Northwestern Middle School Students Have Nothing Toulouse

WINSTED — Northwestern Middle School students and their families are hosting a group of students from Toulouse, France, this week. Thirty-one French students and four of their teachers arrived in Boston on Monday, spending a day and night there to see the sights before moving on to the Laurel City on Tuesday.

During their week-long stay, the visiting students will attend school with their American counterparts, and will get the opportunity to witness regional cultural attractions such as The Pequot Museum, the Capitol Building in Hartford and the Mark Twain House. In Boston earlier this week, they toured the Freedom Trail, the Prudential Building and Harvard University.

Also on the agenda are a visit to a Wolf Pack hockey game and a "Rock and Bowl" night, "to give the French students a chance to fully experience American pastimes," in the words of teacher Fred Silverio, a teacher and the press coordinator for the school.

Over the weekend, the visitors will each spend time with a host family and experience "the American way of life."

Some of the host families have invited more than one student to stay for the week, before the visitors take off for a four-day visit to New York City beginning April 4.

"We have some sleepless nights coming," said Marie-Anne Giraudbit, one of four teachers who came along to act as chaperones for the French students.

The others are English teacher Marie Guirao, French teacher Brigitte Kruzezinsky and Françoise Escaich, who teaches physics and chemistry.

The 31 students are aged 12 and 13, and come from La Sainte-Famille, a Catholic middle school in Toulouse. Giraudbit said the city is sometimes referred to as "The Pink City" for the way the sun dapples the rosy bricks of the city.

Louise Zierzow, who teaches French and Spanish at Northwestern, said she hopes her students will get the opportunity to visit the school in Toulouse.

"We think they might invite us in the future," she said.

"I’ve organized [school-exchange programs] for 10 years now," Giraudbit confirmed. "Every other year we come to the United States, and every other year the Americans come to us."

She spoke of the differences between schools in America and those in France.

"In France, class size is larger," she said. Typically, a teacher there will have between 25 and 45 students. "But physically, the American schools are larger."

She said that in France, schools do not display flags, and there is no pledge of allegiance.

"Our school is a Catholic school, but [religious courses] are not compulsory," she said. Students do have to pay tuition to attend, but there is no extra charge should one choose to sign up for the optional religious studies.

"Education in France is a national program. [The curriculum] is all the same, all over the country," Giraudbit said, adding that the same holds true, whether a school is public or private.

One of the biggest differences in education in France, according to Zierzow, is that, once students get to high school, they have the option of specializing their area of study.

"They can choose to go to school for math, science, literature, history, or a trade school," she said, noting that in the United States, that degree of specialization usually does not occur until college.

Legally, French students are obliged to stay in school until age 16. High school generally begins at 15, and lasts three years.

Classes in France are 55 minutes long, said Giraudbit. School begins at 8 a.m. and ends at 5 p.m., with a two-hour lunch break in the middle, during which students are free to leave school grounds if they so choose.

And even though there is a nationwide mandate giving students an afternoon off every Wednesday — unless they’re serving detention, which can also be served on Saturdays "if it’s very serious," said Giraudbit — school pretty much takes up the bulk of the weekday.

"And then there is lots of homework," she said.

All French students are required to take English classes, and can also elect to learn Spanish, German or Latin.

Toulouse, which lies in the South of France between Bordeaux and Montpelier, also has another nickname. Just as Winsted is The Laurel City, Toulouse is sometimes known as "The Violet City," for the purple flowers which grow there in abundance. It is the home of France’s Space Museum and the headquarters of giant aircraft manufacturer Airbus.

"It is the aeronautical capital of Europe," Giraudbit said.

Annmarie Tuxbury, 12, is one of the Northwestern students hosting a French visitor. Her guest, Fabian Jammes, can speak "a bit of English," she said. Though Annmarie appeared somewhat shy, she added that the two have gotten along quite well since he arrived Tuesday.

Indeed, at lunch Wednesday, the students appeared to be intermingling happily with each other, and were overheard carrying on conversations in broken French and equally broken English.

"This will be a unique chance for the French students to truly experience the American way of life," said Silverio. "It will also be a chance for them to put their English skills into practice. Hopefully students from Region 7 will seize the opportunity to practice their French conversational skills, too!"