No limits...the very Frenchness of it.

There something about being a teacher which is both rewarding and giving; it feeds off the excitement & enthusiasm of the students, their sharpness and their curiosity. I have spent years with pupils who have barriers to learning, limitations, confusions, even arrogance...blocks to learning.

But now I find that I have encountered something new, a student who has no apparent limit to their abilities,who is multi directional and socially highly mature. This young lady has a capacity to learn in every area we have shown her, she appears to have no weaknesses and any uncertainties are turned intoto successes. She  is without arrogance or self deceit .

I can honestly say it has been a joy, maybe even a privilege to teach her. She absorbs every experience, every conversation, every activity, every minute with equal & pure passion. This intensity has encompassed logic & problem solving, general knowledge, practical skills like cookery, games like bowling & mini golf, creativity like jewellery making and drawing, she even has a sense of humour. In deed we have yet to find an academic area she does not absorb, develop , blossom & flourish in ...its quite amazing, exhausting and delightful.

So had she limits? Well yes of a sort, and that is in her very Frenchness. This showed itself in a deeply embedded  belief that, her nationality,both  the methods used in learning and indeed the culture itself, must be right; not merely different, but correct.
The example that best shows this is a discussion on table etiquette, because in France how you attend the table,sit, place your hands and eat all have importance.

So how do these cultural differences limit? Well it started as an interesting cultural exchange,talking about the differences and then the phrase 'personal choice' was used. Suddenly it was evident that, though  French culture can accept that other nations may respond differently, fundamentally the French have it correct. They  allow these lapses in their fellow man because they are not French. Well that led to a very interesting debate about 'correctness' and 'change', really fascinating!

So our delightful young  guest returns to Paris and her Baccalaureate studies, wiser in the spoken English word and  importantly in perceptual cultural  differences. After all we learn more from our uncertainties than from our successes...