(Posted by Anjali)

Ecole Lucie Aubrac

My school in Béziers is so good. It is bigger than your average middle school. Or collège I should say. There are 700 kids, aged 11-15, in grades 6-9 or, in France, 6ième, 5ième, 4ième and 3ième. My school is called Collège Lucie Aubrac. Lucie Aubrac was a woman who did a great deal of things in the French resistance movement and died in 2006. The school was built two years before she died; therefore the school is fairly new.

The courtyard is not like the courtyards in Canada though, because there are no playgrounds or fields. All there is is a small space where all the kids retreat to at recess. It is so small that it is amazing that I can actually breathe. And the worst part is that they lock us in there with all the older kids. The older kids basically ignore us though; all they want to do is start fights, smoke cigarettes and talk on their cell phones.

Everyone has cell phones. EVERYONE! Some of the kids got their cell phones when they were in grade two. If their cell phones go off in class they get a detention! So far only two people in my class have got detentions. I hate to think what has happened in the older grades. But most of them don’t have internet. So they don’t have email either. I think that it’s a good thing that they aren’t allowed to use their cell phones in the hallways though, because if you don’t watch where you’re going…

The View From My School

The hallways are always packed. They aren’t very big and at each end of the hallway there are HUGE swinging doors. You can’t even imagine how much it hurts when one of the doors “accidentally” swings into your face when you’re running at top speed to get to one of your many classes.

I have lots of teachers and classes. Too many teachers maybe. I have eight in total, but more than eight classes. I have two teachers for gym, one for art, music, French, math, SVT (science), English and technology. Then I have one teacher for history, geography and civics (social studies). Her name is Mme. Lesage and she is really nice. In gym we are doing swimming and… rugby. I never really cared about rugby and now I hate it!

My favourite class is French because the teacher is really funny. In French we are learning about Molière who is the equivalent of Shakespeare. We are also doing miming. It is a lot of fun. But nothing can compare to English.

“ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ” sing all the little kiddies. I am trying my hardest not to laugh. But it is impossible. At least I don’t have to sing along. I just do my home school English work and try to be silent. I find it amazing, though, that for 75 percent of the kids, it is their first time ever doing English. On my first day, my friend asked me to say something in English. I said the first thing that came to my brain. “What is your favourite colour?” She had no idea what I was talking about. The first time that I got my English textbook I started to read it. It was uber easy.

Winding Streets on the Way to School

All the books are really heavy though and I have to walk to school every day with all my textbooks. All the textbooks + all the notebooks = super heavy bag. Ugh.

When I walk to school it takes me 12 minutes. I walk alone down little winding streets. It isn’t too hard or too long. The only problem though is the poo. But that is another story!