Deauville Teaching Assistant
"Mō-lee!
Mō-lee! Mō-lee!" I'd hear these shouts from the swarm of small children as
I made my way through the courtyard. My five year old French students barreled
toward me, threatening to take me out at the knees. They always stopped just in
time to throw themselves around my legs for a second or two, tell me they were
glad to see me, and then would fly off to play once again. How lucky was I that
so many of my days while in Deauville started this way: enthusiastic children
shouting my name and coming to embrace me. The schools of Deauville and
surrounding areas have embraced this program for over 20 years now, and to say
that I loved being a part of it is an understatement.
Being
chosen to represent the Sister Cities Teaching Assistant Program was an honor
and privilege, and the highlight of my early 20s. I had completed my first year
of graduate school and did not want to finish without having returned to
France; the opportunity to teach in France held for me a sort of synergy that
promised to round out my experience there. You see, in 1993-94, I was a
Rotary Scholar in Strasbourg, where I spent my junior year of high school.
Returning to France as a teacher would be the perfect way to bookend my life in
a country I had been studying since middle school. It would also show me that
teaching was what I wanted to do with my professional life.
My
assignment in Deauville was to cover the schools in three rural, adjoining
villages: Saint-Gatien-des-Bois, Tourgéville, and Saint-Arnoult. Today, just as
nearly 20 years ago, the names of these towns conjure images of woods and
saints and things far more romantic or exotic than daily life. But that's what
it was: daily life in a small town. Of course, small town living was so easy
while driving the country roads in our tiny Renault 4, breeze blowing,
listening to the sounds of the French cows and insects (did you know that
French cows do not say "Moo"? French cows say "Meuh").
 |
| Our "vintage" car. |
 |
| "Meuh" |
Small
town living should have been less easy during the flat grey, rainy fall and
winter months but somehow wasn't. Maybe it was the newness of coastal living
for this Kentucky girl, or maybe it was the refreshing lack of bitter cold that
we know here. Or, maybe it was the friendliness of a kindly, older barkeep who
kept us laughing with his stories of American tourists. Or, maybe it was the
local government workers who kept inviting us to their houses for dinner and
conversation.
 |
| Our local barkeep. |
Or,
maybe it was that the French academic calendar is quite generous with vacation
time. We four Americans were able to travel extensively throughout our region
of Calvados, France and Europe more generally. At least three times a week we
would all pile into our clown car and go explore a surrounding village with
nothing more than our wanderlust and a regional map. Our goal was to leave town
using one route and return using another so as to maximize our exposure to our
area. We discovered woody, hilly inland roads and flat coastal roads, villages
and communes with unwieldy names (like Putot-en-Bessin or Saint-Aignan-de-Cramesnil), stunning cliff sides, ancient
churches, and even a piece of the United States at the American
cemetery of Normandy. We visited the tapestry of Bayeux, cathedral of
Rouen that Monet painted and now has bullet holes from the world wars, the
medieval abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel, Point du hoc, castle of Falaise (built
around 1027), and so much more.
This year in Deauville was a foundational experience that
delivered a formation one cannot get from the classroom. This is the type of
education that I hope for not only my children but all of my students and
really, every American. Since that year in Deauville, I came back to Lexington
and finished my master’s degree in French. I taught at UK and Transylvania and
continue to teach today at The Lexington School. I am a strong advocate for the
opportunities and love of language and people and travel and all these
intangibles that comes from study abroad. And I am so happy to serve on the
Sister Cities committee to watch as others embrace the gift.
No comments:
Post a Comment