Collège Lachenal: Pen Friends

Talk about déja vu. Here we are, the last day of school, encore! As guest speaker for the day Tuesday, I fielded questions and led discussions in 5 classes of 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th grade English students. For the most part, I asked them to decide the topics that I addressed and they wanted to know about American students’ school day, food, sports, weather – and had I seen many stars?







This question of celebrity spotting simply stunned me. It came up in every class as no other question did. That brought us to the question of national stereotypes, and we made lists. Americans are seen as rich and tall, they eat hamburgers and ketchup, McDonalds and Coke, they drive big cars and live in big houses and often hang out with big stars. I did my best to show Indiana in relation to Hollywood and New York and asked how often they encountered French celebrities. Of course, they scoffed and said, “Are you kidding? We live in Lyon!” I said, “Hey, I live in Indianapolis!”

When I listed typical stereotypes of the French - elegant, sexy women, men who are suave, polished, interested in women and wine, and quick to surrender when courage is required in a crisis - they came quickly back with, “Hey, who came over and won your revolution for you?” A fact that escapes many Americans, who also forget that it took our country almost 3 years from Pearl Harbor to D-Day with all industry tuned to preparing for war to get ready to take on the modern military force that had overrun all of Europe, a Europe that had no time to prepare to meet it, who was urged by its Allies to not prepare for war as a means of avoiding it. We forget that France had time to see the consequences of resisting that force with cavalry and saber in the photos of a leveled Poland, whose capital had been the “Paris of the East.” We are grateful in hindsight that France surrendered to save Paris from bombing, vowing to defeat the occupier another day, for we found great pleasure in the Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower.

These students more than anything remind me of my students, and I would love to find a way to create an affordable exchange of student groups. The lesson I did my best to teach is that we have much more in common than we have differences, that Americans find France exotic and attractive in much the same way that the French find America a paradise of wonders. It’s not a bad thing in a couple in love to admire and long to be like your partner: America and France have a life-long friendship, fraught with moments of high valor and petty squabbles. Vive l’Alliance!