Only in America

So I just had my last class with one of my favorite classes. My CPGE students – they have already graduated High School and are taking intensive preparatory classes over 2 years to prepare them to enter the most competitive engineering schools in France – have been the best all year. They’re almost fluent and we’ve had really interesting debates and discussions on everything ranging from the separation of church and state, to fraternities and sororities. However, we often focused on some of the more, shall we say, controversial subjects: the right to bear arms, abortion, the expensive higher education system of the US, privatization, etc, etc. Because, come on, aren’t those the subjects that always get people talking?

So, for our last class I told them that before I left France, I would show them that there were in fact some redeemable qualities about the US of A and I promised to show them if they gave me carte blanche to shamelessly promote my home country. They agreed.

So for the past 2 weeks I went to work on a powerpoint, half in jest but based in pure truth, that showed off the land of the free. It’s hard to transmit through a powerpoint what’s so great about a barbeque, or a baseball game, and I couldn’t go too pro-capitalist, flag waving, democracy spreading, on them for fear of losing my audience (remember who I’m talking to here.) I even baked them chocolate chip cookies to soften them up. We had a blast. 

Among other surprising discoveries in my research, I discovered that the US has invented practical things we use everyday, like paperclips, the escalator, email, the telephone and zippers. 


We’ve also invented a few not so practical things like the Segway. 


In terms of sports we are pretty unique in the valued position they hold in our public education system. We’ve invented baseball, football, volleyball, basketball, snowboarding skateboarding, and despite it’s French-sounding name, lacrosse.

We invented Superheroes, born out of the Great Depression (this might explain our save-the-world complex…), the first being Superman. 

Technology-wise, whether for better or worse we’ve brought the world Windows, Google, facebook, Twitter, and wikipedia (that last one was unanimously decided as definitely for the better.) Though a bit invasive, our (popular) culture and entertainment are renowned worldwide: Disney, Pixar, Hollywood, the Academy Awards, Mark Twain, Broadway, and any television series worth watching. We also invented pass-times like Scrabble, Taboo, Uno and Monopoly. 


I also took this opportunity to finally put to rest once and for all that the American Revolution did in fact take place before the French, with the concession that if it hadn’t been for their help, we may not have succeeded.

One of my favorite ideas our country has ever had are the National Parks, and I used a few clips from the 2009 series Ken Burns did for PBS on the from which this quote is from:

“I think the thing about the National Parks is that it’s an example of democracy. In other parts of the world there are certain areas that are preserved because some rich nobleman out of the goodness of his heart decided to decree it. But in the United States, you don’t have to be dependent of some rich guy being generous to you. To me that’s what national Parks mean. That’s a symbol of democracy. Democracy when it works well. At it’s best.’ – Juanita Green, Journalist

And as they had been asking me all year to tell them what American’s really thought about the French, I showed them this cute cartoon that I love. They even asked me at the end if American’s really call the French “frogs,” I didn’t have the hear to tell them that’s hw they’ve been referred to exclusively here.

A bientot.