Blog 4: French Plan to Add to Already Lengthy School Days
Angers Parents and Teachers
For more than a century now French children have been required
to attend extended school days, with an interrupted midweek day off (Wednesday),
for the purpose of religious instruction.
“The long hours and peculiar weekly rhythm have been criticized as counterproductive
to learning and blamed for keeping women out of the full-time work force, as
well as widening inequalities between rich and poor because of the demands they
place on working parents.” Despite these
reproaches, this system has been an integral part of French family life.
The government issued a decree to make Wednesday half a day
of education rather than an entire day off from academic instruction. This declaration is said to be effective in
September. For the rest of the school
days in the week, they will be shortened by 45 minutes, in order to make up for
the added half day on Wednesday. There
has been a movement of protest from teachers unions, parents, and local
governments, which argue that this decree was created without their pedagogic
consent, and there are concerns that the information being given about this proposal
is lacking in details, and there is little to understand about how French
schoolchildren compare with other children in other countries.
According to a secretary of France’s national union of
primary teachers, “’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.’” Despite students’ academic four-day week and nearly four months
of vacation, French children spend hours in the classroom, more so, they spend
far more time in the classroom than children in other countries. However, the United States has the most hours
spent.
In addition to the arguments that the teachers union and
others are protesting, the academic development rankings for French children
are low; they are in the 21st-27th rankings in reading,
math, and science. Student drop outs
rates are increasing and almost 40 percent of French 15 year olds have repeated
at least one grade. So it seems that the
amount of time spent within the classroom is a moot point; what we are looking
at here is quality of instruction students are receiving. Another interesting perspective, according to
a British Journalist and professor at an institute in Paris, “’This is the only
country I know where the adults work 35 hours a week, but they expect their
kinds to work more.’”
It is argued that the government’s plan fails to acknowledge
more essential concerns, such as how
French children are taught, and how to recruit better teachers for better
quality instruction. According to
critics and teachers unions opposing the government’s plan, “much of the
problem, is that France’s centralized primary school curriculum in overly focused
on rote learning that discourages creativity and critical thinking… teachers
are given little flexibility to adapt their lessons to their students’ needs”.
However, according to the government’s plan to shorten
school days by 45 minutes and add a half day of learning on Wednesdays,
teachers are getting to decide whether or not they would like to extend a lunch
break for their students or add the 45 minutes to recess or other activities at
the end of the day.
France is still
struggling with many protests. Nearly 90
percent of teachers walked out last month and have thousands of teachers and parents
following their lead to protest the plan.
At this point in time the government in Paris cannot even predict what percentages
of schools are expected to make the change this year.
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Considering this important piece of information included
within the article,
“much of the problem, is that
France’s centralized primary school curriculum in overly focused on rote
learning that discourages creativity and critical thinking… teachers are given
little flexibility to adapt their lessons to their students’ needs”.
Once again, we are seeing that creativity is being sucked
dry from the educational system. The
curriculum is becoming less creative, less student-centered, and more repetitive
and teacher-centered. Learning is not
about repetitious and memorization and copying down notes from the
teacher. It is about critical thinking,
group work, scaffolding, allowing students to lead instruction with their ideas
and input. There needs to be a balance
between student-centered and teacher-centered instruction. Unfortunately, there is more focus on standardized
testing. In the article they mention how
French students aren't doing too bad in regards to their standardized testing
scores, but there are still increased numbers of students who are dropping out
and repeating grades, and their rankings in core subjects are severely
lacking. So could it be, that taking
critical thinking and creativity out of instruction is maybe not the best
idea? To agree with the teachers unions,
they should have a say in pedagogic changes.
They are the ones doing the teaching, their opinions should matter. Who cares about how long the school day is,
the focus needs to be on the quality of instruction. Also the piece above mentions how teachers
are given little flexibility to adapt their instruction in order to fit their
students’ needs. We are learning in the
education program at UNCG how important formative assessment is for teachers. If you have children struggling, and you
ignore it and do not tweak your lessons to help fit their needs, or provide
groups where you can focus on the children lacking and give less attention to
the children who excel, how are you going to effectively help your students
improve? Why is France not concerned
that a lack of formative assessment is hurting their curriculum? Teachers require the flexibility to adapt
their lessons to fit their student’s needs.
Without this, what is the point!?
FOR FUN! A funny and
informative clip that relates to the importance of keeping creativity in the
classroom, spoken by Ken Robinson, Multiple Intelligence:
Jessica Hanley
2/22/13
2:03 pm
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