Out of my depth...

This week is turning out to be uncharacteristically busy, mainly due to my having to cover for the teacher who is away in England with some students (who M-H and I will be escorting back to Oslo in a couple of weeks). This involves me acting as jumped-up babysitter to a gaggle of 16 year-olds, persuading them to take an interest in the frankly dry material I have been left with by said teacher. In his considerate way, he set the students the task of translating the poem L'automne into Norwegian. These are students who have had French for ONE TERM. And I am girl who has been learning Norwegian for TWO MONTHS. And it's most definitely not AUTUMN. The problem was confounded by the fact that I was given the material I had to cover on the morning of the lesson. So, as you can imagine, I felt somewhat out of my depth. *Inappropriate lesson alert!*

Somehow I got through it, though it wasn't the most calm I have ever been, let's put it that way. But those two months of chaos at Grimsby Institute have really stood me in good stead! At least here I have a textbook...
This evening I went to see this year's Cannes sensation Entre les murs (The Class). The action takes place in a French inner-city middle school and focuses on one teacher's (mis)adventures as he takes on a new class and attempts to drag them through their school year. It really crystalised for me the stark differences in the teacher-pupil relationship between here in Norway and back in England. I certainly remember that when I was at school, I didn't even consider that teachers were in fact real people, with their own lives and their own problems. For me, to be a good teacher, you really have to be a good actor. Once you're stood up in front of the blackboard and the spotlight is on you, the pupils really have to believe that you are actually outraged that they are chewing gum in class, or that you are scandalised that they spoke without putting up their hand. Because your job as a teacher is to prepare them for real life, basically to make them into someone who can function and succeed in society. For this they need not just subject knowledge, but also the notion of respecting other peoples' ideas and being able to communicate with those around them. As a teacher I feel like I should be a model for them to follow, i.e. fair, consistent and tolerant. I don't think the intimate details about your teacher's personal life are really relevant. The most poignant scene in the film for me was when one of the boys asked the (male) teacher, "So... people are saying that you like men. Is that true?". The way he diffused the situation was just amazing, turning the question back to this boy and making him question why he really had an issue with the fact that he may or may not be gay. The film ended with this boy being expelled, much to the horror of his teacher, who, when he saw the boy's home situation, could understand why he behaved the way he did. He also knew that if he were expelled, there really was no hope for him. It questioned whether these sort of sanctions really work, because ultimately they lead him to the point of no return and he dropped off the face of the earth, as far as the teachers were concerned. The point I'm really trying to make here is that as a teacher you walk the tightrope between your role as representative of society's factory of good citizens, and appreciating that your pupils are as fatally flawed as you are. The comparison with Norway comes when I observe teachers here really acting as mates with their pupils, which undermines them when it comes to setting down guidelines for good behaviour or attempting to motivate students to work independently. An example of this is that some teachers give their class their mobile number so they can text them if they are ill and not coming to school. If ever that were a license to take advantage! A lot of the students at my school are really there for an easy ride; the expectations aren't there so they simply aren't motivated to work. The film was also made in the style of a documentary, and was actually largely unscripted. This meant that it was uncomfortably close to reality! The fact that all the action took place within the school walls (hence the French title I guess...) helped to intensify the feeling that what you see of the pupils is really only half the story, and the same of the teachers.