Blog 3: France and their education

In France the president, François Hollande, is changing the way the students school week will be than what it used to be in the past The school week for students is already long and on top of that they have a midweek break from school. On a typical school day students would be going to school around 8:30 in the morning and would not be getting out of school till 4:30 at night or even later than that. The schedule for the school week dates back to 1882 in which Roman Catholic Church had a very big role on education. The reason why there is one day out of the week where there is no school is because the church felt that there needed one day for religious practices of the people who live in France. 

Times are changing though; now there will be school on Wednesday and the rest of the week the school day will be cut down by 45 minutes. In the past the day that students do not have to attend school they would have other activates that they could be involved in like music or sports. The families that were not that well off would have to work multiple jobs so they could place their child in child care. Even though things are changing to help students succeed in education many people are angry and the choice the president is making. A man named Sébastien Sihr stated that “We have to put an end to this magical thinking that just stretching the school week over four and a half days will improve students’ performance.” People believe that things in the school system need to change other than making the school week longer. Some people feel that knowing what the students are being taught and to obtain better teaches would be a better idea than having the students sit longer in school. Others feel that the criteria that are placed in front of the students are taking away from their critical thinking skills as well as creativity away. Most of the time students are given “rote learning” where the main goal is reading comprehension and math.

 There have been over seven thousand teachers and parents are protesting the new plan of adding an extra day and shorting the days of the school week. There are many groups, like teacher unions, that are angry at the choice to go through with the plan of the reform because the president did not get the different groups consultation. The president is worried about the groups and how they are reacting but he has a plan that will work out. He plans on hiring 60,000 new teachers in the next five years even though there are not a lot of funds to hire that many teachers.  

There are a lot of things that France needs to work out. The time span that they want is fixed is really unrealistic. The way that school has been function with one day off and long hours has been going on since 1882. That is a very long time a system has been working and never been changed until now. The president needs to look at the other factors that can be playing a role on why the performance of the students is not up to standards with the other countries. In the article it talks about how third graders spend 847 hours a year in the class room. That is a very long time for any person to imagine sitting in a classroom. A person may think that these students are getting a good mixture of different subject matter; that is not the case. Most of the time students are just learning math and reading. How could any person spend long hours on those two subjects? The president needs to view all the components of the education system before he decides to change something. There is also a huge worry about how many teachers he is going to hire in the next five years, 60,000. That is a very large number for any country to comprehend. In the article it talks about how France is have money issues; so it does not make any sense to hire a ton of teachers knowing that their pay will be very small and the schools will not have the funds for resources.

Also it talks about how many people feel that how the school system is “widening inequalities between rich and poor”. It is happening because with the one day having no school for one day the families who are lower in economic status have to work multiple jobs just to keep the children in day care or other extra circular activities. On top of the gap among the rich and poor there is now starting to feel like a gap among the genders. Women feel that because of the school system the government is preventing them from working full time jobs. They have to work many different jobs just to be able to support their children in school and all the extra things that they do outside of school. There are many issues that are happening because the school system needs a reform. The only problem that is happening is that the president is trying to fix everything at once and not looking at the little pieces that make up the whole.   

Source: 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/world/europe/12iht-france12.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&ref=education 

French Plan to Add to Already Lengthy School Days Angers Parents and Teachers

Ashley Roberts

2/15/2013

11:48am