End of Year Summary

In a grand finale of stereotypical generalised negativity, the French school year draws to a close and the lovely long French holidays begin.

I read that the 'educational team' at R's school had much pleasure in working with his class which was "joyfully and cheerfully lacking in concentration' although the class  'made some effort' it nonetheless 'lacked regular progression, the learning was shallow, the work 'too scolarly' and the class must make 'great and serious effort' next year.  All this confuses me as 'the class' doesn't really mean anything, and it will not even exist next year, as they insist of mixing up the classes every year, under the 'divide and rule' policy.  I asked JC what 'scolarly' was and he said giving the answers expected of you.  How extraordinary;  they have trained children to give the answers expected of them, and punished them with degrading marks and summarising their work with the chilling words 'you did not do what I told you to do' and they are consequently obedient in the absolute, totally lacking in imagination and originality, and take care never to think for themselves - and now it seems all this was simply in order to  complain  about the end result of their own system!   I tell you it's beyond me.   English children thrive on enthousiasm, encouragement and praise, but French children need none of that, and instead  truck along with anything on a scale from tepid indifference to a barrage of insults. 

R's teacher, Mrs Essex-Facelift made a special end of term effort to 'summarise' (humiliate) each pupil in front of his/her peers, eg

'Well you can wipe the smile of your face, you won't even be able to pass your exams with your 5 out of 20 in maths and your 8 out of twenty in French, you'll have to do a professional bac'.

For R however, there is good news!  There seems to be a system in place where pupils are judged and categorised (I've never been furnished with the details, it seems to be something everyone knows except me).   Most pupils are 'white', which I take to mean are hiding in a sort of white fog, unnoticed for their good or bad qualities, and deeply grateful not to be one level lower in the dark hell region of 'in difficulty' which offers no hope and from which there is no escape.  This year R has apparently emerged from the fog and entered the realm of 'encouragement', although the accolade was  VERY grudgingly given by Mrs Essex-Facelift, and I quote "Adequate work but no more than that, he is working regularly but his work lacks care and attention to detail and he must try harder next year'.  I believe there are more elivated titles above 'encouragement', terminating in the unheard of 'congratulations', which entitles you to a school prize.  (The class 'intello' ((intellectual)) got 50 Euros every year until this year when a policy change meant he received a maths book, which did not go down well and has made him into a classic candidate for 'breaking bad' but I'm not at liberty to discuss that).    However, some teachers even wrote 'bravo' on R's report, the highest (and most meaningless) of school praise, and his final summary, which seems to have been doled out by some sort of committee is;

"Some efforts have paid off it must be followed up by seeking more precision and rigour in written work.  The term is globally satisfactory, ENCOURAGEMENT.  May pass into 3rd class'.

You will note that the word 'ENCOURAGEMENT' is a kind of score/label, but is not actually delivered, however, for a Frenchy, all this is high praise and we are all very pleased (relieved).

Noyer

Il n'est pas possible que notre noyer soit en vie.  

Il a été coupé,  commençant par le haut, chaque rameaux, chaque branche, et chaque branche de son tronc.

Quand le bûcheron est arrivé au moignon du tronc, j'ai demandé à ce bûcheron expérimenté;  si nous laissons un bout de tronc n'est-il pas possible que l'arbre repousse ?

AH NON IMPOSSIBLE réponds le bûcheron expérimenté (il parle toujours a haute voix) IL EST MORT, ON APPELLE CA UN MASSACRE...

(a ce moment je devais quitter la scène en larmes).

Notre ami A a eu le courage de visiter le tombeau un mois plus tard, en décembre.  Il m'a dit que le tronc saignait toujours de sève.

'Il est toujours en vie?'

'Je pense que la sève des racines ne sait pas encore que le haut est coupé' il me réponds.

A ce point je devais à nouveau quitter la scène en larmes.

Le moignon du tronc a saigné tout l'hiver.

En printemps, j'ai pris des morceaux de noyer et je les arrosais le longue de notre chemin, et j'ai peint des fleures sur chaque branche coupée, et sur le doit indexe d'un morceau, j'ai placé une pomme d'or.

En Juin, notre ami M. Noyer arrive.

'Vous voyez?  Vous ne pouvez JAMAIS tuer un noyer, toujours il repousse' et il a montré les petits arbres de noyer qui poussaient autours du grand tronc mort.  Quand le noyer était en vie, il n'y avait jamais les petits autours.

Aujourd'hui, je faisait du jardinage et j'ai eu l'occasion de rendre visite à notre noyer mort, et j'ai vu quatre branches qui sortent du tronc.

Ici un nouveau noyer qui pousse entre les bras des grandes racines, j'appelle cet arbre la cinquième branche, je me demande s'il viens de la même racine.