teacher's side

this week, i worked on redoing my art website, which took up a lot of time.

today, i went to “writing” workshop again. i was talking to another student during class and ended up on the topic of jj’s school. the teacher joined in and we continued the conversation during break. she said that the problem in most of the public schools now, was that the kids were out of control. i have heard this from other sources too, that there is a serious discipline problem in the public schools. she blamed the lax parents. it seems universal that middle school is particularly difficult. kids are dealing with changing bodies and hormones and experimenting with more independence. i told her that our school was semi private. she landed directly on one point that was of concern to me. there is plenty of old fashioned snobbery in paris and there seems to be a population in the school of very rich, entitled, families. i’m sure it’s similar to some manhattan private schools. of course, this doesn’t mean jj will be influenced by these attitudes, especially since she is not part of that demographic. anyway, the teacher

is coming from the teacher side of things so she had some stories of bad parents.

story 1: the long established method for communication between teachers and parent is the carnet, a special notebook for each student with records of test grades etc. one page is specifically for the teacher to make comments and the parent must sign after it to acknowledge that they have seen it. one parent had signed all of the spaces in the right column before there were any comments.

story 2: one teacher arranged to meet a parent and the student to discuss a problem. as they sat down together, the parent said something like “this better be worth it, because my time is valuable. i earn 3 times what you earn”. the teacher said, “end of discussion, get out.” so the parent went to complain to the principal that the teacher had called him in, but then refused to talk to him. the principal was surprised and said, “she is a very good and reasonable teacher. what did you say to her?” he repeated his statement at which point the principal told him to get out. of course, the teachers’ complaints have to do with the lack of respect for their profession.

jj told me about one kid in her grade who lives in his own apartment. it is upstairs from his parents apt. he is a very particular sort of kid too. he comes to school in a suit and with a briefcase. he has all kinds of fancy movie making equipment. while all the other kids are reprimanded for the smallest infraction, this kid can just stand up in class and start setting up and using his equipment. jj said that she saw a film he had made and it was really good and really professional.

i know a dog-dad (he has a beagle, i met him in the champs de mars), an american, retired editor at intl herald tribune. he has 2 sons who went to the school. he said that when they were there, they weren’t very happy, but they got an excellent education and got into very good american colleges. he asked them for me, how they felt about the school and the teachers. they said it wasn’t the teachers they had a problem with as much as the french kids. they said they were very spoiled and entitled. however, they said that the kids in the international program were much nicer.

mildew man

the mildew man came to look at the crazy mildew problem we have in our bathroom. part of the problem might be that the bathroom has 3 exposed exterior walls and the ceiling, so gets very cold, but strange how damp it is in there all the time. towels don’t dry... anyway.

jj meltdown

went to alliance francaise “writing workshop”. did more talking in this class than in the “oral” workshop. the teacher is young and energetic. she is much less formal about things and during the breaks hung out and chatted with us.

this afternoon, jj had a melt down about school. we were warned by the veteran parents of the program to expect several of these... she says that her math teacher talks to fast and can’t explain things very well, and jumps around several topics at the same time. she is so busy trying to copy down what is being written on the board that she doesn’t have a chance to listen and understand what is being said. certainly the language is the problem here. the teacher’s attitude doesn’t sound very good. after being asked a question, the teacher said “figure it out yourself”. i really wonder about these teachers. (though, since i wasn’t there, i can’t say that that was rude or improper. sometimes, i want to say the same thing to jj when she’s working on her math and her question is almost “what is the answer?”. the proper response would be “figure it out”). she wants to have a math tutor to help her. anyway, jj has never complained like this in the many schools she has gone to. maybe part of the problem is that she’s “tasted the good stuff”. jj being sad makes us all sad. plus, for p, his work is pretty stressful. i was awake early again and being tired makes me sad. but at a certain point, i got tired of being sad and had something to eat which perked me up. i think part of this is the february blues. the weather has been grey, but just listening to the east coast u.s. weather, reminds me how GREAT it is here! this beats 5 feet of snow!

another interesting apt

for conversation group, i went to an apt in a slightly funkier part of town. when i entered the building, a man had just finished sweeping and there was big pile of dirt with a lot of some sort of rodent poop. this made me think that maybe the building was more on the rough side, but when i entered the apartment, it was gorgeous. it had high ceilings throughout. the large entryway had stained glass windows and led to another large hall with a burgundy paint that looked like it had big crackles all over. it turned out to be the light thrown through a funky lightshade that made the texture. the best thing was the large kitchen that opened to the large dining room which opened to huge living room. it felt like a loft, but with all the hausmann era details. it was really beautiful. this would be my ideal space.

emergency room

p and i had breakfast while jj slept. when she did get up, we went to the swimming pool across the street. it’s a facility with a few indoor pools and slide and jacuzzi etc, and an outdoor pool which you swim to from the indoor pool. so you never have to be out of the pool in the cold. it was heated, but it was still a little chilly. had a good lunch and headed home. i ended up going to the emergency room for one of those medical things that wouldn’t be a big deal if it was a weekday and you could call your dr. i had gone into a pharmacy and asked about this condition and they told me to go to the emergency room. i was lucky because it was a quiet night and was treated relatively quickly. lucky also, that we are now in the health system and apparently would not have to pay too much for this. even more luck that we had the rental car and were able to drive around paris to find one of the only pharmacies open late to get my prescription. i was fine and we got home around midnite .

dieppe

bank meeting – took an hour to update our information, move our home account and get a bank card for me. the bank card is a credit card too, and has a microchip. it is my key to life in france. you need this sort of card to use any of the machines that take cards – to buy metro tickets, train tickets, anything online. it costs much more than i would normally pay for a credit card, but it’s just part of the expense of being in the french system.

afterwards, we took off for p’s birthday weekend. he had wanted to go to the coast and so, he made all the arrangements for a trip to dieppe. it was a typical january day, rainy and grey, with temperatures in the 30’s. we got to rouen around 2:00. the cathedral that monet painted at different times of the day is here. it is quite gothic and even has a lacy feeling with all the little details on the facade.

got to dieppe in late afternoon. the hotel was right on the beach. it’s quite nice, even though it is a chain. the price was quite reasonable too. it was cold but beautiful on the beach. it’s always great to be at the sea. we had a mediocre dinner in one of the touristy seafood places at the harbor. i had whelks and winkles for the first time. whelks are a shellfish about ½ the size of a fist. nice chewy meat inside. winkles are tiny little sea snails – about the size of a toe – not too much flavor in these; these were just the appetizer. for the main course i had moules frites – mussels and fries. unfortunately the mussels were pretty tasteless. this is a really easy meal to make, normally and really delicious, so i suspect there was a big vat of mussels in the kitchen that had been sitting for a while.

tiger mother

i went to my second alliance francaise “oral workshop” french lesson. it was slightly better, but i still didn’t like it. i was able to switch it for next week to the “written workshop”.

p had sent me the article about the chinese mom, making waves right now in the u.s. i’m sure you’ve heard of this book “battle hymn of the tiger mother” and the wall st journal article “why chinese moms are superior”

i have to laugh at some of the things she says. i haven’t read the book, just the article, but it’s laughable that someone could make such firm statements with the confidence that they have the answers and theirs is the only way to successful parenting. each child is different and reacts differently to situations. i have heard of parents who have been convinced they are doing it the right way because their child is so perfect, until their second child is born and is an absolute terror. then they admit that perhaps it’s not just parenting that makes the difference. of course, i agree with some of what the tiger mom says about discipline and taking academics as a priority over sports and hobbies, just not to the extremes that she takes it. i loved reading some of the wonderful and wise responses. then, because the sleepover topic had been a recent topic of discussion, i HAD to read to jj the list of what the author’s daughters were never allowed to do 

“attend a sleepover, have a playdate, be in a school play, complain about not being in a school play, watch TV or play computer games, choose their own extracurricular activities, get any grade less than an A, not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama, play any instrument other than the piano or violin, not play the piano or violin.”

and the other best paragraph:

“All the same, even when Western parents think they're being strict, they usually don't come close to being Chinese mothers. For example, my Western friends who consider themselves strict make their children practice their instruments 30 minutes every day. An hour at most. For a Chinese mother, the first hour is the easy part. It's hours two and three that get tough.”

(part of me thinks she is just saying some of these things to be so extreme that she causes a controversy which is good for book sales). anyway, jj’s response was “she’s crazy, she should tell her kids you can only go to sleepovers if you get straight A’s and practice an hour a day.” i looked at her and said, “SOOOO... , jj, speaking of which... ” pause. jj’s eyes opened very wide in horror at what she had just said. her mouth puckered to form a little O as she issued a quick “oooh” and then ran to her room and closed the door. i laughed very hard. i am one of the “failed” chinese moms.

to add to the chinese theme - the parent group organized a dim sum lunch in chinatown (in the 13th arrondissement).  it was in a restaurant called "la chine massena".  it was good, but not great dim sum.   but it was good to get into chinatown and look around again.  "tang freres" is a giant chinese market there too.  the lunch went on so long, i didn't have time to stay and tour it with the rest of the moms.

p's birthday

today is p’s birthday. we went out to a cafe in the morning. we brought maynard. it’s so nice that you can bring dogs along to cafes and restaurants. it is starting to get a little warmer, so we sat in the semi outside area that has a heater. then p went to work. then in the evening, he wanted to have a french dinner, so we went to “la galoise”, a local old fashioned french restaurant where we like the ambiance. we both had the giant shrimp. i enjoyed the dinner, but p wasn’t so enthralled with his.

p has been working very hard and long days, and feels that he is not experiencing enough of being in paris. we have resolved to try to go out to eat once a week on a weeknight – if he can get back in time.

for his present, he got a "kindle"!

french lessons

i signed up for french lessons at alliance francais. i decided to try the “oral workshop” since i really need help with speaking more fluently. it was not very good. there were about 7 people in the class and we hardly did any talking. the teacher did most of the talking. the subject was the printed media – newspapers, magazines, and the vocabulary associated with them. it was really boring. it felt so much like old fashioned school and it really was not anything that i was interested in or that would help me. oh well. i signed up for 2 weeks so i will go to the second class on friday and see if it gets better. if not, i will try to change into the “writing” workshop. i need help in that too.

school meeting

every few months, there is a school meeting, in which the administration gives news and updates to the parents. today, the principal of the school (who i had never seen before) came and talked about the murder. (see jan 4/5) she said that the student had left the school last year, but was extremely well liked. she said that this event is particularly upsetting because he was one of those very special people who had a big personality and had lots of friends in the school. it was very hard for all the students to hear about this news and she had brought in a psychiatrist to help talk to them about it. meanwhile, of course, it was terrible for the math teacher who was part of the family. she had taken some time off and was back now. many of the parents didn’t know anything about this story.

rollerblading along seine

decided it was time to go rollerblading. the weather was beautiful, sunny and near 50 degrees. i haven’t done much rollerblading since we got the dog. i try to take him with me when i go exercising and rollerblading with him doesn’t work. the highway along the seine is closed on sundays to cars so people can walk/bike/rollerblade on it. it’s really wonderful and one of my favorite things in paris. (a few weeks ago, i was telling jj about going to this highway to rollerblade or bike. she said “i definitely don’t want to do that” i was surprised and kept telling her how beautiful it was. then i mentioned how they had started closing the highway on sundays when we were first living in paris many years ago. and she said “oh, it’s CLOSED to cars!” i laughed at how she imagined her mother was totally insane rollerblading on a LIVE highway!) i have learned over the last few outings, that it’s better to take the metro to get close to the start of the closed highway, because it’s a pain to deal with traffic getting there and it’s not my favorite touring path. p suggested getting off the metro at invalides and he picked up a bike there. i put on my rollerblades. this was a mistake. i was definitely rusty PLUS there’s lots of bumps and dirt and COBBLESTONE on the way to the entrance. next time i will get off much closer to the entrance and NOT put on my blades until we are ON the highway. i did feel like time had passed and here i was, an OLD lady rollerblading... but, mick jagger is still playing concerts, so why not? (i just have to avoid cobblestone).

jj came back from her weekend exhausted. apparently, they rehearsed from the time i dropped them off at 3:00 till 6:00, had dinner and then rehearsed from 8:00 till 10:00. then some of the kids partied till 1am, this being their wild weekend away from parents. then, today, they rehearsed all day and didn’t leave until 6pm. she still has to do homework.

jj away

jj’s first rehearsal with the new orchestra happened to be a weekend rehearsal out in the suburbs. i accompanied her and her friend by the RER (suburban metro) and walked up to an interesting facility dedicated to music retreats. it was a large piece of land with a few classroom and dorm buildings on it. when we found the others, jj didn’t want me to stay and watch at all. she’s at the age of being embarrassed if her mom is anywhere nearby when there are peers around. so i left. it’s always weird when jj is not with us. at first i feel lost, but then i adapt pretty quickly. jj who? 

we went out to eat. walked around trying to decide where to eat. ended up at “le veraison”, nearby. i have gone there for lunch and liked it. wanted to bring p since they have a good selection of wines by the glass. we got there at 8:00 and it was empty. by 8:30 it was full. this is a good trick to remember with popular restaurants. the french don’t go out to eat before 8:00, so if you get there by 8:00 you are ahead of everyone. the dinner was very good. p especially enjoyed his.

sick dog

maynard came in the door from his evening walk last night and promptly barfed twice in great quantities. this morning, waiting to see how things went, he did it again twice. i spent a lot of time cleaning rugs. anyway, i called the vet and she said he had to come in. later she told me that there was something very contagious going around all the dogs and she had been bombarded with calls. she gave him 2 shots and he has to take a course of antibiotics.

meanwhile, started a new painting of a close up of chimneys.

more school discussions;banking

went to have tea with a friend who is an american working in a progressive bilingual school in paris. her kids had gone to our school for a while, though they left early on. i wanted to hear what she had to say about it. i knew that she did not like the school at all so i knew her opinions would be very negative, but i wanted to hear both sides. she said that the administration does not care about the well being of your child and it is all about money. she had both professional and personal conflicts with them. in general, she was very critical of the french school culture. the kids are under high pressure, and there are plenty of dramatic stories. anyway, i won’t go into the gory details here. meanwhile, we had a tea and pastry at her lovely club, which is run by a countess and is located in one of the ritziest parts of town. the club is theoretically for the “arts”, but the members are more of the art buyers rather than the art makers.

another thing i did today was to make an appointment with the bank to try to move our account. because i knew that both p and i would need to be present, i needed an appointment on a saturday. of course, no appts were available until the next saturday. can you imagine? all this just to shift the account’s home? i mentioned already, that the bank offices are like duchies. our home office is in the 12th arrondissement, so if we want to do anything like transfer money we have to go there. we already tried to transfer our account, but because it is a joint account and i did not have the official french papers at the time, we couldn’t do it!

lebanese lunch

our conversation group was hosted by our lebanese organizer, who cooked us a special lebanese lunch. the table was laid with hummus, a feta and tomato salad, an okra and tomato cold stew, flat bread, salad, eggplant babaganoush and more. it was delicious and i had seconds and was happily full. then, our hostess said she was bringing out the main course! i had thought that the salads were the whole lunch! she made a chicken and rice casserole and then a goopy cinnamony dessert. lastly, we finished with the champagne from a previous meeting.

meanwhile, i’m not doing enough painting and i still need to loosen up.

teacher conference

this evening was our teacher conferences. jj was to set up an appointment with each of her teachers, using a “dance card”. each meeting was to be 5 minutes. it is fondly referred to as “speed dating” (in reference to some new social practices that you may or may not have heard about!) unfortunately, the card got lost, and jj tried to contact the teachers to get the appointment times. in the end, i only had the times for 2 out of 3 meetings, so i went early and had to push in front of a line to find out the time for the 3rd meeting. of course, it doesn’t really take 5 minutes, so everyone was running late and there were lines of parents waiting for particular teachers. i went in at 6:00 and didn’t get back until 8:00. however, i must say, it was much more interesting than i had thought it would be. i thought i would merely get to see the face of the teachers that jj was complaining about. in fact, it was really good. they seemed very nice. (jj acknowledged later that yes, they were mostly nice. they just couldn’t teach very well). they really like jj and were very encouraging. i had seen these terrible marks and figured she was just limping along. they all said that she was wonderful in class and was one of their best students! i was thrilled that i could go back and let jj know this! she was surprised the hear it.

sleepovers

had good sleep! went to cafe for breakfast, jj went to an all day party coming home briefly in the afternoon to practice violin and do some homework. then went to sleepover –

the whole question of sleepovers is an on-going discussion. my mother never let us go on sleepovers. she said that the kids would stay up very late and it would take a week to make up the sleep and meanwhile we would get sick. well, in fact, that is my thinking too. jj needs a lot of sleep and the times she gets sick is when she is sleep deprived, which is usually because of a sleepover. the current rule is that if she does go on a sleepover, she needs to take a nap. that usually works ok. she thinks that i am religiously opposed to sleepovers. the first invitation this year was turned down because we had just arrived and felt we needed a little time to settle in. the next 2 or 3 invitations were not accepted for various valid reasons – such as she had some obligation the next morning or we were away. 

i had met the parents and the friend hosting this particular sleepover, briefly, but didn’t know much about them. i asked jj to get me the mom’s phone/email and their address. “why? why do you need these things?” i told her i wanted to make contact with the mom.

but as we talked about it over a few days, she got more and more upset.  she was embarrassed that her mom had to call the host’s mom.  i told her that when dad went away on business, he left me the name and number of the hotel he was staying in. it was just logistics to know where she was.  i thought that it would only be proper. i need to ask her myself, if an adult would be home. she said, the apartment is just down the street next to the church. but i told her, that that was not a very precise address. in the end, because i did have contact before with the parents and because jj promised to text me the address, and her friend, (who i did trust) replied that both parents would be home, i let it go. though the rule from now on, is that i need to make contact with a parent beforehand.

a warm day

painted and then went to lunch again at the restaurant called “le timbre”. (“le timbre” means postage stamp, and it is a tiny restaurant). 

afterwards, i went home to give the dog a bath. the temperature had been in the 50’s and maynard had come back pretty smelly from his vacation. was pretty tired. i have occasional sleep problems. my question is: “does aging cause sleep problems or do sleep problems cause aging?”. i sort of think it’s both. i used to be an excellent sleeper. in fact, when jj was born, we were living in paris, and my mother came over to help. she told me later that she came because she had been worried that i wouldn’t wake up when the baby cried. but i did wake up. having the baby changed everything with my sleep.

made myself do an “art date” today. one of the books i have to help me in art, recommends scheduling an art date for yourself. i went to visit a cool area of town around the rue vielle de temple, which has galleries and designy shops. i went to a specific gallery which was recommended to me by the art critic i had met (at a parent pot luck). it was hidden away behind a big parisian door with a very subtle sign for the gallery. they were showing , robert irwin, an american artist who has been around for many decades. this show was “high art”. it had about 8 pieces, all of which were a series of vertical neon lights of different colors. i didn’t even bother to look at their prices. nice work if you can get it. i think i will be doing medium low art for my life. which is ok. anyway, i did pop into another few galleries, one of which had an asian theme. pretty interesting, i thought. there was one particular artist who took ancient asian calligraphy and made beautiful abstract watercolors from it. the range of prices were between 400-600 euros. actually a reasonable price...  (doesn't make me mad or shock me)

more about murder

getting better at painting every weekday.
looked up the story about the murder, and the latest says that the family denies any drug involvement of the student. the police say that the son has deep psychological problems and has admitted that he “hated his father and his ideas on bourgeouis education.” i guess he means our school...

more about grades; a murder

went to conversation group today and asked them about the grade question. most of these moms have been here for a few years and some have gone through this program. they said that the teachers all get together and meet about each student. a big part of the overall grade is in “comportement” which is a combination of attitude, trying hard, being polite in class, and everything else, rolled into one. jj got good comments, so perhaps that weighed very strongly.

anyway, one of the moms told us another bit of news in the school. over the holiday break, one of the students who was a senior, apparently was involved in the murder of his father! the father was a famous journalist in france who had just retired last year. the student was 17 and had some “friend” who was 25 go to his apartment. it is unclear as of yet what exactly happened, but the father was killed with a stabbed throat and hammered head. apparently the student was getting a 500 euro weekly allowance (approximately $650) and he wanted more money. drugs were rumored to be involved. shocking. but wait, there’s more. the sister of the murdered journalist is a math professor and head of 6th and 7th grade at the school. totally crazy.

back in paris; report card

the trip back from morocco was not too hard, but there was a lot of waiting in lines. the worst was going through passport control in paris orly airport. it was new years day, so maybe they were short staffed. there was a very long line and one lady passed out. the pompiers (firemen/medical aid) were called. she probably had eaten in the market stalls...

we got home and found jj’s report card in the mail. grading is one of those things that is a big issue in france. it is on a scale of 0-20 where 20 is clearly stated as unattainable. i think maybe you could get a 20 if you cured cancer. anyway, the report card confused us more about the school. we know that the new adaptation students have a hard time. half of their classes are taught in french which many are just starting to understanding. in the report card, was not only jj’s grade, but also the highest, average and bottom grades, so you could see where you stood in the class. she was graded on 8 different subjects and sub-topics. 1 of her grades was near the top, 3 were above avg, 3 were hovering around average and 1 was below avg. she was given one final overall letter grade. with these scores i would have guessed that she would get around a B or B- or even less. however, she got an A+. now, i shouldn’t complain about such a grade, and jj was thrilled, but it just didn’t make any sense to me. with all the talk of tough grading, how could this be? one theory i had was that her teachers actually confused her with her good friend, who is so similar to her, who seems to be doing very well in school!

new years in marrakech

new years eve in marrakech started off great. we were sitting on the roof deck having a mint tea and the staff were scurrying around getting ready for the party. you could tell they were excited. they were like kids before christmas. this was probably their first new years eve, as the hotel was only about a year old. the musicians started to arrive. 2 guys in african outfits started playing and they were fantastic. the type of music is called gnawa, which was brought up by the slaves from west africa. the main instrument was a three -string lute called a “hajhuj”. the musician played the strings and at the same time with the same hand, beat the instrument like a drum. the other musician played a cymbal like instrument. the music was beautiful and hypnotic, very similar to the music of “ali farka toure” which i think has the same roots. they were sitting on the ground and it was very cool. unfortunately, they then went into tourist mode and made the rounds to each group of people, putting their hats on guests and posing for photos. only later did i realize, they were looking for tips. then, there was another duet of musicians who played for most of the evening. there was a lute player and a drummer. they were a little more forthcoming in letting us know what they wanted at the end of the evening. they made the rounds and the lutist would open his hand holding the neck of the instrument, to flash the money he was holding. i was a bit resentful of the constant money grubbing we found in morrocco. we didn’t really want to have this expensive new years eve dinner, but were forced to if we wanted to stay at the hotel. all the other hotels that i called required the same. so the fact that these musicians were asking for more money sort of bothered me. we also had belly dancers, which are not at all morrocan. i imagined the marketing guy for morroco tourism saying, “i don’t care if they’re not morroccan, tourists want belly dancers!” in fact, wikipedia says that the belly dancing costume: “owes its creation to the Victorian painters of ‘Orientalism’ and the harem fantasy productions of vaudeville, burlesque, and Hollywood during the turn of the last century, rather than to authentic Middle Eastern dress.” and in the 20’s the costume was brought “to Egypt, because it was the image that Western tourists wanted.” it felt strange and very contrary to the conservative morrocan form of dress which covers everything including the head. i felt embarrassed. anyway, the dinner was drawn out for the whole evening. the food was better than the standard morrocan fair, but didn’t diverge too far from what we had everyday there. by the end of the evening, we were very ready to leave, especially since we had a flight early the next morning.