tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424131704277823220.post7245654843033591576..comments2023-09-23T11:16:00.352+02:00Comments on The Franco-American Flophouse has moved: Education in France: Classer et éliminerVictoria FERAUGEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16319699673885400472noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424131704277823220.post-70649421808278039972012-06-04T10:40:26.882+02:002012-06-04T10:40:26.882+02:00@Christophe - I love your comments. You do a fant...@Christophe - I love your comments. You do a fantastic job of supplementing and commenting on the posts and I really enjoy reading what you have to say. For info I have three degrees: Political Science, Network Technology (IT) and an MBA. The first was what I really wanted to do, the second was an interest of mine that seemed a good bet for actually making a living and the third was pure fun. :-) <br /><br />Feeling okay here. I am conserving my strength today for the next step - my chemo starts this Thursday.<br /><br />I would agree with you that some elitism is not necessarily bad depending on how you define the term. The system is touted as a meritocracy and I think that is what it tries to be. What worries me is how it is rigged in ways that make it almost impossible for it to be a system based on merit and how some groups are favored over others based on how the rules are written. Clearly, people fall through the cracks and that generates an enormous amount of anger and frustration. Globalization tends to exacerbate the situation and the losers tend to strike out and blame (in no particular order) immigrants, the state, the EU and other exterior forces. Can lead to people joining ever more radical groups. I don't believe, for example, that the Front National is all about people who despise immigrants. I think it gets most of its support from the losers in French society - the people who end up in those tech schools and who are oriented toward jobs that are highly vulnerable to globalization. Good point about the U.S. - another catastrophe in process. The cost is simply outrageous. Something has to give.<br /><br />@fly in the web, Thanks for the info on England and your experience in France. Yes, I've seen the same and lived some of it. Though we were never in a ZEP we learned from hard experience that the first contact we made with a new school needed to be made by my spouse (a "francais de souche"). Having me do it meant that the girls were tagged as "children of immigrants" and "speakers of a foreign language at home" and that was never EVER a good thing.<br /><br />VictoriaVictoria FERAUGEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16319699673885400472noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424131704277823220.post-68585461074834776092012-06-03T18:21:21.185+02:002012-06-03T18:21:21.185+02:00In the days of the 11 plus examination in England ...In the days of the 11 plus examination in England there was a 'falsifying' of results.<br />The provision of grammar school places varied wildly - towns usually had good provision, some counties could be appalling.<br />Thus the number of passes had to fit the number of places and innumerable children with academic capabilities ended up in the vocationally oriented secondary modern system. <br /><br />My experience of the educational system in France has been at second hand, through the families of French and Turkish friends.<br /><br />The children of the latter, going to schools usually classed as ZEP, had far less attention paid to their abilities and capacities.<br /><br />I went with my Turkish builder to see one of his daughter's teachers, who had been continually marking down her English - though her work seemed more than acceptable to me.<br />The reluctance to grant an interview eventually overcome, the attitude of the teacher was was to regard me as less than the dust beneath the chariot wheels, to refuse to discuss the 'problems' the girl had with English (non existent) and in the end to ask me with fury why I was wasting my time and hers on a girl who would end up being married off to some illiterate from the backwoods of Turkey to get him a visa for France.<br /><br />The problem was overcome and a new, better school arranged, but only by going round the local political backdoor.<br /><br />This is anecdotal evidence, I know, but France has to develop all the talent it can, not just that of its self perpetuating elite.the fly in the webhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04563871975125538755noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424131704277823220.post-13902496033521676582012-06-02T20:08:13.591+02:002012-06-02T20:08:13.591+02:00In the university in the US, the class book was th...In the university in the US, the class book was the main material, and the teacher was complementing and explaining sections of the book. It is the student's responsibility to extract himself/herself the important parts of the book. I wasn't trained to do that and that was a difficult exercise for me. Maybe that's also why there are way less class hours in the US (12-15 hours per week), as opposed to a full time 35 hours of classes in France. With that many hours, the teacher has to extract the important information for you. In the US, it also seems that the students has a lot more choices as for the classes he/she can choose, which may lead to much more "vertical" degree. Nothing bad with that, but it seems that French engineers are more generalist.<br /><br />The competition aspect is interesting. A little bit of competition is good and stimulating. Too much, like what happens at higher levels in preparatory classes to engineering school is well... too much. A good selection has already been made based on your results at the baccalaureate and in some cases additional tests to enter a specific school. The tactic the teachers use to demean these bright students to make them stronger is not always the best way to achieve the best results. I went this route, but I chose a private school, whose admission to the engineering school was based on your grades, rather than a test where you're ranked among thousands of students. The atmosphere was much nicer.<br /><br />I will conclude about the pricing. I think this is great that education is France remains for the most part sponsored by the government. Private schools were also reasonable when I attended. When they reform it, I think they must maintain that aspect of it. The escalating prices of education in the US is going to lead to the next financial crisis. Many students graduate with crazy high student debt, that is going to take them years to reimburse. And that is if they can even find a job. In addition, student debt cannot be wiped out by bankruptcies. I also think that in the medical field, this contributes a lot to the high cost. How can doctors charge less when they graduate with $500,000 in debt. Lowering education cost is part of the healthcare crisis solution. Unfortunately, nothing has been done towards this goal and education costs continue to increase all over the country. I see that as a big problem for the future of this country. I don't think anything should be free. But it gets to the point where it is becoming not affordable for many.<br />Thanks again for a great post Victoria. I hope you're feeling OK.<br /><br />Best,<br /><br />-ChristopheChristophenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424131704277823220.post-1844536363444066272012-06-02T20:07:04.672+02:002012-06-02T20:07:04.672+02:00Hi Victoria,
You're a really good writer and ...Hi Victoria,<br /><br />You're a really good writer and your analysis is excellent. I am surprised you ended up in the IT field :-) The reason I start my comment with that remark is that in France, students are oriented mainly on their skills, not necessarily based on what the best path for the career they might be interested in. In high school, they have to choose roughly at 14 years old, if they're going to choose a path they is going to lead them to a career in economy, literature, or engineering (Premiere S and Terminale C, L, G were the acronyms used when I was in high school: 20 years ago S and C for scientific, L for Literature and G for Economy). Students good in math were oriented towards the S section, while students better in French and languages were oriented to a L section, and students neither really good in either math or languages were oriented towards a G section.<br />The G section had a somewhat bad connotation, that a singer I like (Michel Sardou) described in one of his songs: "Le bac G"<br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7F3tEodDGH8<br />Good students were almost always choosing S/C, because it was the opening door to any career they might choose later.<br /><br />Even in earlier years (middle school), some of the options students could choose guaranteed them to be in a class of hard working bright kids: pick German as a second language, as opposed to Spanish, and you were pretty much sure to end up in a class with brilliant kids. Same thing for Latin as an option.<br /><br />Yes, the French system is elitist. Is this a bad thing? Well it depends on how the classes are made and the ability of the teacher to teach to kids of different levels within the same class, which is not always easy. If you put kids with too much different levels in the same class, and the teacher does not adapt his teaching to give brighter kids something more difficult and challenging (which would be too difficult for some other kids), then the brighter kids will suffer. So I think the key is class composition, and I am not sure principals or whoever make the choice pay attention to that enough. Paying more attention to that might improve results if they do it right (i.e. leveraging from the top, not the bottom).<br />Your comment about the grades is interesting. I was surprised that this would happen in a math class where you would think results are black and white!<br /><br />The way of teaching in high school and in my case even in my engineering school is very different than what I experienced in the US. I was lucky enough to spend my last year of engineering school studying in a renowned US university, and let me tell you that I was not well prepared! It might be different in universities in France, but in high school and at my engineering school, as you described, the student takes notes on what the teacher says, and the class book is an accessory. The student might refer to it to complement the teacher's notes, and use it to do exercises. My parents used to tell me that I should use the books more! That was the case all my curriculum.<br /><br />Continued in next comment. I have more than 4096 characters :-)Christophenoreply@blogger.com