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.
