LivingInLyon

The events of early June 2006 at my daughter's school were shocking, to say the least.

Now CSI can join the ranks of the other infamous schools for violence...

It has always been a safe school, well, within it's walls at least. There have been many events over the last year outside it's walls where kids have been attacked and robbed. The 7th arrondisement is not making a good name for itself at all!

The one thing I like about the CSI is that around 70% or so of the kids there are either foreigners or are returning French expats.

Walking through the school one hears so many languages - but the nice think is that the common language is French.

No one feels different or foreign as a result. It feels good. Of course there is still the French educational system - this is a French government school afterall - oh well, I guess you can't have everything!. 

The result of the French educational system can be seen in the results of yesterday's events.

The boy in question was Cuban. He was told that he would have to repeat the year because his grades were not good enough to let him pass into the next year! At 16 years of age this is a huge slap in the face. What about remedial teaching, I hear you ask! Hasn't been invented here yet! You just fail and repeat until you get it right or you are too old to continue! Or your parents have lots of money and can send you to one of the numerous and succesful tutoring schools!. And that's only if you are given enough warning that you child is failing. Communication is definitely not a strong point anywhere here!

Why is the French education system so poor that kids are still failing at the age of 16 one wonders?

The Anglophone education systems around the world are certainly not infallible - they do produce kids who still have problems reading and writing when they leave school - but I don't think that it produces as many psychologically tormented kids!

If you compare the French system with any Anglophone system you will find that, in the end, each produces its fair share of doctors, dentists, scientists, marketing experts etc etc etc.

The difference is, that in France, you go to school from around 8:00am (lycee) to 5:30pm (or something like that -depending on the school you go to). If you don't manage to repeat somewhere along the line then that's incredible - it's all part of they 'system'. You will be yelled at and told that you are stupid. You will have you marks announced to all the class and with it a suitable comment from you teacher! Kids being kids, you can expect that your child will then have to suffer the humiliation outside in the playground from his or her peers!

When you finally make it through school you then need to do another 1 or 2 years prepatory school before you can get into University or a special senior college. Then you can expect that any degree you do will take you at least 5-6 or 7 years! In the Anglophone world you go to university directly from high school then you do your degree - usually 4 years or a diploma, 3 years. And, voila, you have a young person ready to be trained in the real world at the age of 23 or 24 whereas, in France, you can expect to be looking for that same job at 27! And, of course, you expect the highest salary and conditions - you are 27 afterall - no matter that you have no experience!

 Hmmm, let me see, which would I prefer.......! ;-)

Below is an extract from a newsletter covering a recent Tauck safari in Tanzania. There is a link to photos at the end of the newsletter.

 

 

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From the crest of a 1,200-foot hillside, I'm looking down at the Great Rift Valley, a geological wonder that stretches from the Middle East to Mozambique, in southeastern Africa. The valley is 4,000 miles long and 30 to 40 miles wide and is visible from the surface of the moon.

For 35 million years, the Arabian tectonic plate that includes easternmost Africa and the African tectonic plate that includes the rest of the continent have been drifting apart, forming this valley (which continues to widen) and resulting in the volcanic activity that created Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Meru and others. If the plate movement continues for a few million years more, East Africa will separate from the rest of the continent and form a new landmass.

On our drive from Tarangire, we stopped at a Maasai elementary school. The Maasai are among the largest and best known of Tanzania's 120 tribes, famous for their colorful clothes and their resistance to all things modern.

The school was in dire need of virtually everything, and Tauck had suggested we bring supplies such as pens, pencils and paper. We placed our gifts in a pile in the dirt parking lot as the teachers came out to greet us. There were half a dozen concrete buildings housing nearly 300 children in first through seventh grades, with only five teachers.

There is no electricity anywhere on campus, so no lights and no bells. There are no books--lessons are written on the blackboard and scribbled into the single notebook each student possesses. There is no school bus, and the parents of the children do not own cars, so the children walk to school and back each day, rain or shine, as much as 10 miles each way. Some leave for school in the dark every morning and reach home after dark in the evening.

Many of the students have no food to bring with them, so every day the school prepares porridge made from corn in a concrete shelter, enough to feed everyone. The sight of that meal helped us appreciate the struggle that these kids must endure to obtain an education.

In Tanzania, children speak their tribal language at home, but in elementary school, they must learn (and are taught in) the national language, Swahili. They learn English as a subject until the seventh grade, and those that manage to stay past that age are taught in English from that point on.

Due in part to their nomadic lifestyle, only a minority of the Maasai have attended public school, so it is difficult to convince them to send their children there. The annual cost of public school--about $20--is also a barrier to many. By the seventh grade, the number of girls in class falls sharply, as most are forced into marriage by that age--generally to a man who is older by at least a generation.

We toured the school and visited a class of fourth graders. Judging by all the wide eyes staring back at us, we must have looked as strange as giraffes (no, stranger) clomping into the room with our cameras and watches and sunglasses and safari clothes.

The children sang to us in English and showed us their notebooks, and we congratulated them on their fine work with words they could not understand. We asked them their names and showed them where we lived on the world map, and gradually, their shyness began to melt away.

We took their pictures, and they crowded around our cameras to see their own images. Most seemed shocked to see themselves. My wife showed one curious young boy how to use her camera, then showed him the picture he had taken, which set off a stampede of giggling, 10-year-old photographers.

There were many peals of laughter in that damp, concrete bunker on one day in June, and hardly a dry eye in our safari truck as we pulled back onto the highway.

Later that night, on the hard floors of tiny huts made of grass, mud and cow dung, the children of the Maasai would tell the story of the funny white people (wazungu) who had come to call.

 

To view photos click on the link below: 

Safari photos