Heather - I was refused a job- via the Rectorat in Bordeaux - at a French state school (was teaching at a private), as I did not have French nationality and therefore could not apply, ie ineligible despite my qualifications.....
Brian, firstly I can totally understand your frustration especially when it comes to your children and their education and future. There are a few points that I would like to raise regarding English teaching in France, having previously taught English in college/lycee and Ecole des Ingenieurs more recently. As a teacher, I think that we must exercise some sensitivity when correcting teacher's work etc.. I understand you feel that it is your duty however, it doesn't encourage a sense of cooperation and a foundation for a healthy parent/teacher relationship. If anything is puts added pressure on the teacher who feels that they have to always be on guard,watching their back etc... and this will naturally have a negative impact on the teacher's attitude to your child and affect their learning in turn. Teaching English in the French Education system was a real eye-opener and helped me to understand why French children spoke English so badly. The French teachers teaching English struggled to even converse with me in English ! this again is linked to their teaching training and the way modern foreign languages are taught in France. Their approach is so different in so many respects with regards to using the target language, ICT / music/ other innovative approaches. Hopefully, this will change in the future with trainee teachers being offered more support and manageable teaching placements. All I know is that the children I taught lapped up our approach and seemed to really enjoy the use of U2 in explaning the situation in N. Ireland for example. The French teachers had their own strengths in the use of Grammar etc. It must however be about cooperation and developing a better relationship with them and us.
By the way, it is a fallacy to think that you have to be French to be a teacher in France. As long as you pass the CAPES- you can teach in state schools.
I think the French are confused between Jules Ferry being the government minister who legislated the first modern universal public education anywhere with the invention of education (which might have been universal and free in some places) which was some thousands of years earlier. But heh-ho Charlemagne is French is cast in the same mould.
Ignorance.
Nola, yes, good to see what you say. I have done my homework and to are confirming what I have found. It is sad in many ways. We have the dilemma of being academics who have been university teachers and all that, so it is imagined we are on our children's backs forcing them to learn/study. If anything we do the opposite, are very hands off and become involved when asked which is what has happened when all these 'flaws' arise.
Last year's teacher, the one with a child in the class in question, is one of my best mates. He is almost certainly the best teacher in the school. He has been officially warned that because he is a teacher he is not allowed to complain about a colleague's teaching standards even when it affects his children. His ex-wife, also a teacher but at another school, has had a warning not to complain through the system. Two other parents who are 'freelance' sports instructors were given a raised finger but complained about being threatened, the rest of us who are disgruntled are close to contacting the inspectorate because the Directrice will not even attend meetings and hear what people have to say, the teacher herself apparently shouted at some parents who challenged her "let me decide what is right or wrong, I am the professional" or words to that effect. Then we compare notes and find, as you also effectively say in part Nola, that what we find bad is quite common.
Yes, striking children. There has recently been an action about the canteen because the lunchtime attendants have been physically punishing children for not eating certain things. Forcing them to kneel in a corner and so on. It went to the maire in a council meeting via a councillor in the form of a hefty petition. It has been more or less dealt with. However, an attempt to have the issue of children struck quite forcibly was rejected on grounds of it being necessary for discipline, even when shown that it was actually that teacher's bad temper. In the UK she would be gone, here a gentle word about not losing her rag was accpted by most parents but one couple who said they objected were told that if they were not happy they should look for another school for their child. Modern education, pah!
It is also so contradictory to what we have seen in the two reports the French government have submitted to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. We want to live in France and we want the best for our daughters but then they desrve no ore than any other child and we simply feel that this country is not giving the best it has to give.
I have lots of children and we've now "done" maternelle up to university.........
Alors, this is a subject close to my heart (hefts bosom and gets comfortable):
there are some excellent teachers and some appalling teachers here, just as there are everywhere. However, the difference is that the appalling teachers never get moved (they sit on their laurels, picking favourites, teaching crap and sitting it out till their pension) and the head and the authorities don't dare do a thing (Prud'homme, for starters). Often the parents themselves vote with their feet and when Mme Dupont is in the next class, they all ask Monsieur le Directeur if petit Pierre can be put in M Stephan's class next year "with all his petit copains". No one whispers the word "Dupont", it is all very French and discreet. And Mme Dupont or whatever stays and teaches crap happily and unless she slaps a child too hard or says anything racist or pro-Vichy, she stays.
The superb teachers, however.................My youngest had the most fantastic, devoted teacher any of them have ever had, state or posh private. She taught maternelle at the little local state school - was on the ball, dedicated, did outings, projects, ran an up to date class blog with photos and comments, knew every child inside out and stuck her neck out to push for an organic or at least locavore canteen with input from the local farmers. She was universally loathed by the Directrice, the other teachers, the Maire and the powers that be as she was too non conformist and perhaps her dedication threw a bad light on those in teaching for an easy life..............she was moved.
The kids had one appalling English teacher here (you have to have French nationality to teach English in the state system; go figure) - "ooooooooooooooooels" for "owls", "creepies and crawlies" for creepy crawlies and eyewatering translations of the most simple sentences, using wrap around French grammatical structuring and ignoring every rule of common usage going. She wouldn't listen to reason and I finished by correcting her corrections and sending them back annotated ;)
Just as an aside, one of the quietest and most mild mannered teachers the children ever had was a whispering, timid woman who just about made herself heard at parent's evening. She did a dramatic exit stage left, from the Surrey elementary school when she lost the plot, smashed a chair over her desk and threw it at a boy. She was fired. I wonder what would have happened to her here?
Rushing out now but my kids have always been told Charlemagne was French.... And that the French 'invented' education which always reminds me of the Life of Brain - what have the Romans ever done for us - I think your best bet is just keep on at home. Ours now apply a healthy dollop of scepticism to any 'facts' that don't ring true.
and ps. sorry but I've got a sister is current - whether that is right or wrong is another debate :)