More French Food For Thought

In the classrooms I’ve observed and overheard, I feel like French teachers sometimes near on the side of “training a dog” instead of interacting with children. 

• Voice/Encouragement: They rely a lot on the tone of their voice to get attention which makes sense but if anyone heard the “bad dog” tone of voice all day, it would get old.  Encouraging words are not given often and especially not when a student isn’t immensely succeeding.  I have never heard one of my co-teachers say things like “You can do it!” or “Almost there, check this problem again”.  There are so many ways to phrase things that don’t make people feel like crap and I can tell, even in French, that teachers aren’t conscious of this.

• Discipline/Making mistakes: If a student does something bad, the teacher will make sure that he comes face to face with his wrongdoing, especially if others are watching.  This is very much how some owners potty train their dogs.  If they have an accident in the house, the dog’s nose is forced in it so the dog can recognize his mistake, even if he doesn’t fully understand why that’s bad.  Teachers don’t give much explanation to why behaviors aren’t allowed which I feel doesn’t exactly give children an individual moral compass, but more of a memorized list.
• Going deeper into this, the fact that other students are watching is a HUGE tool for teachers here.  American teachers believe that there should be examples set for other children as far as giving time outs, saying names of people taking, etc but those are behavioral/social corrections.  When it comes to academic corrections, it becomes anonymous within the classroom community.  American teachers will announce that many students are making similar mistakes and will give an overall correction so in the end everyone is more informed and feels like they’re on the same level – even if they’re not.  French teachers put corrections up on the board and state who made each correction.  Not only does this isolate the child but it creates an insensitive environment where children laugh at someone only because they got laughed at earlier.  A never ending cycle.
• Another note:  This only gets more and more impersonal as the kids get older.  In high school, grades are posted with full names, grades, and ranking in classes.  The American idea of only posting grades by student ID # doesn’t exist.

• Interactive games:  Much like a dog who has never played fetch in its life, the dog will go crazy when it finally gets the chance to play!  French children, in this case, are dogs.  And an interactive/communicating/teamwork games is fetch.  Imagine.
• These children sit in desks in rows starting at age 6 so when the chance comes around to play a circle game and sing a silly song in a language they don’t really understand, it is definitely considered cutting loose.  Now, cutting loose a bit is not the problem (hey, they’re kids!) – it’s the way they respond to it.  If they don’t have their short leash on, they don’t know any other way to behave except CRAAaaAAaazzzzyyy.  The kids have finally learned that I will cut the game short if they don’t keep their cool but it took a while.   

• Creativity: I’ve already written a bit about this when I vented a bit about the notebooks and how they want it to be done a certain way but it has becoming increasingly noticeable lately.  This month, in conjunction with “Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes”, my 3^rd graders did a Monster unit.  In this activity, children were given a worksheet guide that I had created.  Essentially, they had to draw a monster in the blank space on the paper, then count how many heads, eyes, noses, etc. their monster had and fill in the blanks.  There were also lines to say your monster’s name and colors you chose to color it.
• For the most part, students would stare at the sheet for 5 minutes telling me that they just couldn’t think of anything.  But once I showed them my monster and other student dove in, it went ok.  Most weren’t risk takers but they really tried!
• One student sat at his paper for a good ten minutes and eventually drew what looked like a normal human with 1 head, 2 eyes, etc.  I asked him if it was a monster and he replied, “Yes, it’s a human monster”.  Case in point.

Again, this is based on observed behavior at my two primary schools.  I’m trying not to generalize my little experience to all of France but with such distinct differences, it’s hard not compare and wonder where the lines are.

This week is my third to last week teaching in Blois and I’ve grown really attached to (most of) these kids.  Yes, I’ve made a lot of observations and mental notes on where I stand on certain school cultures but I’m hooked.  I want to see more and think more about what’s best for children around the world.

Thinking of all of you!

Bisous,

Em