i meet with three voluntary "terminale" groups every week-- seniors who come to conversation classes to practice english in a relaxed environment.
last week the kids in one of these classes told me that next week, we were going to have class in a cafe instead of at school. i said, uh, ok. a few days later i saw one of the students near the bakery and she told me, hey, remember what we said? we're having class in a cafe, and we'll pay for your breakfast and coffee, ok? i laughed and said, yeah, i love how you're telling me how i'm going to run my class. she didn't flinch and said, yeah, ok, in the cafe, right?
true to their word, at the beginning of class today they were ready to get some coffee (i think most of them wanted to study for their economics test, too). i told them i had a couple of requests: that we would speak in english as much as possible, that we were to keep this quiet, that i had to be back by 10 and that we should do this once a month.
yippie! we had fun. it was three boys and three girls. they took me to a bar down the street-- kids can drink beer and wine in bars at the age of 16-- but this "bar" was more like a smoky coffee shop. in fact, it was so smoky when we arrived that it looked almost foggy. there were other students from school, too, most of whom i recognized. my kids provided a bag of croissants and bought me a tea and mostly studied for their economics exam later but we actually did speak a lot in english, and some other girls came over to join us and insisted on teaching me more bad words in french.
i'm lucky to have such cool kids.
my friends want me to reapply for this job next year. they say, hey, why not, you can always turn it down, do it for a backup. in terms of karma, i'm not sure. i've got a great school, great kids, teachers, apartment, etc. surely i'd get a shit school next year in no where, france? hard to say. it'd be damn hard, though, the be as cool as this is now.