School

I finished my first week of 'work.' For the first two weeks I'm just observing in the classes. Overall it was good, the teachers are all really nice and young and I only had to go 3 hours for 3 days. There are 4 English teachers and the kids range from age 11-15. They take English 3 times a week and some also take German. Interesting (at least I think) things about French 'college' (middle school in the US).
1. School starts and ends at different times each day for each class. For example: the class I was in today had school Monday 8-5:30, Tuesday 8-4:30, Wednesday 8-11, Thursday 9-5:30, etc.
2. The kids get 1.5 hours for lunch since lunch is the biggest meal and most of the kids go home for lunch. Also, kids go to school until 5:30 but don't eat dinner until 9-10pm.
3. Inbetween classes, the kids line up outside and wait for thier teacher. The teacher goes outside and gets thier class and then leads them to the classroom.
4. Classroom doors are locked all the time.
5. Every kid has an ID book that has thier schedule, picture, dicipline record, absences, and test grades in it. The parents have to sign off on everything in the book.
6. Most of the kids write with blue fountain pens.
7. They call grades out loud in front of the whole class. In one of my classes they had just gotten a test back and passed around a sheet with everyone's grade beside thier name. In another class, when the kid finished thier presentation, the teacher called the grade out loud.
8. I have seen 5-10 little girls (age 11-13) with thier lips and noses pierced.
9. You aren't allowed to wear coats, scarves, or hats in the classroom and sometimes its cold.
10. I have only had one black student all week long.
I think thats all for now....school is really different here but I like it. Most of the kids are really eager and excited in class. If anything they are a little roudy...but seem nice and want to learn English!