Memories of a Caroloregian: the Kingsport pages, part 2

Jean Nicaise

(Translator's note: I use square brackets [ ] to enclose clarifications or explanations. I use italics when Nicaise himself uses English.)

           In February, 1958, my attention was caught by a flier from the Ministry posted, like so many others, in the teachers' lounge. It announced the possibility of a stay in the US for high school teachers, who were invited to apply for a Fulbright scholarship. That was the name of an American senator who wrote a generous law stipulating that, rather than return to America the money recovered by the sale of American surplus from each of the theaters of the war [WWWII], it would be used to fund an exchange program for students and teachers from these countries. Resources drawn from war materiel would thus benefit a peaceful operation: the encounter of intellectuals of all origins and cultures.

          The flier was intended especially for English teachers, but that did not prevent me from becoming a candidate. I was asked to send the US embassy a file with my references and to write, in English, what my motivations were. Among those, I was careful not to say that I'd always dreamed of spending Christmas at the beach in Miami surrounded by pretty girls in bathing suits. That wasn't serious. It would be a whole lot better to say that I was motivated by a strong desire for pedagogical experience, which, all things considered, was not false; that I wanted to add to my German experience one from the new world. I referred to some ideas drawn from a good source on the organization of American schools, the absence of a Federal department of public instruction, the excellence of American pedagogy, for which I cited some well-known examples, notably their famous pedagogue and philosopher John Dewey. Unfortunately, I had read his "Essay on Education" in French. In English I'd skimmed -- while I was in Germany -- an American work whose title I'd forgotten, but not the name of the author, thanks to Maurice Chevalier: Mr. Valentine. Fortunately I'd jotted down on notecards the main point and a number of extracts, and I "forgot" to indicate with quotation marks the obviously very correct English that I'd borrowed directly from him.

          The principal filled out a form that the panel had sent to him. Although it was supposed to be confidential, he showed it to me. So many compliments! I had suggested that he emphasize that I had taken a summer course at the Sorbonne taught -- among others -- by the famous semiotician Roland Barthes. He wrote: "Always eager to improve himself, etc. …" I have ridiculed him enough [elsewhere in the memoir] to be able to thank him here.

          All that was left was the dreaded oral interview. I am summoned in March to the University Foundation.

          The test begins in a catastrophic way. I was expected at 2 p.m. and had had class until 12:30. I easily make it to Brussels in an hour, steering wheel in one hand and sandwich in the other. But I hadn't counted on the problem of parking near the Foundation, where I'd never been before. I have to drive around for 25 minutes searching in vain for a legal parking place. My nerves are totally shot. I am going to be late and thus give a pitiful example of my punctuality. "They" are certainly going to fail me. In my despair, I decide to park without regard to legality.

          The moment I arrive, running up to the floor where the test was given, I hear my name being called.

          "Hurry up!" says the usher, "This is the second time I've called you!"

          I can't swear that those were the exact words of his reprimand, but that's the meaning.

          Introduced into the torture chamber, I notice a board table with ten or so gentlemen and one lady, who I learned later was the US Embassy's very severe and devoted person in charge of cultural exchanges, Mme. Dorothy Moore-Deflandre.

          Invited to sit down, panting and out of breath, I stammer, "Excuse me, I'm out of breath, I taught at Chatelet till half past twelve and couldn't find a place to park my car correctly."

          This relaxes the atmosphere a little bit: my lateness was justified by professional obligations that I wouldn't have dreamed of dispensing with.

          Half of the jury devote themselves to a crossfire of questions. There's always a substantial number of members who don't say anything, those invited for reasons of status rather than for any supposed competence. These aren't always the most indulgent ones, either. I have to defend my written application. No one suspects the involuntary help given by Mr. Valentine--in any case nobody reproaches me for it. I leave the room not knowing if my defense and my English have been convincing.

          It isn't until June that I find out that I've been chosen to teach French and Latin in Kingsport, in Tennessee. Renee [Mrs. Nicaise] immediately thereafter dives into Assimil and learns that her tailor is rich. [Assimil was a popular language-learning method in which the first phrase learned was "my tailor is rich."]

          As for me, I throw myself into my old atlas, which shows me the state running east-west, that is, from the Appalachian Mountains to the MIssissippi, south of Virginia and Kentucky, but it doesn't show Kingsport. I wound up having to dig out of the embassy library a short description of the little city, very close to Virginia, and gather some facts about Tennessee, one of the most backward states in the US! One of its cities was however known all over the world: Oak Ridge. It was there that the atom bombs were built that reduced Hiroshima and Nagasaki to ashes and led Japan to surrender. Fans of Elvis Presley probably knew that their idol lived in another city in the far west of the state, Memphis.

          The next thing I do is to thank in my heart of hearts good old M. Buysse from my high school in Thuin, who had shown me the way to continue to learn English after graduation, regardless of whatever other higher-level studies I might undertake. He had an original method: "You know enough English to read novels; read detective stories to start with. You'll want to know how they end: Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie. Use a dictionary for words you don't know only if you can't figure out the meaning from the context, just like you did when you were learning French as a child." I had happily followed his advice to the letter and had persevered in reading without limiting myself, fortunately, to just detective novels. He was the one who had opened the door to this marvelous adventure. Marvelous and still unusual in 1958, when charter tours weren't taking crowds of tourists across the Atlantic.

          My third response is to experience increased anxiety in the face of two concerns: the prospect of a hasty departure (August is not far off) and the surprise of having to teach Latin to Americans.

          I hope that my school won't resemble the one depicted in the recent movie Blackboard Jungle, whose sonorous soundtrack had launched rock and roll into the whole world with Bill Haley's Rock around the Clock. Some student-hoodlums break the precious jazz records that one of their teachers, straying from the beaten path, has made them listen to in order to try to interest them.

[Translated from French by Jud Barry]