Greve!!

So, I'm leaving on vacation tomorrow. Well, not really leaving at first, just meeting Margo in Paris and showing her around for a week, and then I'm leaving to Slovakia for about4 days, and then 24 hours in Milan!! When I get back I'll put up more pictures, as it's been so long...sorry.

This will just be a short little post, but lately there has been very interesting going-ons at school. Since school started up again, there have been 3 teachers strikes (or greve) and today was a lycee mort (dead high school), meaning the students were on strike. I think I saw about a total of 30 students that came for classes today, out of 1500. The teachers were all there, however. But I didn't have to do anything, surprise surprise.

The strikes have all been over the same thing. Once a student trying to be a teacher passes a test, they have a job, but not necessarily a post. So, what the government wants to do is condense class sizes so they are up to 35 students per group. This will take away jobs in every school and make it that much more difficult for new teachers to find a post. They will also take away paid work time. I think there might be more to it as well, but that's all I know about it. I haven't been allowed to participate in the strikes as I'm not French, but when there is a strike it generally means that I don't have anything to do. According to the teachers I work with, it could be like this until the school year is over! It's insane. When the teachers strike, only half (or less) of the students come to school because if their teachers are striking, they don't have class. (They only do long-term substitutes here, no one-day substitutes when teachers are sick or gone)

Well, that's been my life this week, as there have been 2 strikes in just the last 3 days. So... I've taught 2 out of my last 6 classes...life's hard.