BBC: "French schools have absolutely no extra-curricular activities. "

[alp227]

This is an observation that BBC correspondent in France Hugh Schofield discovered as part of BBC Radio 4's From Our Own Correspondent series. If you thought that No Child Left Behind gutted American education to the bone, read what Mr Schofield has to say about the situation in France.

Perhaps the most dispiriting experience I have had as a parent in France was attending the so-called form "play" put on when my younger son was 11.

It was based on the Nutcracker Suite, and the school told us proudly that they had paid a professional troupe to work with the children over the course of the term.

This seemed a welcome change, because all the previous end-of-year shows had been supremely lame affairs in which the children put on costume and jiggled about miming to the latest pop song.

At least now they would be learning about theatre, about passion, imagination, self-discovery.

What a joke. If any of those poor boys and girls had lurking within them the creative urge - any nascent fascination with the performing arts - then it was comprehensively annihilated by this frightful experience.

An hour-and-a-half, in which one by one at the front of the stage the children struggled to deliver the screeds of text they had learned by heart. No drama, no action, no acting. Just a joyless succession of recitations.

By the end, my blood was boiling. But I could see that most of the other parents were perfectly satisfied, and so were the so-called professionals who had put the whole thing on.

For them the job was done. The children had learned what they had to learn and regurgitated it for the public. That was all that counted.

Rote memorization? Regurgiation? Must be familiar themes if you frequent the education forum on DU a lot.

Schofield also writes:

...the French system does not suffer from the curse of public-private apartheid, English-style.

Yes, there are semi-private Catholic schools, but the fees are tiny compared with English private schools and their level of education is not vastly different from the state sector. What it means essentially is that there are not two types of French person.

And third, whatever my complaints, the standards are overall pretty decent.

I dare say there has been some dumbing-down over the years, but the teachers mark rigorously and the exams are tough. Coursework and multiple-choice have yet to arrive in France.

This is an absurd example of the alleged French obsession with esoteric detail:

If, like many do, you find it hard to memorise the facts, then you are penalised. Your grades suffer, and you are the brunt of extremely discouraging remarks from your teachers.

What makes it worse is that the required corpus of knowledge can plumb depths of inane abstraction.

Once in geography, one of my children had to learn by heart the definition of a mountain-range: "a section of terrain of steep and variegated contours".

In maths, they have to remember that a straight line is an "assemblage of all points lying between an origin and a destination", and that a point is a "position in a plane that has neither length nor breadth". True, but so what?

Meanwhile in America, kids are memorizing (with a Z, LOL) the lyrics to the latest top 40 hits and dumb lines from movies.

Worst of all:

Linked to this prescriptive view of education is the sad fact that French schools have absolutely no extra-curricular activities.

There are no debating societies, no orchestras, no film clubs, no sports teams, no painting classes, no school newspapers, and no drama, at least none worthy of the name.

Ouch.

If you've heard the story of the Romeike family from Germany who was granted political asylum in the US to homeschool their children (homeschooling is illegal in Germany) I wonder when immigration courts will start granting educational asylum to persecuted French kids who want to be more well-rounded in America compared to the robotic schools in France? At least in America even though budgets are being slashed year by year a lot of schools still can afford sports and performing arts and other extracurriculars.

[Fearless]

1. Coming to an American city near you...

If this testing craze continues... Thanks Arne Dunkin... Go f*ck yourself.

[stray cat]

5. Should graduates be able to divide 10 by 2 and read this sentence?

[Catshrink]

6. Should graduates be able to think?

Automatons anyone? Unfortunately, there is no major in bubbling.

[Fearless]

10. Divide? Only loaves and fishes.

[Oregone]

2. "French schools have absolutely no extra-curricular activities."

I lack enough information to make any solid judgment about whether this is good or bad. These activities could be available easily outside of school, and we are talking about fundamentally different structures here. Our understanding of how these activities should be setup, within schools, is by no means automatically correct.

For example, here in Canada, there are far less sports in the schools, but far more available through community clubs (often funded provincially and through the municipalities). No, in high school in the US, I never had the opportunity to do curling, rugby, rowing, etc...

What we do know is France out performs the US in OECD rankings. So despite the fact that their schools may not offer these activities does not seem to impact this measurement, nor does it mean students do not have an opportunity to take part in these activities

[Hannah Bell]

3. there aren't two types of education in france? could have fooled me.

[Schema Thing]

4. The French don't even have a word for curricular

:evilgrin:

[Merlot]

7. "French schools have absolutely no extra-curricular activities."

I'm not sure that's a bad thing. The clubs and classes and lessons can probably be found elsewhere. And look at all the problems in our schools with religious clubs being on campus etc. Maybe school should be just for learning and clubs should be cultivated outside.

[txlibdem]

8. K&R n/t

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. Extra curricular means outside of school

Ideally the parents would be responsible for extra curricular activities, not the school.