Wednesday, May 21 2003
	Monday, classes as usual, from 9 til noon. Tuesday also. But Tuesday, which was a cold and rainy day, we were to go for an afternoon visit to the local grade school. Some of the students brought picnic lunches and whiled away the ninety minutes between the end of classes and the start of the school visit with a visit to a local brasserie, each quaffing a beer and shooting a few games of pool; Prof. Jeantet used the time to correct the writing assignments that they had submitted that morning...
	The students walked back to the grade school, crossing the not-very-busy street with the help of the school crossing guard who smartly waved her red STOP sign for these unusually tall students. We gathered in front of the school and entered the building at the appointed time, just as the children were engaging in recess during one of the brief sunny interludes of the day.
	We met a number of the host family children who were especially proud to show off their American friends to their classmates. This shot shows Julie with Bethany's French brother Adrien; UA students from years past who remember Adrien as a hellion will be glad to know that he is now a spirited but well-behaved child. No explanation for the change can be found, though Adrien's parents are quite pleased with the current state of affairs!
	After receiving our respective class assignments, the nine students followed the children to nine different classrooms in the grade school to observe how a French classroom is run. The René Cassin school covers grades 1 through 6, and we had the opportunity to see all kinds of classroom activities; at 3pm, classes ended and most of the children remained in the school for supervised activities, ranging from games like Scattergories to learning to use computers for e-mail.
	We didn't observe any great differences with American classrooms, though Dustin remarked that a word from the teacher was enough to quiet the room. We did notice all kinds of posters made by the children which stressed citizenship and the responsibility of each child to be courteous, responsible, and non-violent. One class was running through a detailed lesson in recycling practices; another was discussing social behavior; but others were studying more traditional topics like arithmetic or verb tenses...
	At the end of the day, children engaged in sports ("tag" and "kickball") while others made arts & crafts objects. The photo at right shows Bethany with some of her new-found friends. The school principal invited us to come and participate again whenever we want. Prof. Jeantet will give the school a CD of the pictures and films taken today as a souvenir of our visit.
	Wednesday, morning classes as usual, which was just as well, given the new snow on the mountains and the continuing rain. For lunch we drove out to the Staubli home for the weekly group lunch prepared by Yvette Millot. We ate our salads, spaghetti bolognese, brie cheese and apple tart before heading back into Faverges for our afternoon visit to the L.E.P.
	At the Lycée d'Enseignement Professionnel, (L.E.P.) we were met by the headmaster, Mr. Ortega, who explained the numerous and varied courses of study available in the school. We saw a number of classrooms and an awesome computer graphic design lab before sitting in on a business course, where the French and American students gathered into small groups for conversation and discussion. For many of the French students, this was their first opportunity to meet Americans their own age; the conversations went so well that the teacher, Mrs. Corinne Kuprowski, decided to let the groups continue until the end of the class period.
	We met Mr. Ortega one last time at the end of our visit; the students were glad to see that the sun had come out at last, and decided to go for a walk around Faverges before going home to do their homework. We'll be having class on Thursday and Friday mornings, and may attempt an afternoon outing in the mountains if the weather clears up. Saturday evening we'll be having the A.F.A. dinner, a fund-raiser run by the association to pay for the day trip the A.F.A. offers the students. The association plans to take us to a vineyard in the Combe de Savoie and on to the Grande Chartreuse monastery in the Alps near Grenoble in June, a week after our trip to Paris. On Sunday, Prof. Jeantet and a French friend will be going with two students into northern Italy to photograph the ancestral village of one of our students; we hope to meet some distant cousins of hers, and will be greeted in any case by a couple of locals with whom we have been corresponding by e-mail. A web page about that expedition will be posted probably early next week.
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