The library in the primary school.
The play yard in the primary school.
The principal’s office, primary school
Biology class, high school.
Music room, high school. (guest conductor, me)
I saw two schools for about two hours each. (ecole primaire and a lycee) Some things seemed common to both. I don’t know if the commonalities are nationwide, though, but I will tell you what I saw and you can think about the things you know, but this is one thing I am not going to generalise about..I am just going to let you know what I saw.
Are we clear on that?
OK. Schools in France are not exactly like schools in Adelaide, or possibly even in Australia. There are some diferences between the two.
The day is longer
There is a long lunch hour
The teachers in the ecole primaire do not do yard duty; they have paid non-teaching staff to do that.
Chalk and talk seems to be the main way of disseminating information.
The computer set up in the ecole primaire in Vichy is light years behind the computer setup at Bellevue Heights PS, SA. 12 computers of mixed descent running one cartoon building program compared to 40 modern 60 Gig machines off a server running everything from easy graphics to music notation. There is no comparison.
There is no play equipment used in the yard at lunch times. Kids talk, run, scream, play chasey, etc.
I saw no swings, no climbing frames, no balls, only some painted-on hopscotch lines in the primary, and nothing at all in the lycee at Vichy. I felt very sorry for the students.
There seems to be a feeling that if the child does not want to learn, too bad, though there is a lot of testing done to establish benchmarks, and at tertiary level there is great concern about children who can’t read well. Yet the year 2/3 class I observed had a small number of non-working boys who did absolutely nothing in their maths lesson, and nothing was done about them. And, sorry everybody, but that simply wouldn’t wash in SA. We’d be on at them and we’d get them working.
The French tertiary staff turned up their noses at our education system, sniffing at the idea of sport in schools. Guess what? You need to come over here and get to know us. We might be able to teach you something.
The comments box is below, fire away…..
Do they teach foreign languages there? I’ve heard they have a thing about the purity of the people (and language). Especially I heard they don’t like the English language spoken in their country. Is this all true???
P.S. What a disappointing library!!!!!
Do they teach foreign languages there? I’ve heard they have a thing about the purity of the people (and language). Especially I heard they don’t like the English language spoken in their country. Is this all true?