The rentrée: back to school
Paris is very quiet in August and it feels like most of the actual Parisians leave the city. Businesses post a sign – handwritten - in their window telling people that they are on holiday and will return in September. It is generally accepted that many restaurants and retail stores will close. Among the essential services – such as boulangeries – they organize themselves and take turns closing so no neighbourhood is left without their ability to buy a baguette.
The quiet period beforehand makes the rentrée that much more animated. The first Monday of September the Paris streets are suddenly full of children on trottinettes racing to school accompanied by frazzled looking parents.
This fall was our second rentrée in France and it was so much easier this time around because we knew what to expect.
First of all, the list of school supplies is enormous and very specific. We are told how many cahiers to buy, what color each should be, their dimensions, number of pages, whether they are to be blank, lined or mixed and if they should or should not have a plastic cover. This is in addition to the pens, pencils, erasers, geometry sets and exercise books required. We learned in year one that you can bring your list of supplies to the local store and ask them to prepare it for you. I imagine we pay a premium for this service but after spending 20 minutes trying to find one specific cahier to fit the list, it was a no-brainer to have someone pull it all together for us.
Step number two, after picking up your supplies, is to try to match the items on the list to understand what items are for which subjects. Then everything, absolutely everything, must be labeled. This year we knew to order our labels in advance from mon etiquette and to order enough of them that we could put a named sticker on every single pencil, pen, highlighter, and marker.
The first day of school in Paris is not unlike our experience in Canada: the kids and parents swarm the door, anxiously waiting to find out who their teachers and classmates will be and the administrators try to manage the mayhem. This year was infinitely easier than the last as we knew which door to go to and we could understand French!
Last year our girls were in a special program called adaptation for students who did not speak French or who had recently returned to France from another country. The biggest reason for wanting to spend one more year in Paris was to give our girls the experience of being part of a regular French classroom with other French students. While exciting, it was also a little nerve wracking to know they would not be in their safe “cocoon”. Fortunately, the school allowed students to request one friend so they had the security of knowing there would be a familiar face in their class.
The first week of school was devoted to adjusting to 7AM wake-up times, making daily trips to the local bookstore for more school supplies and books, and completing the forms. Both girls required a health form that needed to be signed by their doctor. Luckily we completed this in Canada, but other families we know paid 50 euro for the doctor appointment to have their child weighed and measured. Each girl also required four passport-sized photos, which you can get at any of the photo booths found in the Paris metro and train stations. They received their cards that allow the school to know if they are, or are not, allowed to exit without a parent being visibly present.
Sophia, being in grade six, or 6ème, was entering college, or middle school. The jump from première (elementary school) to college is a big one. She went from having one classroom and two teachers (one in French and one in English) to having a different schedule every day, some days ending at 3:25PM and others one or two hours later. She moves between classrooms, has 11 teachers and is provided with an iPad to access all of her textbooks, communications with her teachers, and her homework. Her backpack is heavy and she carries it from class to class. While it is possible to rent a locker, there is not time to get to it, so the students also carry their outdoor coat with them throughout the day.
She has more independence but the expectations are also higher. For example, if you are late to class the door will be locked and you will spend the period in the library and explain to your teacher the next day why you were not there. If you arrive at school with too-short shorts or rips in your jeans, you will be sent home. If a teacher does not show up to class, something that happens often enough that they tell you what to do in that situation, you can spend the time in the library or, if your access card gives you permission, you can go home.
Mavis has her own new adventures ahead of her. Last year, both girls ate in the school cantine where they offer a different menu every day with three courses including appetizers and cheese. Sadly, while it sounded impressive, the quality of the food was not good and this year Mavis negotiated that she would make her own lunch if we agreed to switch her to the “lunchbox” program. She is making her lunch every evening and washing her dishes every day after school. While it is a big time commitment she is passionate about her lunches and very proud of her creations. As a CM-1 student (equivalent to grade four) she takes Chinese class at school. So far, she has a few words and enjoys drawing the characters. From the class meeting, I know that she will have to recite poems in Chinese. When I shared that information with her, the look on her face was priceless.
In Canada, the girls had physical education every day. At their school now they have sports once per week: for Mavis it is one hour and for Sophia it is three. They must wear sports clothes that day or they cannot participate. While they spend less time in physical education, both girls report that they have learned more sports skills in Paris than they ever did at home. We supplement the reduced hours physical activity with our daily commute to school but I still worry that they are not getting enough exercise.
In the Paris public schools there is no school on Wednesdays. At our school they have a half-day of classes. The expectation is that you will use that time to participate in activities that are otherwise difficult to fit in on school days. Programs are designed around the Wednesday schedule and there are even centers where children can participate in two to three different activities over three hours. Our girls will spend their Wednesday’s taking art classes at the Musée des Arts Decoratifs, located just beside the Louvre. I cannot think of a more Parisian experience than to travel to the center of Paris every week to study and sketch works from the collections of its world famous museums. Like school, we were given an extensive supplies list, but for art class it was paints, specific types of pencils, watercolor pencils and sketch paper.
The rentrée behind us, and looking forward, I am so excited for our girls. Last year was an initiation and a gentle entry into a new language and culture. This year they will move forward at full speed and experience life in Paris, maybe not as an insider, but as a local. They know how to manage the line-ups at lunch and how to survive recess in the crowded school playground. Their community, both inside and outside of school, has become much more French and less tied to the expatriate community. I can see that they are not afraid to use their language skills in daily life and I expect that having French friends will come with a vocabulary that goes beyond what they teach in the classroom.
In some ways, year two will be more challenging than year one. We are already seeing that the academic expectations are higher and the teachers less “nurturing” than in last year’s adaptation classes. We have found a tutor for the girls that will help them with their French as well as life as a student in Paris. She is a second year university student who speaks seven languages and understands the toll the rigour of French schools can take on a child. This year Houman has to travel back and forth between Paris and Calgary for his work and we will miss him when he is gone. We are also finding that some of the things we found “novel” when we arrived, like the metro system, are losing their shine as we grow fatigued of packing ourselves into the cars during busy times. There will be some hard days.
Houman often says that he believes learning another language is a door into another world. Last year our focus was on learning a language. This year we get to use it to open the door to French culture and briefly step inside. I have no doubt that this year will leave an imprint on our girls for the rest of their lives. I look forward to being with them along the path.
