The boys were settling down in their College (middle school in
France) and the CLA, the special class for foreigners not fluent in French,
when they got kicked up to the regular class to be integrated and civilized.
They will be taught everything, including English, in French. This is on a
trial basis for two weeks: time will tell. They seem to do better with homework
than with listening comprehension in class. It’s hard when the teachers speak
too fast.
They are more than a little worried. In France, students’
self-esteem is not a consideration, and feeling good about oneself is
tantamount to over-confidence. There is little danger of developing an inflated
ego. The teachers read out the scores on tests in class and discuss in detail
each student’s mistakes. For additional humiliation, a student can be called to
stand in front of the blackboard and work out problems for all to see. During
these sessions, the teacher might pass comments like “Tu es idiot, stupide,
nul.. Tu ne peut jamais reussi.” The last is a prediction, often accurate: You
will never succeed.
To say a petit merci to Prof Tutta who taught them for two months
in CLA, Jeroen and I brought a gift of chocolate. We weren’t allowed to see him
without a rendez-vous but we could and did leave the gift with the concierge,
the little woman who presses a button to open the gates of the school. We
walked by her cabin without checking in, and she scolded us for a long ten
minutes for slighting her. I kept apologizing with no success in appeasing her.
Jeroen stared with a dazed look on his face, which can be translated in five (edited)
words: “What is your problem?“
Wouter and Mohan have not thrown a party to celebrate this
promotion. The reason for the non-celebration is purely social, unlike the
promotion itself. The only kids they could invite are in their special class,
and many are upset to be kept behind. Some of the older kids will be leaving
this school at the end of December to return to their local schools and face
immersion after 12 months of remedial French. I’m not sure they will all
succeed, partly because some of them joined mid-year and started in the middle
of the course. Like a movie you watch from the middle and can’t understand. I
feel that way about French films even when I watch from the start and have
subtitles to help.
The President of France, Francois Hollande has outlawed homework.
This is partly because children are suffering from burnout and are dropping out
of high school, especially kids with single parents working long hours who may
not be able to help with homework. The growing disparity between kids with
pushy parents and helpless parents has been a challenge, so rather than “No
child left behind,” France has adopted a “No child gets ahead” philosophy to
level out the playing field. Hollande also wants to have children promoted
every year to stay with their peers despite lack of skills rather than have
kids fail and repeat a year and get displaced socially. France will soon be
more like America and may even consider renaming pommes frites to frites de
libertie.
I am proud to tell you that Wouter was elected Class
Representative of the CLA class. He ran a great campaign. A la Romney, Wouter
had flexible stands on policies. More critically, he chose the perfect running
mate: a lad from Turkey. This secured the block of five Turkish votes. With Turkey in the bag, the East-Block constituency (i.e. Romania and Lithuania) came also on board. The
three Anglophone votes were secure from the beginning as was Mohan’s loyalty vote. However, with Wouter’s promotion to French-only education, CLA will now
have to elect a new leader. Perhaps the boy from Romania who has invented a new
language, a melange of Romanian and French, nouveau francais, which Prof Tutta
cannot understand. I think he doesn’t try. Anyone can figure out “Moi etre dans
toi classe.”
Soon my boys will be speaking English with a French accent. It
doesn’t get better.
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