BILL CLOW
Lower School French Teacher, Since 2006
As a substitute and part-time French teacher here at Charles Wright, I have many favorite memories, many of them peripheral to the actual study of French.  I have enjoyed teaching French folk dances to kids.  I have enjoyed building a “French village” complete with an electric train.  I have enjoyed making medieval castles and bombarding them with marshmallows flung from miniature catapults.  I have enjoyed showing kids how to make crêpes, salade niçoise and langues de chat.  Some people might ask me what these things really have to do with learning French.  I guess I would answer that French (or any foreign language, for that matter) doesn’t exist in the abstract; it only exists in a context.  And the more interesting that context is for the learner, the more likely he or she is to learn the language.  I have also greatly enjoyed the kids here at Charles Wright.  The have a refreshing, no-nonsense directness that makes them open to learning and easy to teach.  They don’t try to con or harass even the most inept substitutes.  I have always appreciated, for example, that, as a substitute, I could always ask the students what their homework was – and they would tell me!