Teaching in France

I've been teaching at an international school and there are three things that repeatedly amaze me each day:

1.  Kids smoke on the school doorstep during break.

The school is located right on the river, with lush lawns for relaxing and kicking around a ball on break. Even in the five-minute break halfway through my two-hour lessons with 16-year-olds, they run outside to play a few frenzied minutes of rugby before racing back in at the sound of the bell. Amazingly those who choose to take a cigarette break don't bother to take more than a few steps past the school front door, and apparently no police or staff bother telling them otherwise. There is a casual "Do not smoke on the doorstep" type sign but I think it's referring to the literal doorstep and by no means the school grounds as a whole.

2.  There is a condom distributor inside the school.

Yes, it's true. This blue box is actually mounted in the corner of a stairwell, for all the elementary, middle and high school students to see. But as Mathieu argued, if some teenagers are going to have sex, better to provide access to condoms in a safe environment when they might be too shy to buy from a pharmacy.

3.  I teach Islam.

I actually teach the History of Islam as required by the French History & Geography curriculum: its origins and its spread of trade, architecture and art in competition with the other warring empires of the time. In the first few classes we had to get through some touchy impressions that these 13-year-olds brought from home and the media (beheadings! The Taliban! The veil! And even, bizarrely, child brides!), in order to get to the creation of the religion which was largely founded on a monotheist empire inspired by Mohammed's exchange with Christian and Jewish people during his travels as a young man, and converting the tribes back home away from their polytheistic beliefs. The histories of Judaism and Christianity and the Crusades are already built into their French classes (they have different subjects in different languages. Amazing.) Next we will delve even deeper into the barbarism of the times with Medieval Europe - featuring a clip from A Knight's Tale. Hoping that I don't tear up in front of the students when I see Heath...

For the 16-year-olds, we are studying the current global population explosion and sustainable development (and unsustainable development, for that matter). Comparing countries and looking at economic trends creates many opportunities to discuss my experiences in Egypt, Australia and Cambodia and extract opinions from these surprisingly mature teenagers. My coworkers have already planned a simulation game with consumers and resource developers and a debate where students will act as country leaders to defend or reject government intervention in population development like China's One Child Policy. I'll savor this period before we move onto our history curriculum: the Renaissance. The adventure continues...