brigade des stupefiants

went to a lecture sponsored by the school. it was led by a police officer from the brigade des stupefiants. this is the "narcotic squad" but literally translates as the brigade of drugs. i think it should actually be called the “brigade AGAINST drugs”. to me the name sounds like a “stupified brigade”. anyway, it was quite informative. pot is really cheap. dealers hang out at the metro station. a kid can save money from his/her lunch allowance and buy pot really cheap. it’s cheaper than cigarettes. he talked about the new drugs and the various dangers – lack of control of ingredients, as always, being one of them. he talked about alcohol. he said that in france, alcohol is illegal for under 18’s because it is unhealthy for children’s bodies. one parent asked if a child is exposed to alcohol in the safety of the home, wasn’t that ok? he said there should be zero tolerance and by presenting it in the family setting, in celebrations etc, it was just giving it a positive message. he said “if you think that you are teaching your child the different grape varieties and types of wine, you are wrong. kids are incapable of tasting these subtleties”. this being france, i was shocked that he was so definitively against wine. but of course, he HAS to be. he’s a policeman with the brigade des stupefiants.

potluck cocktails with teachers

pot luck cocktail with teachers tonight, hosted by jj’s friend’s mom and dad. they have a gorgeous apartment at trocadero. it was good meeting more parents. these are all parents of students in the international baccalaureate program (as opposed to french bac) so a more international crowd. i enjoyed meeting the teachers too. funny to hear your child’s descriptions and judgements of teachers and then to actually meet them.  her french teacher is a very cute, enthusiastic man who sported a guitar on his back when he was leaving. i guess it's normal that kids complain and you hear just the bad things.  only afterwards when i said, "he seems very nice", would she admit, "oh, yes, he's very nice.  it's just that he's a hard grader."  i also met a biology teacher who’s name sounded familiar. so i told him that i was the mom of jj who had him as a teacher and that she really loved biology. he said “yes, it shows”. then i found out later that i got it wrong, that she didn’t have him for a teacher!  i laughed!  general confusion between teachers and parents.

first conversation group of year

i love our conversation group meetings. we make the journey of learning french together with this fun group of moms. one mom is british and i love this list of her favorite new french terms she shared with us:

parents retardataire – referring to the parents who arrived late to the meeting – usually “les eleves retardataire” meaning late students. retardataire = latecomer

depots sauvages – (literally “wild trash”) = illegal dumping

dejections canines – dog poop.(apparently “dejection” is a medical term for this)

she also shared a british term with me once when i told a story about an artistocratic-wannabee mom that i knew in san francisco. this mom was also pregnant and could not make a certain meeting because she had an appointment to have her baby then. apparently, she had said to a friend, in reference to this, “dogs give birth”. my friend said that in england this is a type they call “too posh to push”.

of course, i also love the group because i get all kinds of stories about the school. it was so helpful to try to understand things when we started in september, a year ago. the french school culture is all about punishment and telling kids what they do wrong rather than the american way of telling them what they do right. there is a little notebook called "carnet de correspondance" which is used as the communication with the parents. it is theoretically to have all teacher comments, but usually to tell what the child has done wrong and to have a record of bad behavior. one mom told me that her daughter got a bad mark for having brought in the wrong type of scotch tape. absurd!

french camp experience

this evening i went to pick up jj at the train station. it was the end of her 2 week summer camp.

the first difference in this paris sponsored summer camp compared to past upscale american camps, was that no one said anything about giving up the cell phones. none of this “off-grid, non-electronic, old-fashioned camp experience”. we were able to get minute by minute updates. it was raining and windy. the town was cute. the food was horrid. no one was able to eat the food. it was EVEN worse than the food at school. she was going to lose a lot of weight. they went to town but were forbidden to buy food. they were travelling by bus on windy mountain passes and she was afraid for her life. the kids would cheat at games. it wasn’t fair. other kids pushed ahead in line and got the few spaces for camping. someone threw down her bag and her cell phone screen cracked. (our poor protected child, finally exposed to the rabble!) one kid was even sent home for having drugs.

p. told his colleagues at work that he was concerned about jj having a good time and that the camp was “tres populaire”. the word “populaire” here not meaning “popular” as in “lots of people like it”, but rather “of the people – of ALL the people” as in the term “popular uprising”. when he further explained that it was a “city of paris camp”, they could only say “oh la la”.

p was worried about his poor daughter not having a good time. he proposed that if she were really unhappy, that i should go down and save her. what, and leave her friends there? no, he proposed that i save all of them and get a hotel and hang out there along the french riviera. but “no”, i insisted. “this is good for her.” it DIDN’T seem that she was having a TERRIBLE time.

having a cell phone was not the only difference between this camp and her US camps. this is france and many of the kids smoke from an early age. there was a designated smoking area. before bedtime they would announce, “smoke recess – last smoke of the evening – those kids who want to smoke, go to the smoking area”, where they would smoke with the counselors. the youngest smoker was 12.

the other kids in turn had not been exposed to the bigger world. they were awed that a. and gg. lived in the 16th arrondissement – “where rich people live”. not all people living in the 16th are rich, but there is some relative truth to it. most of the other kids live in the more ethnic 18th, 19th and 20th. that said, just living in “paris proper” meant that these kids were probably more middle class. even jj living in the 15th was considered rich. the kids couldn’t understand how the girls could speak english so well. they couldn’t fathom that perhaps these were english speaking kids who had learned french.

jj. and her 2 friends decided that the french sense of humor was lame. they had to put on skits and were given the theme “impressions”. the 3 girls were a team. the basic story of their skit was that a french girl meets 2 american girls. the french girl says “what is your name?” one american girl says her name with an american accent, the french girl says the same name with a french accent. the american girl says “no” and says it again with an american accent. the audience was on the floor. jj said that all week kids would come up to her and say “oh, you’re jj!” (with an american accent), and laugh and laugh.

overall, i think it was a good experience, but i don’t think she’ll want to do it next year.

internship with master model maker

today was the first day of jj’s internship. i accompanied her to the marais, to the office. she is in a really cool neighborhood. she is at a stage where she still wants a little guidance, but doesn’t want to be seen with a parent. so i dropped her in the courtyard of the office and waited a few minutes there until it was clear that she had gotten in. she will be doing model making with a master model maker in the paris office of the japanese architect, shigeru ban. as i have already mentioned, he is the architect who designed the “centre pompidou” in metz, france, with the french partner jean degastine, our friend’s brother. when she came back, we were all interested to hear how it had gone. p asked, “did they tell you ‘t’es null!’ like the french teachers?” [you are zero!]. she said that she had spent 2 and a half hours making a toilet out of paper and when the master came to look at it he said “it’s a catastrophe! start again!”. this is even worst than being told you are zero. but then she did it again and he said it was better. so that was an improvement. even encouragement. half of the office is japanese and half is french. they speak english to each other, so we figured jj would end up speaking english most of the week. she said that in fact, she is speaking mostly french, since the master is french.

i think the whole concept of the internship is great. all these 9th graders go out into the world and get a taste of what working at a job is like. 8 hour days. actually, today she arrived at 9 and was supposed to leave at 5, but kept working with the rest of the people. at 6:00 she said, “i have to go home”. the secretary in charge of her said, “oh, yes, yes, you should go home”. the kids choose something they think they might be interested in and even if they decide it’s really not for them, they’ve learned something valuable.

jj in honors ceremony

i went back to grand palais museum to see the “odilon redon” exhibit- interesting. i took the metro to ‘invalides’ and took a velib bike across the river to the museum. odilon redon is part of the “symbolism movement” which took place in the late 1800’s. his early stuff was dark, almost “alfred gorey”-like in black and white. then he went to work in color and the paintings were very beautiful and mystical looking.

after the exhibit, i biked all the way home. mostly it was along bike paths and in parks. really no busy street biking. it all depends on where you are going.

that night, we went to an award ceremony, where jj got an honor. you may remember my confusion earlier in the year when jj got what seemed like average numeric grades but got an A+ overall grade. this happened for her second group of grades as well. i accepted it for whatever it was. i knew that the french culture of grading was “deflated” rather than “inflated” and the fact that much of it was in a foreign language made me fairly forgiving of them. i haven’t ever pushed for any particular grades from her. (i’m such a FAILURE as a “tiger mom”!) jj has always been a conscientious student. she works pretty hard and takes pride in her grades herself. then she got this letter saying that she would receive an honor, and i was still pretty confused and unsure. we figured out that the honor is similar to the old fashioned “honor list” – given to the top 10 percent of the student. jj and her “twin” friend were the only kids from the adaptation class to receive the award, which seemed in keeping with the 10% number - the top 2 out of 24 students. anyway, this did reveal to me that she was the 2nd in her small class. i have to admit, i was proud and impressed.

uk university meeting

there was a meeting earlier in the year about UK universities, that i missed. another mom missed it too, so she scheduled a meeting with the man at the school who is the specialist. she invited me and another mom to come along. it was very interesting, especially for me, who really doesn’t know anything about the UK system. some of the more interesting things he said:

- the UK university education is completely different from the US university education

- the last year at UK high schools is equivalent to the first year of US colleges and that is why the UK university education is only 3 years long. the UK students have already decided what subject they are going to study.

- a student should apply to the universities based on the subject that they want to study – because each university has its specialties.

- after each year at a UK university the students must pass an exam to be allowed to continue the next year there.

- students can go to the websites for the universities and there are pages that explain the majors and describes what they can do professionally with those majors. this seems to be such a logical idea – to give ideas of what one might like to do – by LISTING things, to help kids decide what path to take.

- he can quite accurately predict what score a student will get on the International Baccalaureate exam (at end of senior year) and therefore to what schools he/she can apply (because the schools have fixed score requirements for entry)

a UK education for jj is not something we would rule out. she could be eligible for it and it is MUCH cheaper than a US degree. just keeping our options open.

decisions, decisions

we will soon have to decide on whether or not we stay in paris. we love the lifestyle and p has a good job for now. we are in the health system. the two factors against staying are feeling far from family and whether we believe in this school or not. i am constantly thinking about this school and asking information of anyone i meet who has had contact with it. there seem to be many. they all seem to agree that the school gives a good education and makes it easier to get into a good u.s. college.

jj meltdown

went to alliance francaise “writing workshop”. did more talking in this class than in the “oral” workshop. the teacher is young and energetic. she is much less formal about things and during the breaks hung out and chatted with us.

this afternoon, jj had a melt down about school. we were warned by the veteran parents of the program to expect several of these... she says that her math teacher talks to fast and can’t explain things very well, and jumps around several topics at the same time. she is so busy trying to copy down what is being written on the board that she doesn’t have a chance to listen and understand what is being said. certainly the language is the problem here. the teacher’s attitude doesn’t sound very good. after being asked a question, the teacher said “figure it out yourself”. i really wonder about these teachers. (though, since i wasn’t there, i can’t say that that was rude or improper. sometimes, i want to say the same thing to jj when she’s working on her math and her question is almost “what is the answer?”. the proper response would be “figure it out”). she wants to have a math tutor to help her. anyway, jj has never complained like this in the many schools she has gone to. maybe part of the problem is that she’s “tasted the good stuff”. jj being sad makes us all sad. plus, for p, his work is pretty stressful. i was awake early again and being tired makes me sad. but at a certain point, i got tired of being sad and had something to eat which perked me up. i think part of this is the february blues. the weather has been grey, but just listening to the east coast u.s. weather, reminds me how GREAT it is here! this beats 5 feet of snow!

school meeting

every few months, there is a school meeting, in which the administration gives news and updates to the parents. today, the principal of the school (who i had never seen before) came and talked about the murder. (see jan 4/5) she said that the student had left the school last year, but was extremely well liked. she said that this event is particularly upsetting because he was one of those very special people who had a big personality and had lots of friends in the school. it was very hard for all the students to hear about this news and she had brought in a psychiatrist to help talk to them about it. meanwhile, of course, it was terrible for the math teacher who was part of the family. she had taken some time off and was back now. many of the parents didn’t know anything about this story.

more school discussions;banking

went to have tea with a friend who is an american working in a progressive bilingual school in paris. her kids had gone to our school for a while, though they left early on. i wanted to hear what she had to say about it. i knew that she did not like the school at all so i knew her opinions would be very negative, but i wanted to hear both sides. she said that the administration does not care about the well being of your child and it is all about money. she had both professional and personal conflicts with them. in general, she was very critical of the french school culture. the kids are under high pressure, and there are plenty of dramatic stories. anyway, i won’t go into the gory details here. meanwhile, we had a tea and pastry at her lovely club, which is run by a countess and is located in one of the ritziest parts of town. the club is theoretically for the “arts”, but the members are more of the art buyers rather than the art makers.

another thing i did today was to make an appointment with the bank to try to move our account. because i knew that both p and i would need to be present, i needed an appointment on a saturday. of course, no appts were available until the next saturday. can you imagine? all this just to shift the account’s home? i mentioned already, that the bank offices are like duchies. our home office is in the 12th arrondissement, so if we want to do anything like transfer money we have to go there. we already tried to transfer our account, but because it is a joint account and i did not have the official french papers at the time, we couldn’t do it!

teacher conference

this evening was our teacher conferences. jj was to set up an appointment with each of her teachers, using a “dance card”. each meeting was to be 5 minutes. it is fondly referred to as “speed dating” (in reference to some new social practices that you may or may not have heard about!) unfortunately, the card got lost, and jj tried to contact the teachers to get the appointment times. in the end, i only had the times for 2 out of 3 meetings, so i went early and had to push in front of a line to find out the time for the 3rd meeting. of course, it doesn’t really take 5 minutes, so everyone was running late and there were lines of parents waiting for particular teachers. i went in at 6:00 and didn’t get back until 8:00. however, i must say, it was much more interesting than i had thought it would be. i thought i would merely get to see the face of the teachers that jj was complaining about. in fact, it was really good. they seemed very nice. (jj acknowledged later that yes, they were mostly nice. they just couldn’t teach very well). they really like jj and were very encouraging. i had seen these terrible marks and figured she was just limping along. they all said that she was wonderful in class and was one of their best students! i was thrilled that i could go back and let jj know this! she was surprised the hear it.

more about murder

getting better at painting every weekday.
looked up the story about the murder, and the latest says that the family denies any drug involvement of the student. the police say that the son has deep psychological problems and has admitted that he “hated his father and his ideas on bourgeouis education.” i guess he means our school...

more about grades; a murder

went to conversation group today and asked them about the grade question. most of these moms have been here for a few years and some have gone through this program. they said that the teachers all get together and meet about each student. a big part of the overall grade is in “comportement” which is a combination of attitude, trying hard, being polite in class, and everything else, rolled into one. jj got good comments, so perhaps that weighed very strongly.

anyway, one of the moms told us another bit of news in the school. over the holiday break, one of the students who was a senior, apparently was involved in the murder of his father! the father was a famous journalist in france who had just retired last year. the student was 17 and had some “friend” who was 25 go to his apartment. it is unclear as of yet what exactly happened, but the father was killed with a stabbed throat and hammered head. apparently the student was getting a 500 euro weekly allowance (approximately $650) and he wanted more money. drugs were rumored to be involved. shocking. but wait, there’s more. the sister of the murdered journalist is a math professor and head of 6th and 7th grade at the school. totally crazy.

back in paris; report card

the trip back from morocco was not too hard, but there was a lot of waiting in lines. the worst was going through passport control in paris orly airport. it was new years day, so maybe they were short staffed. there was a very long line and one lady passed out. the pompiers (firemen/medical aid) were called. she probably had eaten in the market stalls...

we got home and found jj’s report card in the mail. grading is one of those things that is a big issue in france. it is on a scale of 0-20 where 20 is clearly stated as unattainable. i think maybe you could get a 20 if you cured cancer. anyway, the report card confused us more about the school. we know that the new adaptation students have a hard time. half of their classes are taught in french which many are just starting to understanding. in the report card, was not only jj’s grade, but also the highest, average and bottom grades, so you could see where you stood in the class. she was graded on 8 different subjects and sub-topics. 1 of her grades was near the top, 3 were above avg, 3 were hovering around average and 1 was below avg. she was given one final overall letter grade. with these scores i would have guessed that she would get around a B or B- or even less. however, she got an A+. now, i shouldn’t complain about such a grade, and jj was thrilled, but it just didn’t make any sense to me. with all the talk of tough grading, how could this be? one theory i had was that her teachers actually confused her with her good friend, who is so similar to her, who seems to be doing very well in school!

thanksgiving

spent most of the afternoon shopping and cooking for thanksgiving even though all i was supposed to make was mashed potatoes and dessert. i made some gravy (decided to make from scratch so made chicken stock from roast chicken carcass and proceeded from there). also made a french lemon tart – which actually came out a bit thin – realized that not using real measuring cups caused problems. must get myself some. and made some appetizers. then went to jj’s friend’s house in the 16th arrondissement – a beautiful spacious apartment.
we were in her neighborhood, almost to her apartment, when we walked by a lady, who stopped and said in english – “excuse me, i think i know you. aren’t you p and c? catja’s friends?” amazingly, we had met the friend of a friend 17 years earlier – and i think we only met twice or so. she recognized us as we walked by. we will get together with her soon.
thanksgiving dinner was nice, but somehow didn’t really feel like thanksgiving as much as a nice dinner party. jj’s girl gang friends and their parents were there as well as a french couple who are parents of the same school. one more hint in the school culture puzzle was learned from them. they said that part of the problem with the teachers is that they are very badly paid and not a happy bunch because of it. apparently they get paid something like 24K for the year, which is really poverty level, if they had to live on it. that’s the equivalent of being paid 24k and trying to live in manhattan... sadly that’s one of those common things – that teachers are paid so badly. they said there are lots of women whose husbands make enough money to support them. they also said that their children don't tell told them crazy stories about the teachers, like our children do. they said their kids probably are so used to the teachers acting this way that there was nothing out of the ordinary to report to the parents.

exam week

this is exam week for jj. she goes in for her one or 2 exams a day, and has the rest of the time off, theoretically for studying. she doesn’t seem too stressed about it, but is working hard. of course, this throws off any routine for me. still not succeeding in getting my 4 hours a day of painting.

school happiness study

there is a new book out in france which is causing waves. “on acheve bien les ecoliers” is by peter gumbel, a british professor at the very prestigious french “grand ecole” science polytechnique (referred to as “science po”). he noticed that his students had a lack of self confidence, even though they were brilliant and the best in the country. he was happy that his own kids would go through the french school system, which has a reputation for turning out a highly educated population. however, as his kids progressed, he was amazed at the stress they seemed be under and that they had regular head-aches and stomach aches because of it. he was shocked at the ambiance in the schools that could be summed up by a phrase that the teachers often used to the children “t’es null”. translated literally as “you are zero” it means “you are useless”. he then did research on various studies done on school systems around the developed world. i was excited that he would be giving a talk at our school. it was a very interesting lecture and i laughed to find out that in fact, he is a dad at our school, so the experience his children were having with stress in the french educational system is in OUR school! he spoke very diplomatically about his book and his kids’ experience, since there were school faculty present in the lecture. i am seeing more and more people who are critical of the school, yet respectful of its high reputation, and appreciative of its strengths. his criticism is more towards the government run ministry of education, the school culture and the grading system.
more background:
our school is considered one of the best in france and very ambitious parents kill to have their kids in it. apparently there are a number of type-A parents, though i haven’t met them yet. i am still a bit isolated with the expat parents. jj had an easier time getting in than any french kid, because the adaptation program is considered a center piece of the school and they need international kids, especially english speaking ones. the kids do have to prove themselves as good students, but it certainly is the easiest way to get in. the rest of the school population is divided into 1/3 english speaking families, 1/3 french speaking families and 1/3 other language families. with so many more applications from locals, this makes the chances for a french kid to get in, very, very tough.
there was another school crisis that did not involve jj. there are 2 french language classes for the adaptation kids. we were told that one was more advanced than the other, but with the backgrounds of the mix of kids that doesn’t seem true. both classes seem to have total beginners along with kids who have a french parent and speak quite well. there have been several shocking stories about the teacher in the “advanced” class. one child was asked in class what she liked to do, and answered “i like to eat” (even though she doesn’t really) and the teacher retorted “that’s why you’re so fat!”. of course, this child is actually very thin and i think it was probably meant as a joke, but these days one shouldn’t comment on a girl’s weight like that.
in addition, this teacher made some other comments which were a bit racist towards the asians in the class. i think she may have thought she was being funny, and her humor may have been acceptable in france 50 years ago. however, this is an international school with kids from all over the world, a school whose mission is to "develop international understanding through bilingual education starting in the nursery years". i was puzzled. to me, the teacher is the school. i assumed that the school, knew these teachers and their style and condoned them. however, many parents complained to the parent group who met with the principal, and this particular teacher was corrected.


back to the lecture:
chatting to some parents and listening to the lecture itself this evening revealed some important clues to me, on my search to understand the secrets of this strange, intense school culture and how the teachers could be the way they are.


1) it turns out that teachers are NOT employees of the school, but of the “ministry of education”. they answer to the government and that is who is their boss. the teacher is assigned to the school and the school cannot fire the teacher; they can only complain to the ministry and in extreme cases, request that a teacher to be transferred.
2) the teachers primary job objective is NOT the education of the children, but rather to follow the program set out by the ministry – which is a day to day schedule of the curriculum. on any given day, they should be teaching specifically what is scheduled for that day. the ministry sends out inspectors to sit in the classrooms and a teacher will get in big trouble for not teaching the scheduled lesson. this perhaps insures a certain measurable standard for the curriculum but does not guarantee that the children will learn anything.
3) lack of pedagogical training – apparently there was an official training program for teachers at one time, but the old version was thrown out for the new version which was very unsuccessful, and so that was thrown out too. apparently, nothing has replaced that. the previous training insured that the teachers were competent in their subject but not necessarily in teaching. many had no actual class experience before being put in the classroom. this is similar to graduate students teaching college classes – with no teaching experience. so, at this time, there is no pedagogical training at all.


through the lecture, one could almost feel the collective of parents breathing a sigh of relief that someone had publicly said what they were thinking all along, and then actually support it with data. though, there were a few questionable charts and statements and one can always doubt the manipulation of data for desired conclusions.
one mom, who has been very successful in creating the parent organization which works closely with the school (which in itself is unheard of, in the normal french school system)– suggested that we raise money to buy a copy of his book for each teacher in the school and have mr. gumbel give a similar talk to all of them. (there were very few teachers present). the woman who seems to be the public face of the school spoke of her frustrated attempts over the years to help reform the national school system and her efforts to move this particular school forward towards enlightenment. the fact that this book has made such waves and caused discussions is a good sign that perhaps france is ready for things to start changing.
at the end of the evening, there was a feeling of hope for the future.

school adaptation

we had been told by the other parents that there would be tears in the first part of the year as the kids adapted to “adaptation”. jj had been weathering fairly well, though she wasn't fond of the ambiance in the school. today, the teacher was collecting a homework assignment that jj had missed hearing about. she was terrified of the yelling that she was sure she would receive for not having it. however, the teacher kindly told her to bring it in the next day. jj said the teacher must have been in a good mood. she was relieved but that evening the pent up fear came out in tears. she was very upset in general with the approach of the teachers. she railed again about the boy who was wrongly punished. she said “you can’t even smile. they don’t want you to be happy”

school meeting / doggy passport

went to school meeting. got to see who the principal was (the woman with whom jj had had the crisis) and various other teachers. the principal was a very proper french lady. the english teacher seemed to speak french fluently, but had the most amazing twangy american accent. i really enjoyed listening to her. it was entertaining.

later, i brought maynard to the vet to get his doggy passport, for traveling in europe.  plus he had to have a rabies test to get into england.  then, six months after the negative test results (ie. he DOESN'T have rabies), he is allowed in.  this is the second time we have done this.  we had had it done back in march '09, in boston, but the clinic messed up with some typos on his microchip number and it was invalidated.  we found this out only in july when we were coming over.  so now, he will be allowed into england in april.