A rewarding career

This is not the usual type of entry for me. In fact, it is about me!

I am very proud to write that I have been chosen to receive the 2012 Betty Garlick Lifetime Achievement Award by the Michigan Association for the Education of Young Children. If I were in Michigan, I would be able to receive the award in person at the MiAEYC annual conference this Friday. Readers can see a little about MiAEYC and the award at: http://www.miaeyc.org/documents/conferences/annual_conference/final-program.pdf.

The Betty Garlick Lifetime Achievement Award is quite an honor. I am very pleased and honored to have been nominated and selected.

Since I can’t be there to receive the award in person on March 30, I enlisted the help of one of the child care teachers at the crèche – a talented amateur videographer -- to help me create a video expressing my thanks. Domy did a great job. She included images of me singing and interacting with the kids (in English and in French) as well as the actual thank you portion of the DVD. In a small way, I can say that my award acceptance was an international effort.

I would love to include the video here for all to see, but the privacy rights of children are protected here in France much as they are in the US. So the video use is restricted only to its showing at the award ceremony.

Who could have guessed that a part-time job driving a bus for Head Start was going to lead to a lifetime of wonderful, rewarding years of working on behalf of kids? And with volunteer opportunities in child care centers in Lansing and at the crèche here, I get to continue doing what I so enjoy.

Thank you for this award, MiAEYC!

I can't talk right now. I am too busy having fun!

Sounds

In addition to the semi-annual exercise of realizing that “we’re not in Kansas anymore”[i] and we have to adjust our lives and life style, I was awakened the other morning by a train whistle. Trains crisscross Lansing on a regular basis and one can hear train whistles as the trains cross roadways.

Since France has invested in a high-speed rail system where the trains never have to cross a roadway, one rarely hears a train whistle in France. (Vaison la Romaine is not a village with rail service.) In fact, the trains use quiet, electric motors and thus are so quiet, the sound they make is “whoosh” as they speed by. Probably the loudest sound connected with passenger trains is the conductor’s whistle as s/he signals that the train doors are closing. French trains are quite a contrast with the US where the automobile reigns and trains must traverse roads on a regular basis. Even if the US rail system could handle high speed trains, the engineers would still need to maintain lower speeds to reduce risks at railroad crossings.

Given the location of our house, we can hear the vehicular traffic on the expressway that cuts through Lansing just a few blocks from here. There is a constant drone from the interstate. Over the years of walking our dogs in the evening, I have noted that the drone disappears on Sunday evening. I guess Sunday evening television is so good people get home early to watch their favorite programs.

In our village in Provence, one hears the local traffic – often moving too fast – and the annoying sound of motorbikes with two-stroke engines. The motorbikes sound like chainsaws and the teens who ride them love to race everywhere.

In Vaison la Romaine, we are serenaded by a rooster who takes his role very seriously. Starting at 5:00 AM (in the spring), the rooster announces the arrival of a new day and then spends the rest of the day crowing about the success of his prediction. Lansing has passed an ordinance permitting residents to have hens, not roosters. While in France, every time I am awakened by the rooster, I try to go back to sleep by listing the ingredients that go into “Coq au Vin.”

When I volunteer at the crèche, the kids enjoy pointing out jets, planes and helicopters as they fly overhead. Here in the states, if we notice air traffic, it is almost a subconscious awareness. In Vaison, we regularly hear and see the French Air Force jets as they fly by (low and fast) in an eight-jet formation. (The sorties seem less frequent now. My guess is that several of the jets/pilots have been ordered to Libya.)  

I miss the happy screams (or crying) of kids at the crèche on our street in Lansing. The closest child care is about five blocks away and the two toddlers who live in the neighborhood are happy, secure kids who are just beginning to talk, so they are very quiet. I miss hearing one of the teachers at the crèche telling Gaston (not his real name) to go to “time-out.” He spends so much time in “time-out” that it seems that he spends his time there thinking about his next transgression rather than reflecting on why he had to go to “time-out.”

The Rhone Valley from Chateauneuf du Pape

We have had a few severe thunderstorms and tornado warnings recently in Lansing. These weather events usually include high winds but they occur much less frequently than the Mistral winds of Provence. The Mistral blows from the north and brings dry air as it races down the Rhone Valley as it heads to the Camargue on the Mediterranean coast. Vaison la Romaine is situated among several high hills and does not get the full brunt of the wind but our friend Beth who lives at the very edge of the Rhone Valley has said that a person who committed a heinous crime would be able to claim that he temporarily lost his mind due to the Mistral because the winds are so forceful and so constant, it can drive one crazy!

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[i] Wizard of Oz, 1939

Back at the crèche

     It is amazing to compare the kids I left last spring with the new kids who have taken their places at the crèche. It is amazing how much kids at age three change in six months! Getting to observe the changes is awesome.

     Last spring, I ate with kids (six months older) who could manage tableware and succeed in getting the items on fork or spoon all of the way into their mouths. Last Friday, I was actually laughing out loud watching the kids eat/try to eat. Young three year olds eat with their whole face: yogurt on eye lids, carrots on cheeks and applesauce from chin to neck.

     The other difference between last year and this year is that this year I had to read and sign that I understood the new health (disease prevention) procedures. The French are very serious about controlling the spread of H1N1 and expect all who work with kids to do everything that we can to ensure that kids stay healthy.

     I will attend a parent meeting this week. It will be an opportunity for the parents to meet the whole team (toute l’équipe), to see pictures of their kids in action and to hear about the approach to learning.

Child Care à la crèche

One of my priorities for my time after retiring was to go back to my “career roots” and play with kids in child care. After five months of negotiating the French bureaucracy, I have finally been cleared to play with kids at the crèche. I received a letter from the president of the commune in which he confirmed that he had approved my request to volunteer at the center next door to our apartment.

I consider myself extremely fortunate. Ex-pat friends and French friends made me feel very unlikely to succeed in my efforts. The ex-pats said that they had been rebuffed in their efforts to volunteer. The French friends explained the French system and the belief that if the government and the unions had set the appropriate and correct staffing, volunteers would be redundant. Both explained that the French unions also looked askance at volunteers because of the threat of replacing paid employment with a volunteer (much like America’s Head Start program… in which the goal was to garner ‘parent involvement’ but was also a way of keeping staffing costs low…)

The steps were: an informal phone call offering to volunteer followed by a formal letter in which I had to specify my intentions followed by my resume in English and French followed by my certificate of insurance followed by my criminal history clearance (THANKS Jim!). I finally got to meet with the director again and to set up a volunteer schedule. The director had asked her staff who would be willing to take on the responsibility of orienting an American who spoke less French than the kids in the three-year old group… Luckily for me, Frédérique was willing. She has been a real friend – meaning she has been patient with my mistakes in French.

It has been as much fun as I could have predicted. The staff members are all very professional and take their work seriously which makes my role even easier. I haven't met all of the staff yet, but in my short experience, the focus is on the kids - not between the adults. I haven’t asked the specific question related to ratios, but it appears that Frédérique has two assistants and the three of them are responsible for 10 kids. (The 10 kids are all two-/young three-year olds. There may be more than 10 but that is the number of kids who were present last week.)

At “circle time” yesterday, another lead teacher asked me to teach the kids a word game in English. I was not ready for the question – I expected that I needed to learn their songs and word games – so I reverted to “Five little monkeys jumping on the bed…” I will do better.

My time at the crèche should also help improve my French vocabulary. At the end of the afternoon, when we brought the kids in from playing outside, I sat and read books with the kids - mostly picture books for toddlers - but every page or so, I came upon a word that I didn't know or rarely use... For example, raccoon is raton laveur – nice of the French to include the washing function (laveur) in the name. ¿Why is it that the raccoon usually gets the role of sidekick of the protagonist bird/fox/rabbit/caterpillar…?

I had to smile to myself when one of the teachers came over to me and, after offering an insight into the behavior of one of the kids, asked about my background. The questions were fairly light but after asking her questions, I watched as she reported to her colleagues. (The director had told them that I had experience in working with kids but apparently not much more.) I expect that they already have an idea of what a handful I will be…

We took the kids to the library (two children per adult as per the field trip rules) for story time and I learned more songs and words and expressions. At the library, the librarian/story teller asked one of the boys his name. He replied: “Gabing.” His Provençal accent was about the strongest that I have heard from the kids. (In this area, people add a “G” to the end of words ending in “N.”) On the way back from the library, I said to the two children who were holding my hands: “I can’t wait to get to the crèche so we can eat our shoes!” To which even the younger of the two said: “We don’t eat shoes! We eat food!”

And eat well! Yesterday, the lunch was calamari and wild rice in a light cream sauce, beets, apple slices, yogurt and, of course, pieces of baguette. I asked Gabin what wine he would prefer with his calamari but he replied: “more water, please.”

One “snotty-nosed” boy came over to participate in the story I was reading. His nose ran all the way to his chin. How do you say Kleenex in French? I said: “Ça coul. Allons chercher un mouchoir.” (That flows. Let’s go find a handkerchief.) – but, of course, not soon enough. He gave me a hug and left his calling card all over my sleeve…

I have discovered that as I try to memorize the names of the kids and the staff, it seems that foreign names are harder to memorize… Or maybe it is my age… I am, after all, 15 Celsius…

The neatest aspect of the volunteer experience is confirming how of one world we all are. The laughter at my clowning or at my poor French, the joy and excitement of kids explaining everyday events or creating fantasy or the kindness of kids towards each other are the same in any language or culture.