Le Brevet
The boys
passed the brevet exam, assez bien. The assez means fairly, and steals from the
bien, but the grade itself means with honors. This is the examination taken by kids
graduating middle school or college, around age 15.
The brevet is
quintessentially French: The students are tested on French, Mathematics, Social
Studies (including European history of the 19th and 20th
centuries, the geography of France, and civics of the French government) and
Art history.
The last involves a presentation to include power-point slides and
sound files before an audience of external examiners who assess the students'
spoken French and their understanding of art in its social context. The topics
are chosen from music, dance, architecture, sculpture and painting.
My boys
rehearsed their presentations in which they contrasted Miles Davis’s Summertime to Louis Armstrong’s
rendition of It’s a Wonderful World,
and Frieda Kahlo’s My grandmother, my
mother and me to Van Gogh’s Self
portrait. They studied Steve Reich and Sidney Bechet, Stravinsky’s ballet Rite of spring, and the architecture of
the Empire State building.
There is no
science exam for the Brevet. The French have their priorities. Every city has a
Rue St. Exupery, a Metro station in Paris is called Picasso. On a visit to the
tombs at the Pantheon, we saw fresh flowers on the graves of Voltaire, Victor
Hugo, Dumas, and Braille, the man who brought poetry to the blind.
