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Madame Gallichet
May. 13th, 2005 02:49 pmI was recently reading a book called French Toast By Harriett Weltby Rochefort. In it she deals with all the little differences between a midwestern American and the Parisian way of life as exemplified by her husband's family.
It's not a great book, although its light tone is charming, but her section on the French educational system and the demeanor of French teachers reminded me of my favorite teacher when I was growing up.
Madame Gallichet didn't start out as my favorite teacher. When I joined Marymount Junior School in the fifth grade, the other girls had all had four years of training. All the French that I'd had was three months from a student teacher in fourth grade and a good accent from having spoken French in nursery school.
Even the dumbest girl in the class was ahead of me. We were starting second group verbs and some of the more obscure tenses, when I'd never learned to conjugate the first group verbs and certainly didn't know the big three of the irregulars (aller, avoir and etre).
As more than once happened when I changed schools, I chose to flunk a class rather than admit that I knew less than everyone else.
And let it be said here that Madame Gallichet was not a prepossessing woman. Her clothes were old, and she had none of the glamor that we all associated with France.
Like most teachers from France (as opposed to French teachers -- who can be from anywhere), she made us stand to greet her when she came in. Even most of the nuns (Sister Xavier excepted -- she was the only nun who made this Protestant girl recite the Hail Mary) had given up the practice.
So here was this dowdy dwarf whose English was less than perfect instructing us in French. She threw out the book other than for accent practice on the first day because it was poor.
My grades for the first several weeks were sturdily in the middle of the pack, around 60%, since even the overachievers didn't see the point in doing well in French class.
Madame gave us little bits of her life. We learned that she spoke seven languages including Persian, but because her English was accented we didn't respect that side of her as much as we should have. I know that my French, while good for an American, will never come close to the level of her English. But back then, I was barely eleven, and I was surrounded by all these Catholic girls who'd known each other forever. I was trying to fit in by treating her as a joke the way they did.
After the first report cards -- where I did well in everything except math and French -- I got sick at school. Seriously sick, my fever was over 100. My mother had just started at a new job and had no leave to come get me. The school, by law, couldn't let me go home early without a parent to pick me up.
The school had no nurse. They had no place to put me other than a sofa in front of the principal's office.
Madame Gallichet saw me there. She brought me water, found a blanket, and ordered Sister Loretto to stop typing so I could sleep. As the day went on, she checked on me after every class, brought me my lunch, and made certain that I didn't throw it up.
She'd been a nurse during the war, she said. I can look at my mental picture of her now and realize that she was, at most, only a few years older than my parents. The war during which she'd nursed must have been the Algerian War and not WWII as I then thought.
At the end of the day, she found my sister and found an adult to drive us home rather than have us walk the mile that we usually did.
I thanked her for everything she'd done and asked her what I could do to repay her.
Madame Gallichet was the first teacher to tell me that I was smart. Others told me that I was a smart-alec or that I didn't work hard enough, but she said, "You're a smart girl." Then she said, "But you do not work at my class. You could be the best student there."
Within three weeks, my average grade in French was 100%.
Madame Gallichet changed nothing about herself or her teaching style to adapt to the Americans. She continued to give out the papers in grade order -- highest first. She had no qualms about telling the students publicly that their grades were zero. She got angry with the students who had the ability and didn't use it, but never with the ones who genuinely couldn't do the work.
My other vivid memory of her came very late in that school year. She was giving out the papers and reading the grades out loud. I was used to my name being the first one. She finally got to the last three papers, the first was a zero and so was the second. The entire class was staring at me in horror, and I know the look on my face probably wasn't duplicated when I thought I was going to die from appendicitis.
"Fabi, 95." She spat out. Someone asked her why my paper was at the bottom. "Because 95 from Fabi is worse than zero from most of you."
I always lived up to her expectations. I cried when I found out that the Commonwealth of Virginia wouldn't let her teach anymore because they'd changed the teacher requirements for private schools.
No other teacher asked as much of me. In most classes, if I got a perfect score, it was because the work was easy.
Madame Gallichet was never easy. But she was a good teacher, and I loved her.
It's not a great book, although its light tone is charming, but her section on the French educational system and the demeanor of French teachers reminded me of my favorite teacher when I was growing up.
Madame Gallichet didn't start out as my favorite teacher. When I joined Marymount Junior School in the fifth grade, the other girls had all had four years of training. All the French that I'd had was three months from a student teacher in fourth grade and a good accent from having spoken French in nursery school.
Even the dumbest girl in the class was ahead of me. We were starting second group verbs and some of the more obscure tenses, when I'd never learned to conjugate the first group verbs and certainly didn't know the big three of the irregulars (aller, avoir and etre).
As more than once happened when I changed schools, I chose to flunk a class rather than admit that I knew less than everyone else.
And let it be said here that Madame Gallichet was not a prepossessing woman. Her clothes were old, and she had none of the glamor that we all associated with France.
Like most teachers from France (as opposed to French teachers -- who can be from anywhere), she made us stand to greet her when she came in. Even most of the nuns (Sister Xavier excepted -- she was the only nun who made this Protestant girl recite the Hail Mary) had given up the practice.
So here was this dowdy dwarf whose English was less than perfect instructing us in French. She threw out the book other than for accent practice on the first day because it was poor.
My grades for the first several weeks were sturdily in the middle of the pack, around 60%, since even the overachievers didn't see the point in doing well in French class.
Madame gave us little bits of her life. We learned that she spoke seven languages including Persian, but because her English was accented we didn't respect that side of her as much as we should have. I know that my French, while good for an American, will never come close to the level of her English. But back then, I was barely eleven, and I was surrounded by all these Catholic girls who'd known each other forever. I was trying to fit in by treating her as a joke the way they did.
After the first report cards -- where I did well in everything except math and French -- I got sick at school. Seriously sick, my fever was over 100. My mother had just started at a new job and had no leave to come get me. The school, by law, couldn't let me go home early without a parent to pick me up.
The school had no nurse. They had no place to put me other than a sofa in front of the principal's office.
Madame Gallichet saw me there. She brought me water, found a blanket, and ordered Sister Loretto to stop typing so I could sleep. As the day went on, she checked on me after every class, brought me my lunch, and made certain that I didn't throw it up.
She'd been a nurse during the war, she said. I can look at my mental picture of her now and realize that she was, at most, only a few years older than my parents. The war during which she'd nursed must have been the Algerian War and not WWII as I then thought.
At the end of the day, she found my sister and found an adult to drive us home rather than have us walk the mile that we usually did.
I thanked her for everything she'd done and asked her what I could do to repay her.
Madame Gallichet was the first teacher to tell me that I was smart. Others told me that I was a smart-alec or that I didn't work hard enough, but she said, "You're a smart girl." Then she said, "But you do not work at my class. You could be the best student there."
Within three weeks, my average grade in French was 100%.
Madame Gallichet changed nothing about herself or her teaching style to adapt to the Americans. She continued to give out the papers in grade order -- highest first. She had no qualms about telling the students publicly that their grades were zero. She got angry with the students who had the ability and didn't use it, but never with the ones who genuinely couldn't do the work.
My other vivid memory of her came very late in that school year. She was giving out the papers and reading the grades out loud. I was used to my name being the first one. She finally got to the last three papers, the first was a zero and so was the second. The entire class was staring at me in horror, and I know the look on my face probably wasn't duplicated when I thought I was going to die from appendicitis.
"Fabi, 95." She spat out. Someone asked her why my paper was at the bottom. "Because 95 from Fabi is worse than zero from most of you."
I always lived up to her expectations. I cried when I found out that the Commonwealth of Virginia wouldn't let her teach anymore because they'd changed the teacher requirements for private schools.
No other teacher asked as much of me. In most classes, if I got a perfect score, it was because the work was easy.
Madame Gallichet was never easy. But she was a good teacher, and I loved her.
