Montessori school shelves with toys. Photo: 3neus

In a three-part blog Camille Bromley describes a day in the life of a teacher at the Montessori International School of Grenoble. Read part I.

7:38 am

Bus stop, Place Verdun.  As the number 31 bus to Meylan: Maupertius approaches I’m hastily devouring the remaining third of my Big Chocolate, freshly purchased for 1 euro from Sandwich House located behind the Maison de Tourisme tram stop, outgoing side. Ordinarily the Big Chocolates from this Sandwich House are not especially good pain au chocolat, but they’re easily the size of two regular pain au chocolat, a good bargain at 1 euro (the American in me is always a sucker for bargains), and in the morning when they’re warm they’re still pretty darn tasty.

The Big Chocolate is the ritual first step in my once-weekly workday as an English teacher at Montessori International Primary School in Meylan, as this is the only day in the week I exit the house early enough to catch one while still warm. The other days of the week I work as an English assistant in public primary schools.

Teaching at Montessori International School is not like teaching in French public school.  It’s vastly different, in fact.  If you’re not familiar with what’s called the Montessori Method, I’ll briefly explain: The Montessori Method of children’s education was originally developed in the early 20th century by an Italian educator named Maria Montessori. It’s an alternative approach to schooling, encouraging a child’s individual self-directed learning using the support of materials and teacher observation. 

From what I understand, while many schools worldwide function under the heading of Montessori School there are no defined guidelines for the specific practical application of this education system. However, the general idea is that children learn best when they follow their natural instincts and interests. In other words, it’s self-study for kids; less academically-put, the kids do what they feel like.

This “do-what-you-feel-like” philosophy is most decidedly not the norm in French public schools, from what I’ve seen in my year’s experience there, the essential part of a teacher’s oral utterances consisting of phrases such as, non, tu n’as pas le droit!; vous levez la doigt pour avoir la parole!; TAISEZ-VOUS! [yelled shockingly loud]; vous êtes insupportables aujourd’hui! [tone of resignation and accompanying sigh]; and finally the much-loved Bravo!, with exaggerated sarcasm. Thus, Montessori International reputedly offers an alternative to parents who prefer their kids to receive more positive encouragement than negative during the first 6–9 years of their educational development.

However, I haven’t given an entirely clear picture of the Montessori International School in Meylan. This school is foremost an international school, with instruction provided in French and English. I am the English-instruction teacher (on Mondays anyways), and a woman with a confounding last name, Martine Grzelak, functions as school director and French-instruction teacher. 

We take care of the primary-age children, age 6–12. The children in this group, about 25 of them, are mostly Francophone, with a solid group of Anglophones and couple French-English bilingual kids. There is another, separate class of students at the school, the pre-school age group (ages 3–6), also Francophone or Anglophone or both, headed by Emilie Ballivy. The pre-schoolers are called Les petits castors, which gives an accurate impression of their work ethic and focused accomplishment under the guidance of Ms. Ballivy.

The school makes use of an impressive collection of Montessori materials and supplies, and the curriculum is organized around the French National Education program, so that children are expected to cover a similar material to public school students. More on the Montessori Method as the day progresses.

Part II

Part III

Part III

12:00 pm

Lunchtime. The microwave cart is wheeled in, desks are cleared, chairs fetched. The students eat in the classroom. The children are expected to be settled quietly in their chairs, ask to go wash their hands, and then ask to get their lunchboxes before they are allowed to eat. Meanwhile, the child in charge of setting the table this week goes to get the silverware and dishes.   

12:30 pm

Everyone is finally sitting and has more or less the complete tableware set in front of them: plate, fork, knife, little yogurt spoon, and plastic cup (Martine’s cabinet has slowly but surely been rid of all the glassware glasses, not intentionally).

The table setting procedure always takes much longer than is logically necessary, probably because the child assigned to set the table is for some reason 90% of the time the same small boy, who due to his diminutive size and severely ADD nature seems the absolute worst person in the room to give the task of distributing various separate pieces of cutlery to students sitting in disorganized clumps around the big room, not to mention that when you see him trying to lug the heavy glass water pitchers around to each table you get the sinking sense of futility of watching someone trying very hard to complete a Sisyphean task. Half the pitcher will have been emptied on the floor by the time he gets to the table, and he’ll be sent to get more in five minutes.

I send the children in groups of two or three to the cloakroom to get their lunchboxes. I imagine that you can tell a lot about the home life of individual children from their lunchboxes. A lot of the older children seem to have the freedom to creatively fashion their own concept of a meal; there’s a group of three girls (who aggressively defy the assertion that social cliques don’t exist in small schools) that bring their lunches in family-style portions to share with each other: a bag of Lay’s potato chips, a Tupperware box of pasta and sauce, an entire sleeve of Speculoos cookies.

The Anglophone children belong to a different breed of household, one that clearly holds in contempt the irresponsible consumption of low nutrient-to-calorie ratio foods and environmentally unfriendly packaging. S—, a six-year-old with extraordinary feminine style (how a child of that age is able to exude such class is beyond me), declares matter-of-factly that she hates ice cream and cake. Her treat of choice is the green pressed seaweed paper that sushi rolls come wrapped in — in French it’s translated as algae, which expresses better, I think, the total bizarreness of a six-year-old reveling in the taste of a seaweed wrap (imagine an apple cheeked little girl saying with a charming missing-front-tooth smile, “My favorite food is algae”).  

1:15 pm

The kids are fairly hopping to get outside after a full morning of being together in one room. They go into the cloakroom to remove their slippers and put on their outside shoes, most of which resemble work boots or what English people call “wellies” rather than the slick bright white Pumas or the metallically shiny girl-sized heels (!) public school children wear. This is because the playground provided for amusement and the venting of various child frustrations during the lunch recess is not actually a playground, it’s an empty field behind the Montessori school building accessible only by a quick jump across a ditch (a wide step for you or me, a brief air-bound thrill for the 11-year-olds, and an unbreachable chasm for the 3-year-olds, who nevertheless enjoy the jump immensely so long as you’re holding their hand.

Supervising, I can’t help thinking that innovative playground developers, with their tangle of curved colored bars and knotted rope systems, are entirely missing the point — the kids have more fun rolling around in the grass and throwing rocks at trees than with any preconstructed equipment education authorities can buy. I’m reminded how innocent and sweet children are at heart when I hear G— and S— playing a sort of tag-zombie game which seems to consist of yelling “I’m going to suck your brain!” and attempting to grab the skull of another player.

2:00 pm

Emilie and I file the children back into school, past the company workers in button up shirts and pencil skirts taking their smoke break. Monday afternoon is devoted to art class and Spanish class, and the children are sent in small groups to participate in those activities. Otherwise, the students can continue the projects of the morning. The students complete impressive individual projects throughout the year that don’t sacrifice depth or quality for the lack of collaborators.

S— is working on a postcard project; she’s contacting friends and acquaintances across the U.S., asking them to send her postcards at the Montessori school address, teaching her about their town or state. She’s gathered a large number of postcards and will organize them into a visual presentation. O— has completed a project about the state of Israel, its history, people, and culture, and the poster is hanging on the classroom wall.

One of the goals of the Montessori school is to effectively link all subjects together in the child’s mind; to create a truly interdisciplinary understanding of the world. This objective makes for very creative project ideas, and the results are evident in the variety of student-made artwork and presentations on display around the school.

3:30 pm

The school day is over, but many students will stay for the next one to two hours, playing the gymnasium or participating in an activity Martine or Emilie has organized. I, however, say my rounds of “See you next week” and am out the door.

The next day I’ll be at one of the public primary schools in Grenoble. Not being an education expert, I’m not going to offer my judgment of the effectiveness of the education system in public schools compared to the Montessori approach. The purposes and needs of the two school systems are vastly different and require different methods of teaching and classroom management. Montessori schools may give more individual attention, but they also provide a lot less guidance and structure. This may or may not work well, depending on the character of each individual child. One thing I do know, however, is that I’ll be doing a lot more yelling in my public school.

Part I

Part II

For more information:
http://www.montessori-grenoble.com/UK/school-montessori-grenoble.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori

Part II

8:12 am

Terminus on the number 31 bus line. The bus halts in front of a grouping of new, enterprise-y looking buildings with big reflective glass windows framed in a shade of blue that suggests innovation and forward-thinking. The school is rather unexpectedly housed in one of these buildings, towards the back of the complex, sharing quarters with some kind of company that requires men and women in business attire to enter and exit through the same doors as the free-spirited, frequently-in-high-speed-motion Montessori kids.

The school is essentially three large rooms, the primary schoolroom, the pre-school room, and the gym, which is carpeted and doubles as an art studio and Spanish nook. There is also Martine’s office, a nap room for the preschoolers, a storage room, and a cloakroom where the children hang their coats, bags, and change their shoes into indoor shoes. They are only allowed to wear slippers inside the school, as it is carpeted. This reminds me of Japanese schools, except that here the children are allowed to bring their own slippers. In Japan the slippers are part of the uniforms and must be regulation color and design.

8:45 am

The kids wander in the room one by one and are by this time more or less all present. After some general comments and reminders, Martine starts the weekly routine of designating “responsibilities” onto each child. This is performed by use of a chart listing cleaning tasks to be completed each day and a small canvas sack containing the names of each child on Velcro tabs.

It took me a few months to figure out that the responsibility entitled Muffin referred to the class hamster. Insisting that the responsibilities be assigned by a random pull from the bag, Martine cheats openly on her own rule by fishing for names that she believes merit a particular nasty chore this week. The kids either suffer tremendously from the injustice of this favoritism or get a kick out of it, depending on how you choose to interpret the situation.

The responsibilities I find to be an ingenious system for ensuring an attitude of collective care and respect from all the students towards the cleaning and upkeep of the school room and materials. By being allowed to choose, in a fashion, what chore they do each week the child is given some autonomy and feels like she’s making a voluntary decision to contribute. This is probably a distinctive Montessori touch. Japanese schoolchildren also clean the school as part of their daily duties, although there they are responsible for the bathrooms as well, which I remain convinced is a mistake (imagine how what kind of clean job a second-grader might do on a bathroom — then repeat that every day for the whole year).

8:52 am

Work time. The children are either broken up into groups or sent to a desk to work individually. All the primary school kids, from 6 to 12, work in the same room, some in groups and some independently, and they pursue different activities. Martine keeps an eye on all of them and remains aware of how they’re doing and what progress they’re making, a remarkable feat for about 15 different students and different levels.

There are no set subject periods or age groups. The children have more or less the choice to work on one activity the entire morning or change subjects freely. There’s no morning recess, although there is a snack, which the children are expected to provide, following a rotation schedule. If the children tire of one activity and want to do some less-strenuous but still constructive activity such as reading, it is permitted within reason.

I take the group of English speakers. There are two first grade girls, a third grader, a fifth grader, and sometimes a first grade boy. We either do a language-arts activity all together, harder versions adapted for the third and fifth graders, or I split them up to work in pairs or alone. It’s my choice based on what we’re doing that day and how well the children are working together. When the English speakers take breaks to work on another subject, I choose a group of French children to do an English language lesson.

11:00 am

With Martine in the room, the classroom functions smoothly. With some notable exceptions, the children work quietly, although their rate of productivity is subject to debate. Clearly, some children are more ideal Montessori students than others. A group of three boys writes a bilingual dialogue together concerning an inept motorist and a driving instructor for their upcoming play. Another boy does French grammar exercises on the computer. A girl visualizes multiplication with wooden beads and a counting board.

Meanwhile, little G— sulks at his desk, complaining that his work is “too hard” and he doesn’t “understand nuffing,” and I— doodles on the margins of his essay and gazes out the window. I remind I— to get back to his work and Martine appears over G—‘s shoulder to investigate the veracity of his claim.

Part I

Part III

Mas du Bruchet, Meylan

Anne-Marie Ferguson and her husband run the Le Mas du Bruchet Bed & Breakfast in Meylan. Here is their story of how they set about restoring the building and its original vineyards. 

“In the upper reaches of Meylan, close to the slope of the mountain, there was a small white cottage, surrounded with vineyards and gardens, from where there is a plunging view on the Isère Valley”*, thus spoke Berlioz about this place in his memoirs. 

This is also how my parents discovered, when they bought the property in 1957, that they were the lucky owners of a very special place. When my husband Michael and myself took the place over from my family, the house and its adjacent barn were surrounded by five hectares of land covered with a thick forest. We found an old picture in the Archives of Meylan, showing the white house, surrounded by vineyards. It then went through our mind that we would rather have a view on a vineyard than a forest. And so started our adventure. 

To begin with, Michael took a correspondence course with the Wine School of Beaune in Burgundy, which he completed within two years. The academic part done, the land needed preparation. We hired a landscape company that spent three weeks cutting the trees, digging stumps out and burning them (we had a huge fire going on for all that time). He then levelled the land which was on a 14° slope, and finished preparing it for plantation. 

We then gathered a bunch of devoted friends over one weekend and in spring 1998, planted the first plot of 3,600 wine plants. That lesson learned, for the next plantation of 9,700 plants, we hired professionals, who spent three full days at their task. Michael chose the Verdesse grape varietal, a traditional and local plant that had nearly vanished, as it was considered as a capricious and irregular plant. Michael was convinced that this varietal had qualities that could be the basis for a great wine and set out to prove it. 

The first small harvest being scheduled for three years later, we had time to organize a cellar. We bought a second-hand wine press, a pump, and stainless steel vats from Teisseire in Bernin, from which emanated lovely lemon sirop flagrances! We have since invested in wooden barrels where our vintage is kept for 18 months. 

In 2003, we restored the adjacent barn and built a traditional vaulted wine cellar on its subterranean part. Above, we created four rooms that we turned into a Bed & Breakfast we named Le Mas du Bruchet. We welcome businessmen and travellers from around the world and if they happen to be with us during the harvest and fermentation time, they have the privilege of enjoying the sweet smell of fermenting must as they enter the building! 

In 2004 and again in 2009, our efforts were rewarded as our Verdesse won the gold and silver prize, at the concours des vins de l’Y grenoblois. We surprised many locals, who predicted that we could produce nothing extraordinary with the local grapes and terroir. We have now a regular following of people who come to our cellar on the property, and proudly introduce a bottle of Verdesse wine from Meylan on their table or counter!

* Translation © 2004-2010 Monir Tayeb and Michel Austin. All rights reserved. See the full text here.

'Crise immobilière'. Photo: _02_

 Grenoble Life editor James Dalrymple shares his personal experience as a first-time home buyer in the Captial of the Alps – and is happy to report that it’s not all bad news!

Now that I am starting to see a flicker of light at the end of the rather dank and cavernous tunnel called home-buying, I feel compelled to share some of my observations. Whereas I can confirm its status as one of life’s more arduous experiences, it has not been worse than I had anticipated, for no-one ever said it would be a breezy walk in the park with a big piece of cake.

Before deciding to buy a flat I’d had several friends trying to re-educate me on the value of renting for life; unconvinced by the merits of life-long debt and the likelihood of paying the price of one’s property several times over in interest. “Be cash rich and asset poor,” these savvy characters insisted, pointing to the lower home maintenance costs and fewer taxes for locataires (for example the annual taxe foncière is only levied upon owners, not tenants).

One fact of life as propriétaire in a co-property is that one can face hefty fees if the exterior of the entire building has to be repainted, or if there is a shared heating system to be replaced: neither a tenant’s problem. Owning one’s own home, though, is pretty much brainwashed into Brits as a rite of passage, even if we have to accept that we can’t necessarily afford what our incredibly lucky baby-boomer parents had. When my career is over, however, I would like to have paid for my home, and be able to subsist rent-free on whatever meagre pension I have accrued.

To quote a Grenoble Life contributor, Felicity Lodge – whose article Arranging your finances in France is well worth a read - ”buying a property in France is highly regulated”.  I concur, and there are some major pros and cons to the regulation. She goes on to say, “the amount you can borrow is controlled so loan payments and any other regular obligations cannot be more than 33% of your monthly income (net of social charges)”. This may seem strict but the French are a prudent people, and the banking culture befits a country less footloose with borrowing. The kinds of problems that led to the sub-prime crisis in the US couldn’t have originated in France. Likewise, credit is not as easily available as in the UK, and I have the impression that people are more sensible with their disposables.

The upside of a regulated home buying process is that there is less risk. Once you have agreed a price with a seller, you can engage the process via a specialised lawyer (a notaire) who manages the sale from then on. Once you have signed the pre-contract compromis de vente, there is little chance of being gazumped given that the seller would subject themselves to a significant fine if they chose to break it.

In Britain you stand the risk of having incurred legal and surveying costs only for the seller to pull out in the 11th hour to accept a better offer from a rival buyer. That this gazumping is allowed to stand in the UK is obscene, one feature of the county’s rather lunatic housing market. In France, however, the absence of risk comes at a cost: namely 6-8% of the sale price. This covers all legal, tax and surveying concerns, but certainly amounts to much more than the sum of those individual costs in Britain: and most of it goes directly to the government. This fact lends credence to the idea that renting is better value than buying – it is an enormous financial consideration to face on top of one’s downpayment, and a serious obstacle to owning a number of different properties in one’s life.

In the event our notaire was good value for money, something of a showman in fact. Having let his juniors take care of the preliminaries we were marched into his office for the final exchange of contracts. With well-honed comic timing and vigorous gesticulating, his beautifully flowing oration was magnificent to behold: condensing a summary of France’s unsurprisingly substantatial housing law into an hour-long address. Furthermore there were some last minute complications with the bank but he - a force of nature not to be meddled with - was by then sufficiently committed to our purchase to bang some heads together at the bank to keep the ball rolling.

Personally I could see no advantage in approaching an agence immobilière (estate agency). Assuming that you have an idea in which quartier you would like to buy, and the appropriate value for a property in that area, you can search for private sellers online on sites such as Paruvendu and Leboncoin. We negotiated directly with the seller, bypassing the middle man. Given that the notaire conducts a thorough survey of the property and that you can withdraw without charge at the signing of the compromis de vente, then the need to work with an agent did not make itself apparent to me.

If, like me, you are a first time buyer in France, you could be entitled to a zero per cent loan of up to around 30,000 euro. Such loans, and their duration, are defined by your means. We qualified for approximately half of the thirty, and it has to be repaid within the first six years of our mortgage.  However, we found ourselves in the slightly sticky position of having (for reasons too boring to explain here) to apply for this from a different bank to that from which we had agreed our principal mortgage. Of course, the bank from which we were requesting the zero per cent loan held us captive while they tried in vain to beat the mortgage we had secured from our other bank, and upon realising they couldn’t do it, saddled us with a rather inept trainee to administrate the loan.

Trying to get a bank to hurry up (necessary when deadlines have been imposed by the notaire) when there is essentially no profit in it for them is quite futile – more so when you’re main contact hasn’t a clue what he is doing. Amusingly, said bank tried to fob us off by saying something along the lines of “there’s so much admin involved in this loan that it’s hardly worth it”. That’s right, admin not worth potentially thousands of euros – I don’t think so! However, they almost had a point, the sheer quantity of justificatifs required would have impressed even the most hardened of fonctionnaires. Just the photocopying and stapling drew a Herculean effort from our trainee bank manager, who made a clerical task seem like Fort Boyard.

Anyway, now that the boxes that once dominated the flat start to empty and disappear, and life seems worth living again, we can look forward to the much fabled tax credit for first time buyers: apparently the interest we pay on our mortgage is deductible from our annual income tax bill for the first five years of repayment. Rumour has it that if the interest is greater than your obligations, the French government start mailing you cheques. I’ll let you know next September. These advantages put a little shine to the lie that renting is throwing you’re hard-earneds away to a landlord whereas paying a mortgage is like putting money in your own piggy bank. A mortgage is still (in my case) a 25-year burden, but on balance I think it’s worth it.

Rebecca Skillman at work

Rebecca Skillman practices shiatsu from her home near Uriage and also in a well-being centre in Meylan. From the UK originally, she did her practitioner training in Bristol before moving to France at the end of 2004. Grenoble Life wanted to find out more.

Grenoble Life: What is shiatsu and what are the health benefits?

Rebecca Skillman: Shiatsu is a type of massage. It comes from Japan and literally means finger pressure. As well as fingers, I use my palms, elbows, knees – depending on what part of the body is being worked on. I may also include some stretches and other movements to free up the body and release the tensions that many of us develop.

Have a look at www.shiatsuinfo.org to see the range of health benefits (just about every condition can benefit since mind and body are so intricately linked). On the site there’s also a summary of recent research which shows that science is now backing up what practitioners have known for decades about the positive effects of shiatsu. But here in France it’s important not to shout too loudly about this as shiatsu is only recognised as l’art du bien-être – fine as far as it goes, but it can work at a much more profound level for those who want that.

GL: Where did you train and how long have you been practicing shiatsu in Grenoble?

Rebecca: I trained at the British School of Shiatsu, in the UK, between 2001 and 2004 and I’ve been practising in France since the beginning of 2005.

GL: Was it difficult to set up your business in Grenoble?

Rebecca: I am in an association, Chemins du Bien-être, and that works fine because I have a modest level of activity. Since I moved here the auto-entrepreneur statute – a new law aimed at helping small businesses register themselves legally and more simply – has been introduced and I may investigate this further.

GL: Describe a shiatsu session with you.

Rebecca: In an initial session I would spend 5–10 minutes getting to know what the client is hoping for from the session and whatever they want to tell me about what’s going on in their life. The more I understand this the better I can judge what type of session will give most benefit – each session is unique. I think I can safely guarantee that it will always be relaxing on a physical level. But, by putting the receiver in touch with their body, and all the emotions that are bound up with it, shiatsu can also support and release a range of emotional issues and help the person move forward in their life.

A typical treatment lasts 45–50 minutes and takes place on a futon mattress at floor level. The receiver is clothed and the style of touch is a gentle (or vigorous) pressure rather than the sweeping movements of, say, Californian massage. It can therefore suit people who prefer a more neutral and less intimate touch than with oil-based therapies.

GL: Is shiatsu well known in France, compared to in your native country?

Rebecca: Shiatsu is becoming increasingly well known in France. It is supported by professional bodies like the FFST, and if you are looking for a practitioner in any département you can start by looking on their website. Shiatsu is now sufficiently well recognised for mutuelles like Alptis to include it in the therapies they reimburse. That said, the relationship between the medical establishment and complementary therapies is not as developed as in, say, the UK. And shiatsu is not integrated into public healthcare to the same extent.

GL: What reaction have you had from your customers?

Rebecca: People sometimes say they feel lighter – or even that they felt like they had wings! And several have noticed an improved range of movement with muscular-skeletal imbalances. They often sleep better. And the effect can last days or even longer.

Some feedback from my clients:

« Celà a été vraiment très, très efficace, et que je n’hésiterai pas à en parler autour de moi. »

“I felt very good after the massage – positive and energised.”

« Je te remercie pour ce beau travail qui passe par tes mains, tes gestes, ta tête, ton accueil de ta personne et de ton intuition. Une invitation à ce que la vie et l’énergie trouvent un chemin pour circuler. »

“I just wanted to thank you again today for the Shiatsu – it really was a great session. My hips, etc. were really tight yesterday and now I feel great. In general, afterwards, I feel physically better than I have in a while.”

GL: How can we book a shiatsu session with you?                        

Rebecca: You can contact me by email (rebecca_wwng (at) yahoo.com) or phone (04 76 00 06 13).

Patricia Andreoli-Jones at the Bibliothèque Anglophone de Meylan

Patricia Andreoli-Jones set up and runs the Bibliothèque Anglophone de Meylan. James Dalrymple of Grenoble Life talked to her about the history of the library, the book collection and her international background.

Grenoble Life: You have an interesting international background, please tell us more …

Patricia Andreoli-Jones: I was born in 1956, Bromley, UK. Having been brought up from 1962 in Vevey, Switzerland, I emigrated to Sydney, Australia, in 1981, and then Munich, Germany in 1988, where I met a good-looking French guy (Jean-Marc Andreoli) in 1992 and married him in 1993. We moved to Meylan, near Grenoble, in September 1993 for Jean-Marc’s job, before having two children, Lauren and Julien, in 1993 and 1995.

Having worked in Switzerland, Australia and Germany as a trilingual secretary, upon arrival in Meylan I passed the TEFL and  taught English to adults in our local association and in language schools, and to children in primary schools, before founding the Bibliothèque Anglophone de Meylan (BAM), a non-profit association.

GL: When and why was the library created?

PA: I opened the library in October 2006 with 500 books. Our American neighbour and friend of 10 years moved back to the US, leaving a couple of hundred books, and I had quite a few myself. I’d been looking for a place to start a library for over a year without success, when I met the late director of the ARIES computer graphics schools, who immediately said yes with great enthusiasm. He saw it as a great opportunity for his students to have easy access to the English language, so it would serve two purposes, the students and the general public.

GL: How many books are there and how were they acquired?

PA: There are over 2000 books, many donated, some bought at local bookshops but also at the Geneva English Library twice-yearly book-sale, and at Hay-on-Wye in England, a very small town famous for its 30 second-hand bookshops.

GL: What type of books can we find in the collection?

PA: Novels, romance, thrillers, crime, science-fiction, non-fiction, for children, teenagers and adults. All are catalogued on the website.

GL: How do you update the collection?

PA: When a popular author publishes a new book I try to buy it. Or on request. My favorite subscribers are those who have the same tastes as I and will ask for exactly the book I was going to get anyway! [laughs]

BAM books!

GL: Who comes to the library?

PA: French and English-speaking people, families and employees from Inovallée’s 200 companies. Some work in the same company but meet for the first time at the library.

GL: Does the library host activities and how can people get information about them?

PA: The library is too small to host activities, but anything new such as a didgeridoo party [playing and listening to the didgeridoo is one of Patricia's hobbies], or an Open Door day is advertised on our website. The catalogue is also online, as well as a photo and press gallery, a page with recipes specialising in English and Welsh cakes, and sweets which can be eaten at the Open Door days during the year. Anyone with good recipes is encouraged to email me, I’ll add them to the site.

GL: What advice would you give to book-loving expats new to the city?

PA: Although a book, tea and a chat at the BAM in Meylan is a must on a regular basis, I would also send them to The Bookworm Café at the Rue St Laurent in Grenoble where they can buy second-hand books. And the English library of Babel, in the convent of the Minimes is an experience not to be missed. The catalogue is not computerised but the library’s manager Clare Smears knows exactly what’s where.

GL: Can you recommend a good new book from the collection?

PA: I’ve just bought David Lodge’s ‘Deaf Sentence’ which to my mind is his best up to now, and many other new books are on order, such as ‘The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society’ by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, or Liz Whittaker’s ‘The Dreamstealer’s Trilogy’ – a Welsh tale for children (Liz happens to be my first cousin!).

GL: What’s next for the library?

PA: We are re-opening on 31st August, We will be at Forum des Associations in Meylan (Saturday 12 September, gymnase des Buclos), Stall 53, from 10 am to 5 pm. There will also be an Open Door day with ARIES on 26 September, from 10 am to 5 pm.

GL: What are the opening hours and membership terms for the library?

PA: Monday: 10.30 – 12.30, Wednesday: 10.00 – 11.00, Thursday: 11.45 -14.00. Membership is 10 euros per family per year.

Tag bus in action! Photo: Ambrosiana Pictures (G)

In previous article for Grenoble Life I bemoaned France’s rather particular brand of service culture, in some instances comparing it unfavourably to the UK. However, there are certain aspects of life in France in which the nation seems to defeat us Brits with an effortless and dismissive Gallic slap: transport. Whether it be the gleaming speedways they call les autoroutes, the super-fast TGV trains or local bus networks that operate with the kind of clockwork, almost Teutonic punctuality - getting around in France can make Britain seem grimly backward in comparison. 

When people ask me about life in France I always answer that one quickly assimilates the positive aspects in a culture but the negative ones obviously take longer to get used to. But one thing that I have quickly integrated is France’s bus network and meaningful time tables. In England we seem incapable of developing a timetable that takes into account the vagaries of the traffic at a given time of day. In London such timetables are mere token gestures that serve no apparent function – and it has been a long time since I have seen anyone try to use one.

In the last ten years LED displays have been introduced to London bus stops to serve you the latest bus arrival times. It is not clear if these are operated by GPS satellite or crystal ball (I suspect they are simply based on the original, obsolete timetables) but they do little to expedite your journey. Instead they serve to heighten your expectation and thus your disappointment too - buses listed as ‘due’ frequently vanish from the radar, never to arrive.

To have, in Grenoble, a bus timetable that you can obtain online and as a leaflet, and plan your journey accordingly, still strikes me as a minor miracle. For someone who has grown up with buses arriving ostensibly au hasard, I still find myself delighted in France that using such transport needn’t be fraught with anxiety. On buses in France I am always at my jubilant best – full of optimism for modern life: in idiotically open-mouthed awe that a bus could actually arrive at the stated time. I suppose I ought to get out more.

Grenoble’s buses are not just efficient but clean. London buses rarely seem to receive more than a cursory rinse around the edges, with chicken wings, apple cores and sodden newspapers often to be found pressure-hosed into a paste around the top deck drainage holes. Not so here, where local operator Tag (Transports de l’Agglomération Grenobloise) circulates buses that positively gleam.

In London bus drivers are not to be bothered with questions or even the smallest of favours. “Well you thought wrong!” one snapped at me after I was foolish enough to query the route destination. Worse even is that many London bus drivers, under instructions not to take passengers except at the official stops, seem to take a sadistic pleasure in ignoring the pleas of sprinting commuters, or even abandoning young women in deserted streets late at night as they didn’t get to the designated stop in time.

I have seen Grenoble’s bus drivers communicating via klaxon to help passengers make their connection – almost unthinkable in London – and wait for running passengers rather than speeding away from them. When I see this happen I get misty eyed about this brave new world where drivers actually conspire to help their passengers reach their destination! “Don’t take it out on us!” says the latest advertising slogan protecting London bus drivers from the kind of abuse enraged commuters often serve up in the rush home, the “it” presumably being a totally miserable journey home, every day.

Maybe bus drivers in London have a demoralising job with less than pleasant conditions but often one is made to feel an enemy rather than a customer. While in France the reception from bus drivers is hardly chaleureux, there seems to be an unwritten contract between driver and passenger to say bonjour and merci, au revoir at the beginning and end of each trip. A wave of thanks on disembarking is always seemingly acknowledged by an appreciative nod in the rear view mirror. French bus drivers probably get a better deal. Considering the number of strikes they have called in the last few years I wouldn’t be surprised.

The main crime of the Tag and Transisère bus companies is not to run a service after half past eight, effectively cutting off Grenoble’s suburbs and neighbouring towns from the city’s night life. As someone who lives in Meylan I can say with some certainty that drink driving is endemic in France. I am apparently the only adult in the ‘burbs who elects to use the single, hourly night Navette from Grand Sablon to Meylan – the only way to get home from Grenoble on Friday and Saturday night without walking or driving.

Packed with carless drunk teenagers from the wealthier parts of Grenoble’s agglomeration, taking the Navette is quite an experience. It is often seen helmed by Marie-Noëlle, the beleaguered and tiny-voiced conductrice who seems comically incapable of controlling the raucous adolescents. “On est perdu!” they scream and sing as Marie-Noëlle wearily navigates the winding back streets of Corenc.

A French friend of mine in London told me she was surprised by the grim acquiescence of Londoners regarding the state of the bus service. One might wait 20 minutes in the rain for a bus only for it to neglect to stop for passengers. The English suffer in silence while the French, she said, would be up in arms remonstrating. She put this down to national temperament, that strangely generous French stereotype of the British (unknown on the other side of the channel it seems) that the Brits are bastions of calm in the midst of chaos.

However, I put this tacit acceptance of inefficiency down to the fact that the Brits simply don’t know any better. Many haven’t experienced a clean and reliable bus system, and don’t expect one. See you on the 6020 to Chavant!

Maria Montessori

Martine Grzelack runs The Montessori International School of Grenoble, opening September 2009. Grenoble Life wanted to know more about the new centre, the background of the staff and the famous Montessori method.

Grenoble Life: When does the Montessori International School of Grenoble open and what is your role?

Martine Grzelack: In September 2009, we’ll be lucky to find a bilingual Montessori School in the suburbs of Grenoble. It will be situated in Meylan. This school will enable children to study and work while developing their personality. My mission will be to look after the children and to run this school so that everything works out well to the benefit of everyone.

GL: What is the Montessori method?

MG: The Montessori International School of Grenoble is a private school, ruled by a not-for-profit association (association loi 1901).

The school curriculum follows the French national education programmes for early childhood and primary schools.

Committed to the highest education standards, the school proposes a bilingual curriculum in French and in English.

The MIG team will provide an individual learning experience for each child, which promotes physical, social, emotional and intellectual development to help them achieve their maximum potential.

Following the Montessori requirements, the children are dispatched into two age groups: 3 to 6 years old (early childhood) and 6 to 12 years old (elementary).

GL: What is your experience with using this method?

MG: I have been working for six years according to the Montessori pedagogy. First, I attended a teaching practice course at the Centre de recherche d’études de formation et de liaison des activités Montessori (CRELAM) in Rennes – a French institute which doesn’t grant an Association Montessori Internationale diploma. Then, I went to Switzerland to obtain an AMI diploma for children from 6 to 12. This method enables the children to open out in their development while being in the pleasure of learning and discovering. Children gain an autonomy and maturity which enables them to make choices.

GL: Why did you originally train to teach the Montessori method?

MG: I discovered this pedagogy while thinking about the educational system in France. Coming from a very different horizon – I graduated as a geologist – I wanted to work with children after having worked with engineers-to-be (I was in charge of professional training in my firm).

After preparing the examinations to be a school teacher, I realized that the “group pedagogy” wasn’t satisfying for me. I looked for something different. Some friends had their son in a Montessori school and that’s how this wonderful adventure started.

GL: What age groups do you teach at the Montessori International School of Grenoble?

MG: The International Montessori School is open to children from 3 to 12 years old. They are dispatched in groups of three or six years according to Maria Montessori’s method. It is important not to keep a child exclusively in his or her age group.

GL: How does the methodology differ from that used in the French state schools for these age groups?

What is different from the French school is mainly the learning approach through the senses, with the help of the adequate and attractive equipment created by Maria Montessori herself. Moreover, the work in classes with mixed ages enables each child to learn with pleasure because there are no barriers between the different learning activities.

Montessori International School of Grenoble

GL: Do you have classes in French and English? Will these classes be taught separately?

MG: In each class, there is a French teacher and an English speaking assistant who participates throughout the school day. The teachers offer help to the children that ask for it in their mother tongue, in order to encourage interest in languages. There will also be Spanish classes organized.

GL: Why has it been decided to open a school here in Grenoble?

MG: I wanted to work in a school where the pedagogy is adapted to each child and gives them what they need academically for their future studies. I want to be able to share with these families a teaching method which deeply respects the child as an individual and as a learner.

GL: What is the profile of the parents who have registered their children to come to the school?

MG: The parents who send their children to a Montessori school come from different backgrounds: managerial staff in large firms, teachers at “public” schools, professional workers, employees, people working in tertiary industries … they have varied profiles but they have the same aim: their children’s well-being.

GL: Tell us about the teaching team.

MG: The teaching team is composed of two educators with an international Montessori diploma and an English or French speaking assistant according to the class. It is a dynamic team, very motivated to help the children improve, respectful of the Montessori pedagogy.

GL: Will you have recruitment opportunities in the future? What are the advantages of working at Montessori International School of Grenoble?

MG: Yes, we hope that we’ll have to recruit next year, or in two years to open new class. Why not offer children the opportunity to learn another language like German for example … but we don’t want the school to lose its soul by recruiting too many pupils or staff. We thank you for these questions.

GL: You’re welcome, thank you!

The Montessori International School of Grenoble
Boulevard des Alpes, 38240 Meylan
+33 6 72 66 76 32
ecole@montessori-grenoble.com

Photo: mikeandanna

Last Saturday evening was an important occasion for my wife and I. Not only were we celebrating our second wedding anniversary but it was our first evening out since the birth of our daughter, now three months old, who was kindly being babysat ber grandparents. Now I may have Scottish ancestry (albeit watered down through several generations – but hey! I still have the tartan surname) but I don’t mind pushing the boat out once and awhile and spending a little extra on a quality restaurant.

Where I live we are not exactly spoilt for choice, but there is one Michelin guide-recommended restaurant on the border of Meylan and Corenc called Restaurant Le Provence, so we made a reservation there. Just to put it into perspective, there is a restaurant in the same street – not without a decent reputation but which ought to remain nameless here – whose owners have an enormous and very shaggy German Shepherd which I have seen loitering in the kitchen.

Having made our reservation for Le Provence with little difficulty less than one week before, we were pleased when we arrived to be warmly greeted by a bustling, professional waiting staff. Modern and informal, the young, all-female team led by Danielle Gaggio, the chef’s wife, made a refreshing change from the surly owners and disinterested career waiters one often finds in Grenoble.

In fact I noted that the service was not only exclusively female and young, but all conspicuously Mediterranean in appearance: no men or blondes serving table at Le Provence. There was an annonce for a vacancy in this capacity – so I’d be curious to see how applications from anyone male or gold of locks would fare as a candidate. Luckily I already have a job, as I would be particularly disadvantaged on both counts.

We were ushered into a pleasantly lit courtyard of aromatic trees and plants which was quickly filling up with diners. This outdoor dining space, which has a retractable canvas roof, is the perfect ambience in which to fully appreciate Le Provence’s beautifully prepared fresh fish dishes garnished with carefully selected Mediterranean ingredients.

Having ummed and ahhed for a period over which menu to take, we finally opted for the three-course Privilège. At 35 euros, it was the cheaper choice (I am a Scot by name after all!) of the three, the most expensive of which was in the environs of 50 euro and had to be ordered in advance. I chose Foie Gras with a Provençal-sytle salad for a starter; my wife a tartine with roasted Meditterranean vegetables and Serrano ham.

For the main course we both had a Plancha of tuna with a light potato mousse, grilled veg and a kind of cuttlefish chutney. Despite the sensational variety of flavour and texture to indulge in, it was never too busy or rich – a harmonious spirit of Provençal cuisine ran throughout. While certainly gastronomic, the dishes were not pretentious, remaining faithful to Mediterranean ingredients.

Unfortunately we had to rush our equally delicious dessert in order to return to our hungry baby, so were unable to linger in the courtyard as long as we would have liked. But we did have the pleasure of meeting the highly personable chef, Eric Gaggio, as we paid at the reception on the way out. Simlultaneously smart and modern but informal and unpretentious, Le Provence is by some distance the best restaurant I have tried in the Grenoble area. Check out their informative website, where you can find information on the menus and prices but also cookery courses, their range of olive oils and catering options.

Restaurant Le Provence
28 avenue du Grésivaudan
38700 Corenc
04 76 90 03 38

Clos des capucins, Meylan

The words ‘French administration’ and ‘getting married in France’ can conjure rather Kafkaesque images of rubber stamp wielding bureaucrats – but is not nearly as fearsome as that. Having gone through the administrative rigmarole myself, I feel duty-bound to share my wisdom with you, as such advice was palpably thin on the ground when I got married. As a Brit marrying a French citizen, I went for the double whammy of a civil ceremony and a Catholic blessing (I’m Church of England by birth), and just to complicate matters I wanted an English Anglican vicar to add something to the ceremony in English.

When considering how to tackle the jungle of red tape that awaits you, your first stop will rightly be the local town hall or Mairie. Mairies may vary in their administrative procedures but seem to have the necessary forms easily available to casual enquirers. The bullet-pointed instructions below should only be treated as guide, not gospel:

• The couple concerned should have lived in the town in which they want to get married for at least one month – the exception being that if you have parents still resident in the town, this is not obligatory. If you are a resident, you will be asked to provide proof (i.e., a recent bill with your name and address on it).
• The couple will need a minimum of two witnesses at the marriage ceremony.
• You will be asked to provide a copy of your birth certificate – not the one that your parents keep in their filing cabinet but a dated and signed copy of the entry from the official birth registry in your country. For UK nationals, this can be obtained – for a fee of course – from the General Register Office. Note that these copies are stamped and dated at the time of release.
• This document must then be translated by a ’sworn’ translator (traducteur assermenté). By French law the translated copy of your birth certificate must be submitted within a six month period – after this period the certificate becomes invalidated and you would have to begin the process again. Some nationals may be asked to supply a Certificat de Celibat (proof that you are not already married) but British citizens are not required to do this. At the time of my wedding, in July 2007, I wrote to the British consulate in Lyon, and they sent a document saying that British citizens are considered as good as their word in this respect and thus are not required to obtain one.
• At the time of writing, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office says that British citizens might be required to produce a certificate of custom law (certificat de coutume) depending on the local town hall in which they are getting married. The form can also be downloaded here. This was not the case in my experience.
• According to the website for my local Mairie in Meylan, completed documentation must be provided at least ten days before the wedding – but this may vary depending on the town.

Having navigated a course through the civil administrative obstacles, I then – like a glutton for punishment – went about the business of marrying in the French Catholic church. Among other things I had to provide proof of having been christened, the baptism certificate itself being inexplicably insufficient. This required forms to be sent to the London parish where I was originally baptised for them to fill in and sign. For this I was charged a fairly high (considering the labour that went into it) administrative fee, but not all churches levy charges for such a service.

Furthermore, we had to attend two particularly tedious evenings (préparation au mariage) with about six other couples in which we were forced to confront certain issues related to marriage and commitment. In principle, I have no problem with this, if I want to get married in a Catholic church it is not surprising that the church should want couples to address such subjects. The problem was the overall air of condesciendng smugness by those running the classes, and the fact that certain couples seemed to delight in the chance to hyper-verbalise their relationship issues in front of a group of strangers. I am British, this is not really in my nature. They were two of the longest evenings in my life.

Finally we got married and held the reception at the Clos des Capucins in Meylan, a former monastery overlooking the Belledonne mountain range, and which was not nearly as expensive as it might sound. Now municipally-owned, it is rented out very reasonably to Meylan residents and, at a higher rate, to non-residents. To be certain of securing the premises for the big weekend, we had to book it over a year in advance as competition for such venues is stiff during the wedding season. I am happy to recommend the catering, which was done by Au Prestige Dauphinois, and the chambres d’hotes nearby the Clos called Mas Du Bruchet, where we spent our wedding night.

The one major disappointment of the wedding was the DJ we hired, foolishly, over the telephone and without meeting in person, out of desperation having found most others already busy on the day in question. Operating under the moniker ‘Chris Music’ (which should have roused my suspicions from the start), you couldn’t make him up: large of waist and few of teeth, he was a gruff fun fair sort with an unlikely weekend sideline. Having accepted a very particular list of songs from me, he promptly refused to play them all evening in favour of mindless Euro-disco pool party standards, which he had a penchant for singing over with a microphone. As soon as we saw him we knew we had made a mistake, and I had several cross exchanges with him before finally wresting control of the decks and playing my own songs. No matter – it was, as it should be, the best night of my life.