French schools...

I know that these days in America parents complain about the workload of their students. There are all of the new stresses, more books, more classes, more activities...students seem to have more and more homework every year. Although this might be true, the more and more I learn from my students about the French school system, the more I realize how lucky we have it in America.

Today we had a discussion about the two types of school systems, and how they were different. We figured out that while most American students have probably 6 or 7 classes freshman year of highschool, the French students of the same age group have 11-12 classes. Better yet, while we start school either at 7:30 or 8:30, and finish at 2:30 or 3:30 in the afternoon, they are stuck in the classroom from 7:30-4:00 guaranteed. As for after school activities? Half of the students said they would rather go home after school than stick around for a sport or theatre group. Fortunately the other half reassured me they had after school activities, and that they were quite enjoyable.

It all came down to a few things, that made the systems different in a way that the students and I had different perspectives: In the US we get 40 minutes or so for lunch time, and in France, it's at least an hour and a half! I asked the students, which would you prefer, a shorter lunch break so you can go home sooner, or a longer one that makes you stay at school until later? They all agreed they would rather have a longer day at school than give up that precious hour and a half they have with their friends.

Next were the foreign languages. Most of them took at least two languages, sometimes three. All of them had started learning a foreign language at the age of 11, if not sooner. When I told them that some of my friends didn't even take a foreign language in school because it wasn't required, their eyes popped, and their mouths opened wide. They couldn't believe it. American students don't learn languages until high school, and even then, only one? How could that be? I think we all agreed that it was fun to learn languages....well, most of us did.

Finally, and interestingly enough, the students had all of their classes with the same group of kids. I guess that's similar to what we had in middle school, but I can't imagine how different it must be to spend your entire day with the same 25 odd students, all year long. I asked one girl how she felt about this, and her response was, "I like it. We feel more unified, as a group." Fair enough.

I guess there are some things that I may never understand, but I can definitely appreciate. One thing is for certain: these kids could be in any high school in the US, with their sense of humor and comic timing. I laughed so hard while my students were role playing a fight between Sarkozy and Obama, as Mickey Mouse tried to intervene to calm them all down. Some days are just crazy like that, where you couldn't get them to stop speaking English if you tried. I just go with the flow.