Detention; got to dodge them all

I'm just back from England and reunited with R and we are having a little chat over lunch (lardons with pasta).

"Still no detention eh?"  says R, smiling to himself.

"Amazing.  You never know when one is going to strike, but so far you've dodged them all...let's try and hold out until half term at least"

"Not many people have got detention yet"  says R

"Ooo, then you must be sure not to get one..."

"Only 10 people"

"TEN, out of a class of 25 in the first four weeks?"

R is laughing merrily.

"Are you in a class of renegades?"

"No, just normal"

"What did they get detention for?"

"Not doing homework, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and trying to escape from school without their ID "

"WHAT???  What do you mean they try to escape?"

"Well, they go up to the fence and pretend they are chatting with someone, and then when the person on the gate looks the other way they jump over the fence.  That's why the teacher on the gate is always shouting KEEP AWAY FROM THE FENCE.  And for homework mum, do you know what they do?  When the teacher walks round the class to check the homework is done, if someone hasn't done it, they put someone else's homework in front of them, and then pass it back before the teacher gets to the next person.  Sometimes the teacher notices, but they get away with it quite a lot".

For this to make sense you have to understand that French schoolwork is utterly devoid of originality, it involves following instructions and processes to a one-pointed answer that could have been generated by a robot and also they are all trained to have the same handwriting, and therefore it is quite easy to pass off your homework as someone else's.

"Do they often not do their homework then?" I ask.

R shakes his head despairingly, they often do not it seems.     (I won't bore you with my ensuing lecture about his homework and the doing thereof).

"There isn't any chewing gum under the seats though"  says R, and we agree this is a good thing.  "But do you know what they do?  The ceiling is made of polystyrene, and when a pen is empty, they get an elastic band and make a sort of catapult, and then the pen sticks in the ceiling..."  R muses happily to himself, " By the end of the year the ceiling will be covered in pens..."  "Oh yes" I say, "like a sort of hedghog."

No doubt next term there will be a new rule:  automatic detention for anyone catapulting an empty pen and embedding it in the polystyrene ceiling.  (What next I hear you ask).

I really think R finds it much easier to have a mad, indifferent dictatorship of rules-for-the-breaking  than he would be having an actual relationship with any of the staff, and worst of all, having to be nice.  He is after all a socially unsophisticated 11 year old growing up in France.

Now we cannot talk about detention without talking about its opposite pole, marks.  R tells me he got 18 out of 20 in English, that is, he got 9 out of 10 which is 18 out of 20.  I do not understand the maths of educational evaluation in this school and 9 out of 10 sounds better than 18 out of 20 to me.  But, either mark is surprising because normally a native English speaker will not get good marks, as being good at English is not the goal.  However, R tells me the reason he did not get 7 out of 20 was because he never lets on that he is English and feigns a French accent when he speaks English.  In this way, the trainee teacher will not feel threatened or undermined and strike out when an 'i' is not dotted or contest his original English, or use IQ type trickery to catch him out, but will think he is an avarage Frenchie trying really hard and reward him with Marks.  Well, R, an interesting technique which has been successful so far, never a day goes by without some excitement.  (Whatever next I hear you ask).