Mindy Jones is a Seattleite living in Paris for two years with her husband and two kids. Her daily life does not include romantic walks along the Seine, champagne picnics on the Pont des Arts, or five-star gourmet dinners. For a realistic take on life in a fantasy place, visit her blog, An American Mom in Paris.
The kids are almost back in school. Thank God, say the parents. In France, this time of year is known as La Rentrée, and is also when all Parisians return from their month-long vacations in the South. Every parent in the school will be richly tanned on the first day back; I will be sporting my standard ghostly pallor. It’s just one more way to announce myself as a foreigner.
Our school experience in France has included three years of the public école maternelle, the hardcore equivalent of our American preschool. I say “hardcore” because preschool isn’t a bunch of kids singing nursery rhymes and playing with blocks here. It’s serious business.
The French école maternelle is a full eight-hour day, four days a week. At our school, the kids tackle subjects and skills not usually taught in the States until kindergarten or beyond. There are four-year-olds counting to a hundred, doing basic reading, and writing Chinese characters. In short, these kids are more advanced than I am. It’s impressive but the flip-side is exhausted kids on the verge of nervous breakdowns. Our son has been known to ask for a stiff drink at the end of a long day.
The teachers are kind but firm, and make it clear the classroom is their domain; there is no parental involvement in a French classroom. If you offer on the first day to be a “room mother,” you’re going to receive a mystified look in response. If you pair the offer with a big eager-to-please American smile, you’re just playing into stereotype and embarrassing yourself. (I don’t know this from experience, not at all).
Even though we’ve been impressed by the teachers and overachieving academics of French preschool–just look at those meticulously handcrafted parakeet costumes for the school Carnavale parade–it has not been a great match for our son. With the level of seriousness surrounding school, kids are expected to behave accordingly. We, however, have what is known in polite company as “a very American child.” If he’s awake, he’s jumping up and down. He has only one volume and it’s loud (his father has that same volume and, no, my life is not an easy one).
For one small example of how his personality stands out among his more subdued classmates, one can observe the folding of the bibs. During his first year of preschool, each child was required to fold their bib after lunch. Every three-year-old in the class took off their bib, folded it into quarters, and placed it nicely in a basket. My kid rolled his into a ball, took a flying leap towards the pile and slam dunked it on top with a “WHEEE!” The teachers noticed the difference, and were concerned.
We have teacher friends in the States who know our son and say things like, “He’s all boy.” In France, however, teachers say things like, “Your son needs a psychologist.” We didn’t know what to make of the difference in opinion, so indeed took him to see a school psychologist. The psychologist didn’t have any grave concerns about our loud son and said many of his problems at school could be attributed to cultural differences.
According to the psychologist, there’s a “let kids be kids” mindset in the States whereas in Paris–especially our kind of snobby area of Paris–it’s more “make kids be silent small adults.” She also acknowledged that in the States, individuality is valued. We accept, even admire, people who think differently and march to the beat of their own drummer. In France, conformity is the only way to go. Standing out in the crowd will earn you a one-way ticket to a psychologist.
Unfortunately, our son’s personality paired with the French intolerance for our son’s personality means he’s always in trouble at school. At one point last year, he was moved to a different lunch hour, no longer with his classmates, and was put at a table by himself to be taught a lesson about staying in his seat during lunch. He was four years old at the time, and the lunch period is an hour long–harsh much, France? (Hey, an hour lunch! Sweet!–ed.)
Even I find it hard to sit in my seat for an hour, as evidenced by the ten thousand times I’ve gotten up to get a mouthful of baguette while writing this article. And if I was four years old and put by myself at a table in a roomful of people I didn’t know, I would probably jump out of my seat constantly to figure out where all my damn friends wandered off to. It seems too much to ask of a four-year-old to stay seated and quiet for an hour, but the French kids seem to have an easier time of it so I really don’t know what the hell’s going on over here.
The American education system is not a flawless one and there will be challenges at home, too. But when we return, we hope there’s a place for him there; we hope there are more creative ideas for dealing with his brand of energy besides embarrassing him or sending him to a shrink or making him eat his lunch alone on the roof of the school. We’re just hoping they don’t force us to medicate him, because then he may forget all those wonderful Chinese characters.
