It is La Rentree (back to school time). All the Parisian region families have returned bronzed from their hols in the south and Depression sets in: back to school (a torture) back to work (a torture), autumn, winter, the Fun is Over, everyone falls ill within the first two weeks, the doctors take on extra staff. Well they don't actually, they don't even have receptionists most of them, they just get stressed and have very long waiting times because you can't join any club without having a certificate saying you are not particularly likely to drop dead during the Tai Chi class and everyone joins clubs in September as well as it being La Rentree.
This year R is going to the local secondary school or Collège.
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| School reception says "stay away unless you are an inmate..." |
This is the school Reception, known in France as the Accueil, a misnoma in this case as it means "welcome". The receptionist always has the photocopier on, she's not keen to lose her place and answer the door. After a while you start peering through the bars to see if she's there. It's raining. Eventually she lets you in, fronts you from behind a large desk where you stand dripping, trying to explain why you are here.
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| Expecting trouble? |
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| Keep out, keep in... |
First of all the school did not reply at all, verbally or in writing, to our request for a place (our legal entitlement sent registered post) in fact they lost our letter and it turned up at the local council; the only contact we had was when we phoned them. They put us off told us several deliberate lies, told us to wait and finally told JC to phone back on the 15h July, at which point the school was closed. All perfectly normal according to my research.
After having applied to the Inspectors and other Academic Powers we were told the school jolly well had to take our child and to go back and tell 'em they said so. R was enrolled, begrudgingly, 5 days before the start of term.
French authorities, customer services and especially schools, like to say NO.
NO you may not meet the headmistress or any of the staff or see the school
NO we will not meet your child or show him round
NO he cannot be in a class with the only person he knows
NO we don't like him from looking at his (professionally risible) report and no we won't meet him to find out if any of it is actually true
NO he can't do German even though he's studied for 5 years, the class is full
NO wearing shorts, this is not the beach
NO hats
NO putting chewing gum under the seats
NO talking in class
NO forgetting your homework immediate punishment
NO you may not know where the toilets are
Oh God, the list goes on. As far as R can report, nothing positive was said on the first day at all, oh NO.
The headmistress has the usual profile: fiendish administrator and nit picker, totally unapproachable and unreasonable, does not like children, probably certifiably sociopathic, her word is law, spends the first few weeks of each term asserting her dominance over new parents with all the subtlety of a silver back gorilla. I take that back, this is an insult to gorillas.
It is clear after minimum contact with this school that, as I suspected this child factory is no exception to the French norm; it has no concern whatsoever for the welfare or development of children or the particular identity of any particular child, no insights into what a child is or what education should or could be. Instructions are given out, replies are not requested. R was so pressured to copy the instructions of the board that his writing was practically illegible - if you don't get it down NOW the teacher rubs it off the board. I'm aching for the slow writers and the dyslexic children. The school nurse sends out a note to say that many pupils have been coming to her suffering with the symptoms of stress, she tells us we should all reassure our children that they can cope. Well that should do the trick.
As a parent of a child in a French College or secondary school, you are required to have the following profile and function:
- Be on hand at all times to receive instructions and obey them instantly
- Sign and return all the notes that the school sends out immediately upon reception
- Be a gifted administrator (25 chits and irksome tasks to perform on the first day, paper piled high, I'm ready to visit the school nurse myself...)
- Drive your child to perform and conform as requested, no more no less
- Show no initiative, ask no questions, never explain never complain
I've done my duty. I have followed the 15 pages of instructions to the letter. One form was repeated 4 times. I filled it in four times. I was feeling paranoid about this, maybe they are doing it on purpose to torture me, but in the waiting room at the Orthodentist I saw a highly successful and glamorous French parent from Neuilly with slim jeans and pedacured toes filling in the same sort of thing, mouthing "WHAT, why are they asking me all this again, I have already filled out the same information 3 times...". I spent the required two and a half hours at the supermarket buying 150 Euros worth of equipment following the descriptions thereof to the letter. I have covered the 11 large textbooks they forced R to carry home on the first day with clear plastic and corner reinforcers. I paid up my fee for the school association. Other than that I have spent my time biting my lip, hand elbow and arm in an attempt not to TELL THEM WHAT I THINK and thereby ruining R's school career.
R says: just sign the inevitable notes of complaint and forget about it.
I say: do not get caught declaring "life's a beach" wearing shorts and a hat sticking chewing gum under the table having forgotten your homework.
The teacher from Salinger's Catcher in the Rye says "Life is a game boy, life is a game" (did not mean a gameboy, had not been invented).
63 % complain about bouts of nervousness.
One in four has tummy aches or headaches once a week, or more frequently.
40 % have difficulty sleeping.
Why is France the only country in the world that discourages children because of what they cannot do, rather than encouraging them to do what they can?
remember your own advice ... DO NOT TELL THEM WHAT YOU THINK OF THEM ...
ReplyDeleteyou can tell us here instead ;-)