Terminales Euro students from Duplessis Mornay High school on a cultural exchange with FSI, Asheville, NC!

We are very proud to introduce this blog, written by our students, that retraces and highlights some of the best moments we experienced through our cultural and academic exchange with American students coming mostly from the Franklin School of Innovation, but also from Asheville High school, SILSA school, Enka High school, or Early College in Asheville, North Carolina. 

My colleague, Vincent Liothaud, a History and Geography teacher and I, Elise Guillemet, an English teacher are both working at Lycée Duplessis Mornay, a high school located in Saumur, in Western France, where we are teaching a class of 34 Senior students who had been admitted in a special « European class » because of their skills in English. 

That’s why we wanted to create a special cultural project with them. And so, about a year ago, our Principal heard of a possible pairing project with The Franklin School of Innovation, a high school from Asheville, in North Carolina, one of Saumur’s sister cities. Right from the beginning, we were enthusiastic about the idea. And then we started exchanging emails with many wonderful people with whom we actually succeeded in fulfilling our ultimate goal: taking our French students on a trip across the Ocean to meet their penpals with whom they had been writing emails for a while. 

We are very grateful to Stephanie Hellert, our amazing colleague who teaches French at the Franklin School of Innovation, and we would also like to thank Caroline Rabault and Amélie Gibouin, two women working in the « Service des Relations Internationales » at the Townhall of Saumur, who were instrumental in putting us in touch with the Sister Cities Committee of Asheville, and more specifically with Allison Weems and Jessica Coffield who put together a programme of activities for our stay in Asheville that was absolutely brilliant. 

So we were lucky enough to travel to Asheville from the 8th to the 19th of February, just before the pandemic crisis. This trip to the US was a dream come true for everyone, and thanks to the amazing work done by Stephanie Hellert, Allison Weems, Jessica Coffield and the whole Sister Cities committee, we created some long-lasting memories. We toured French Broad Chocolate Factory, visited the Folk Art Center and hiked along the Blue Ridge Parkway. We had the opportunity to go on UNCA campus tours led by UNCA French studies students and were offered American cooking classes. We also loved watching the women’s and men’s basketball games at UNCA and cheering on the Bulldogs. But the highlight of the trip was certainly visiting Biltmore Estate. 

Even if we were really sad not to be able to host our Asheville high schoolers in return because of the Covid-19 pandemic, we are confident we will see one another again in the future, and we will do our best to reschedule as soon as possible. To conclude, we are really grateful for this cultural and academic exchange that has become what we envision as a long-lasting friendship. 

UNCA Campus tour

On the first tuesday evening, we went to the UNCA campus for a cooking class but as we were split in two different groups, we went on a campus tour first to discover what an american university looked like, how different it was from a french university and to meet some american students. The american students who were supposed to take care of us during this time were about 45min late so we wated in a sort of caffeteria or a coffe shop. We were scared that we would be late to our cooking class but in the end as the other cooking group was more than an hour late it was not such a big deal.

A group of four super friendly students who spoke french (kind of) took us all around the different buildings, from the yoga class to the library and the swimming pool. They told us about their mascot, Rocky The Bulldog and the tradition they had to touch the statue of it as a lucky charm to passe the exams. At this time we were all concerned by the « baccalauréat » so we touched it.

There were so many different buildings dedicated to studies (laboratory, sciences class…) but also buildings like a theatre or a small maze on the floor (which  we couldn’t quite get out of!).Those were pretty surprising to find in an University because it’s something that would never take place in a French university. It was really the exact same image we had printed in our minds about american college. Everything was so big, the campus, the buildings…

We also saw how important sports are in the american universities. Inside the campus there were a swimming pool, a basketball and a soccer court, a sports hall, a yoga class, a tennis court, a baseball and a football field and so many sport events to follow. American college students don’t have to go outside their campus to workout, everything is already set for them which is a pretty good thing according to us.

The campus tour lasted about 40 min and it was really interresting, I mean more than what we thought it would be.

Axelle Guérin and Juliette Brazille.

The week-end in the midst of our trip, on Saturday afternoon, we had the opportunity to go to the University of Asheville for watching a basketball game at the Kimmel Arena.  Besides, it seems to me that even if some of us, french students, have already played or are practicing this sport, it was a fisrt time for everybody to see how a University basketball game was really like. We were all amazed at how festive, professional, important and cool it was.

So we watched two games ; the girls game where the UNCA won and the boys game where the Bulldogs (from the UNCA) opposed to the CSU (the university of charleston southern) when we were fascinated and stressed until the very end of the game.

First of all, I was suprised by the Kimmel Arena which was really big and where there were cameras and broadcast screens everywhere, this was a really professional equipment.

Secondly, it was really cool to see what we thought were clishes, were in fact real. In famous american movies and series, we usually see cheerleaders, the brass band and the mascot but here we saw how important they are during the game.                          

The brass band was really talented, they played some famous songs that we could sing along with them, so we can say that they made the atmosphere fun and festive. And like the cheerleaders, they had jingles when the teams scored a basket, shot, stole, dribbled or threw the ball in…

The cheerleaders made the show real and when they were supporting their team, they were also boosting the support of the public, with clapping, pom pom, ect… Besides between the different half time they danced, or made flyers and pyramid so they were very impressive.

The mascot of UNCA : Rocky the Bulldog, made us  laugh during all the time of the game ! He came  in the bleachers to pull a prank on us, take pictures and during a half time he dragged us on the court with many others people to dance the mascot dance !

Me and my friends had a really great time at this game, and when we left we were lucky enough to take a pictures with some of our favourite players!

To conclude, this afternoon was full of emotions, which made me realize too, how the important sports can be for American schools and universities, because it was incredible for us to picture the Kimmel Arena and all its atmosphere in a French school. Also I was impressed by the universities players who are already little stars of basketball because they have their own championship. Finally, we enjoyed this moment and so much that when we were flying back home, we imagined organizing basketball game and creating cheerleaders team for our school !

By Salomé Guibot

In the morning we woke up at 6:30 am and we would leave home at 7:30 am. Once at school we met friends of my penfriend, Abigail Sutton in a corridor. Then we went to history class. That class began with a kind of patriot oath for all pupils. The classes last one hour and half, that’s quite long but they have time to do a lot of activities and works.

Then, all pupils have a « club time » : it’s nor a class and neither a free time. For example they can do some actions to help poor people all over the world in a club supervised by a teacher. It’s 30 minutes long. After that, we had to go to mathematics class. Next we went to english literary class (we studied the french play : Cyrano de Bergerac) for one hour and a half interrupted by 30 minutes for lunch time, it’s very short.

The last class was gym. This typical high school has amazing buildings mainly for sports : football field, soccer field, baseball field, softball field, basketball courts and tennis courts. There are also a theater, a place for orchestra or a garage for mecanichal classes.

The school ended at 3 pm and the pupils can come back home or participate to different sport teams : cheerleading, baseball, wrestling…

Enka High School can be considered a typical American high school. That was an incredible experience for me to discover this universe, very different from high school in France.

By Gabin Doublier

My trip to the United States was an incredible and very rewarding experience. As we say: travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer. First, having to leave my house and my family, just for two weeks, I know, but it’s a lot when you go to another continent, more than 6000 kilometers from home. In a family who didn’t speak my language. I had to speak English, like my classmates who had the same experience as me, and that was the goal. I have beautiful memories of this trip that I will keep all my life, and other memories, less good but which were part of the adventure. Arriving at Asheville Airport, North Carolina, when we were all exhausted from our 25 hour trip, we were greeted by many families who were delighted to meet us,  they were holding banners and balloons wishing us welcome. It was the first memory of our trip with our host family.

On the first day at the highschool of my host friend,  I was so stressed to be attending classes in English only,  and I was afraid of not understanding what they were saying, but the courses were animated, all the students could share there visions  about what they were working on. We were placed in a circle and this helped my french friends and I to be more integrated. And, in the afternoon every day in the United States, we had activities to explore the culture and what was interesting to visit, such as the chocolate factory, the Asheville university campus, the UNCA, the Biltmore Estate and other places. Speaking of the Biltmore Estate that I wanted to visit,  I did not have a chance to see it because I fell ill during my trip and the only day I stayed in the house was that day, so I was so sad not to visit this amazing place.

I lived a lot of beautiful things during my trip and that was thanks to my host family who were amazing with me. I discovered many things in United States that i thought it was only on movies but no. I was terribly sad to leave this place, these people that I met so nice and interesting, because I knew that I may not come back soon and I will not see these wonderful people again. So, Thank you.

By Amandine Mailet