours are such that by just after dinnertime he is finished for the day.

This is great for me, as it means I get to ‘share the load’ and have help with the kids. We nip into chez godparents for a quick toilet break and then it’s off to the park.

My daughter, who I am primary care-giver to, soon switches her allegiances, and waves me away when I attempt to help her onto the swings. She points an imperious finger at godmother, and indicates that she would prefer her help getting onto the swings.

Godfather rings me up from the cafe while my traitorous daughter is swung merrily, and my son smears mud on the slide as he climbs up it the wrong way.

‘Where are you? I’m nearly finished at the cafe’ he says to me.

‘We’re in the park’ I tell him.

‘Great, I’ll be there in five minutes. I’m wearing a red coat’

I ponder this for a moment.

‘This isn’t a blind date’ I tell him ‘I do know what you look like’

But he’s hung up already.

He arrives shortly after, wearing a gloriously red coat, and we continue entertaining the kids for a while. Godmother takes her leave of us, and we arrange to meet back at basecamp. The sky turns gloomy so we decide to head into town. Skipton is a town with an abundance of affluent, elderly people and this has, for some reason, given rise to a surfeit of my drug of choice: charity shops.

They’re everywhere, and I take great pleasure in trailing our little convoy around them. They are staffed by well-to-do volunteers, who probably still pay more a year in taxes than the average person earns per year. They react poorly to the arrival of a child, a parent, a godfather and a child in a pram. They don’t know the first thing about ensuring their shops are pram friendly, my daughter exploits this fact to the full. Every shop we go in her little hands eagerly grab articles of clothing, hoping to take these age-inappropriate items back to her lair. She’d have gotten away with it too if it hadn’t have been for these pesky (god) parents.

It’s heading towards dinner time, so we head back to chez godparents. They have a lovely clean house, on three floors. It doesn’t stay clean for long. There’s soon cleaning up to be done on all but the highest floor, and daddy leaves a present in the toilet on that one that the godparents will enjoy later.

Godmother has brought provisions, and after a slap up lunch, she takes the kids outside to help her with a spot of gardening. The godfather and I recline upstairs in the lounge, supping coffee. We discuss the quality of the new James Bond theme (it’s poor), and put forward the hypothesis that sago is actually rice pudding’s evil brother. We ramble on like this for some time, just enjoying each other’s company. I enjoy the blissful lack of kids.

This brief nirvana doesn’t last and, realising I shouldn’t put too much strain on the parent-godparent relationship I venture outside. In scenes somewhat reminiscent of what I imagine a sweat-shop would be, I find godmother ruling over my two industriously working children. Leaves are being shovelled up, collected, and then tidied away, with disconcerting efficiency. The advantages of being a teacher, if not clear to me before, are crystal clear now.

We call it a day, the night is approaching and the kids, filthy, tired but happy are on their last legs. I shake hands with godfather and we agree to meet up again to catch SPECTRE at the cinema. Godmother apologises for the state of the kids, and gives me such a hug that I am left in no doubt that she, possibly more than the kids, has had a very good day.

There’s lots of babbling from the back of the car on the way home but it doesn’t last. Twenty miles into the journey and it’s just me and my thoughts. Oh, and Sam Smith on the radio, warbling about the writing on the wall. It really is a very bland song…