BEING AVERAGE.....
Continuing comments about school....
When my daughter was 4 years old I was sent a " convocation" to see her kindergarten teacher. This is basically a " summons"... I cancelled classes, appointments, and was at the school door at 4 30 sharp to see the teacher. On the way there I was imagining all sorts of things...was she being bullied, was there a health problem, was she fighting, was she mute, had they detected a hearing or visual related problem, ringworm...?
I sat waiting for the teacher feeling the same kind of anguish I'd felt as a school girl outside the headmistress's office. I was duly called and went in.. "Madame, thank you for coming. I have summoned you here today because ( wait for this!!...) your daughter can't trace her w's." Being "me" I burst out laughing and looked around the room for hidden cameras. Is this some kind of joke, I asked. The teacher in question turned red and said that indeed it was not.
By now I was beginning to heat up a little...I couldn't believe it. I had been summoned because my 4 year old could not trace her w's!! How mad was that? This is one of those moments where you start pinching yourself to see if you are awake, alive, etc. I had cancelled classes and I needed that money to feed my children. I grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and asked my daughter to write a "w." She wrote a "w." The teacher ripped the paper from her hands and said that was all very well but she couldn't trace one.
Well the teacher got a lecture from yours truly about the pettiness of this " summons" and how she was wasting both my and her time. Then it all came out...."You know, Madame, it is a handicap for a child to be english in the french school system? It can lead to learning disabilities." To which I replied, "Well lucky she isn't english then...she was born in France, she is French and I am not english either." I walked out.
Many things dawned upon me about that particular teacher...Firstly, she was in the wrong business. You need to have a heart to teach, especially 4 years olds. Secondly, it really helps to NOT be xenophobic. I also realised that I had never been given the notices for the PTA meetings, a committee I had been voted onto by other parents. She'd never given my daughter the meeting notices to hand on to her mother as she probably thought that "being english" I wouldn't understand..or worse still, that I couldn't trace my w's.
Sad lady! I think the meeting had had the goal of making me feel inferior and foreign. It didn't...she'd made me laugh, made me mad and, frankly, made herself look ridiculous.
My daughter is the most beautiful child. She always has been. She is kind, good and has a beautiful nature.She is bright, alert and interested in her world. Her one calvary has been that she has always been average at school. I have always told her in my anglo-saxon way, that as long as she tries her best that is all that counts. By her last year in primary school, CM2, she had a terrible complex and repeated incessantly that she was " null" /stupid.
I have noticed even with my own adult business school students that if you are average you feel like you are worth less. Well, not everybody can be the best, its simply NOT logical.
Why, in France, are children made to feel like this? This is a country with a heritage drenched with poets, writers, composers, musicians, artists, scientists, philosophers, not to mention humanists. As I mentioned in a previous post its just not enough to be good at one subject, one must be good at everything. I remember when my son received a 20/20 on his report for latin....there was a red circle around the 11 for maths but not one around the 20! DAH!! I personally bat for the anglo/american method that we should encourage and not discourage, reinforce and praise, help where help is needed and say what is great first rather than not at all.
At my school in New Zealand there were the girls who were amazing at sport, amazing at maths ( never me!!), amazing at english, amazing at music and amazing at sciences....we were all different. And having different talents was OK where I came from.
We decided to leave the public school system and put our daughter in a private college ( year 6 -9). She is in a brilliant little structure in an international section where she feels good about herself. For the first time she comes home from school beaming. Yesterday she came home with her first mini report - I was very worried that this would be the usual litany of criticism with nothing positive anywhere. How wrong I was. Instead of focusing on her rather low result in maths, it focused on what was good first..." Encouraging results in French and Technology. Well done. Have the confidence to consolidate your maths result and please do not hesitate to ask in maths class when you don't understand"..... Pavlova for pudding tonight!!!!!
See recipe ...
When my daughter was 4 years old I was sent a " convocation" to see her kindergarten teacher. This is basically a " summons"... I cancelled classes, appointments, and was at the school door at 4 30 sharp to see the teacher. On the way there I was imagining all sorts of things...was she being bullied, was there a health problem, was she fighting, was she mute, had they detected a hearing or visual related problem, ringworm...?
I sat waiting for the teacher feeling the same kind of anguish I'd felt as a school girl outside the headmistress's office. I was duly called and went in.. "Madame, thank you for coming. I have summoned you here today because ( wait for this!!...) your daughter can't trace her w's." Being "me" I burst out laughing and looked around the room for hidden cameras. Is this some kind of joke, I asked. The teacher in question turned red and said that indeed it was not.
By now I was beginning to heat up a little...I couldn't believe it. I had been summoned because my 4 year old could not trace her w's!! How mad was that? This is one of those moments where you start pinching yourself to see if you are awake, alive, etc. I had cancelled classes and I needed that money to feed my children. I grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and asked my daughter to write a "w." She wrote a "w." The teacher ripped the paper from her hands and said that was all very well but she couldn't trace one.
Well the teacher got a lecture from yours truly about the pettiness of this " summons" and how she was wasting both my and her time. Then it all came out...."You know, Madame, it is a handicap for a child to be english in the french school system? It can lead to learning disabilities." To which I replied, "Well lucky she isn't english then...she was born in France, she is French and I am not english either." I walked out.
Many things dawned upon me about that particular teacher...Firstly, she was in the wrong business. You need to have a heart to teach, especially 4 years olds. Secondly, it really helps to NOT be xenophobic. I also realised that I had never been given the notices for the PTA meetings, a committee I had been voted onto by other parents. She'd never given my daughter the meeting notices to hand on to her mother as she probably thought that "being english" I wouldn't understand..or worse still, that I couldn't trace my w's.
Sad lady! I think the meeting had had the goal of making me feel inferior and foreign. It didn't...she'd made me laugh, made me mad and, frankly, made herself look ridiculous.
My daughter is the most beautiful child. She always has been. She is kind, good and has a beautiful nature.She is bright, alert and interested in her world. Her one calvary has been that she has always been average at school. I have always told her in my anglo-saxon way, that as long as she tries her best that is all that counts. By her last year in primary school, CM2, she had a terrible complex and repeated incessantly that she was " null" /stupid.
I have noticed even with my own adult business school students that if you are average you feel like you are worth less. Well, not everybody can be the best, its simply NOT logical.
Why, in France, are children made to feel like this? This is a country with a heritage drenched with poets, writers, composers, musicians, artists, scientists, philosophers, not to mention humanists. As I mentioned in a previous post its just not enough to be good at one subject, one must be good at everything. I remember when my son received a 20/20 on his report for latin....there was a red circle around the 11 for maths but not one around the 20! DAH!! I personally bat for the anglo/american method that we should encourage and not discourage, reinforce and praise, help where help is needed and say what is great first rather than not at all.
At my school in New Zealand there were the girls who were amazing at sport, amazing at maths ( never me!!), amazing at english, amazing at music and amazing at sciences....we were all different. And having different talents was OK where I came from.
We decided to leave the public school system and put our daughter in a private college ( year 6 -9). She is in a brilliant little structure in an international section where she feels good about herself. For the first time she comes home from school beaming. Yesterday she came home with her first mini report - I was very worried that this would be the usual litany of criticism with nothing positive anywhere. How wrong I was. Instead of focusing on her rather low result in maths, it focused on what was good first..." Encouraging results in French and Technology. Well done. Have the confidence to consolidate your maths result and please do not hesitate to ask in maths class when you don't understand"..... Pavlova for pudding tonight!!!!!
See recipe ...
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Used this in class today with a French mum, who absolutely agrees with everything you said! Then of course she mention the fact that you can't sack bad teachers here. So if your kid is unlucky and get a bad one there isn't much you can do about it, except get a home tutor and eat pasta & rice for 6 months to be able to pay for it!
ReplyDeleteActually sending a child to a good private school is probably cheaper than a tutor once a week!! I really searched and searched for the one best suited to my daughter and am over the moon with the joys of GOOD FRENCH SCHOOLING.....yes it DOES exist!!
ReplyDeleteThe problem in France is not so much that you can't fire the teachers but that they are not trained to be teachers.Rather, the choice is based on academic grounds...great at your subject and they assume you can teach it. WRONG!! Pedagogy is another animal and its something innate and also learned/improved...hence teachers' training college in most other countries in the world.