working hard… ou bien ?

With a few CEG classes taught, community meetings had, and some developing potential ideas, I feel like I am starting to get into a good rhythm of formal work. And I mean that in the most optimistic way possible. About class. As I previously mentioned, I am going to be teaching two classes, about the equivalent of sixth and seventh grade, on lifeskills. So far we’ve talked about relationships in general, more specificially about characteristics of a good friend and peer pressure, and about managing emotions. Let’s just say that it’s been a good learning experience, hopefully for them but most definitely for me.

The sixième class is the first class in CEG, so generally the kids are younger, which means their French is about as good as mine. This makes it hard to communicate well since they’re trying to understand a non-native language coming from a non-native speaker. Not to mention the fact that these are relatively abstract subjects coming at them in an informal and unfamiliar way. The predominent (I want to say almost exclusive) teaching method used is lecture and memorization. I try to be conscious of this when I plan my lessons, but I also want to make it as participatory and interesting as possible while still maintaining order, which has proved to be a challenge for a number of reasons. Between the two classes, cinquième has been the harder of the two, because of some particular personalities plus the number (76 !) of students in the class. The nice thing about this class is that since they are one more year into CEG, their French level is better which makes it easier to communicate. Another nice thing about cinquième is there are a few students I know fairly well outside of class. I’ll leave this CEG, lifeskills class thing on a positive note. Moving on.

I’ve had three meetings with people from the same quartier and I would say they’ve gone pretty well, all things considered. They’ve been short, somewhat organized, and to the point. My purpose in holding the meetings in the first place (after some abiguity on my part) was to get an idea of what they believe and the community’s needs and see what kind of work can be done to meet, or address, those needs. I’ve learned how difficult it is to facilitate this kind of conversation and come up with concrete, feasible ideas. At this point I need to get myself better organized and better at discerning actual needs versus nonpressing desires. I hope the community will be serious about getting organized with me and honest about their needs. Please pray that this be the case.

My developing ideas are, well, developing, so I’ll share those as they progress. That’s that.

Doing everyday life has been a challenge in itself, but how does the saying go? What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, right? Well, I'm still alive and hopefully stronger than I was before I started.