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Never say ‘never’
Thanks to everyone at HEAS for all their wonderful work. Living outside of the UK now for nearly twenty years – mostly in France with some time in Spain – I have come to see that there are certain traditions still well and truly alive in the UK to do with our sense of freedom, of democracy, of allowing other people to have other points of view – of understanding that systems are there to fit in with people and it shouldn’t be the other way round. The article on good practice in Cambridgeshire in a recent issue of the HEAS Bulletin is a good example. Every so often we see examples of that great British flexibility: ‘Oh well, that’s the rule in general, but we can always find a solution … ‘. It’s not like that in France.
Reading the Bulletin, it seems that many families educate at home up till the age at which their teenager can go to a sixth form college for A Levels. So it seems that our family is bucking the trend and doing it the other way round. That is, at a certain age when a youngster would in the French school system be preparing for the Baccalaureat, we have decided to go the route of British A Levels, teaching at home, and finding a way around the problem of an exam centre. The main advantage of A Levels is that our students get to choose the subjects that interest them, and do not have to do subjects that do not appeal to them at all.
This is what we did with one of my daughters a few years ago. If I tell you that right now she has just been awarded a double first for her degree in Archaeology and Anthropology, and has just been accepted for a pl
ace (with funding) to continue to a PhD in Anthropology, then you will conclude that something good came out of the experience. Yes, in the long-term view!
At the time we said ‘never again’. She was a difficult teenager. Imagine a difficult teenager under your feet nearly all day, every day. Imagine when there are the usual teenage rows and you can’t get away from each other. It is important they have somewhere to go and other activities to engage in outside the home, and at the time she was a volunteer leader with the equivalent of the local Brownies and did camps with them, and she had some church youth activities too. Occasionally she visited an older sibling, just for a change of scene. We had a British friend, a retired teacher, who came to the house usually about once a week and talked to her about what she had read, what essay she had written and so on, so it was more or less one-to-one tuition. We downloaded information off the websites of the exam boards (including past papers) and bought her the books. That’s all. We didn’t pay for an expensive correspondence course.
In the end her A Levels were two As, one B and one C. The two modern languages didn’t take much work (French and Spanish) as she had lived in those two countries, so the tutor helped her with Latin and History. She occasionally had conversations with us (when it was not a teenage row day) about one of the topics or questions she was preparing an essay for in history, but whether she ever got around to writing anything was another matter!
I felt most days that she did nothing. One day when she should have been writing a history essay, she spent the whole day outdoors collecting twigs and learning how to make a twig broom. ‘Oh,’ a friend said, ‘that is practical work!’ It’s certainly a practical experiment for those who are into anthropology: how did peoples in the past make a broom? Was it an efficient broom? I also have vivid memories of her walking around the house wearing only a sheet wrapped around her. Was this a practical experiment of how Romans wore a toga? No, I thnk it was the usual teenage reluctance to get out of bed (I’ve known others go around the house in a sleeping- bag, to have the feeling of still being in bed) and reluctance to get dressed.
But one saving grace was that already at age 15 she knew what she was interested in: Archaeology. I took out a subscription to the magazine British Archaeology for her, and that provided monthly reading and often suggested books to read, which were usually acquired second-hand. Since she would only study what interested her or what she could see some point in studying, we found in her last year (she did French and Spanish early) another advantage of home education is that you choose the rhythm. She was only preparing two A Levels – History and Latin – and she had plenty of time, so we signed up for a correspondence course from Leicester University in Archaeology. This was meant for adults, but it was her passion; it was something she loved doing. That Leicester course is well known. It can be just an interest, or it may lead to a free-standing certificate. Anyone with a degree in something other than archaeology can do that course as a conversion, and then go on to an MA in Archaeology. Our daughter didn’t get the Certificate because she didn’t complete the course, but that doesn’t matter because she benefited from the contents. She did study and it kept her interest alive and her study skills polished until she was ready for other things.
Don’t think we got to where we are today without some bumpy rides along the way – that’s life! But just to encourage you all, that’s our story. I know that often we have moments of self-doubt and we wonder if we are doing the right thing. Will we blame ourselves if it all goes wrong? It is a scary thing to take responsibility for the education of your children. But whose responsibility is it, are they, anyway?
And having said ‘never again’ we are about to do it all again!
My youngest is now aged 15 and has started at the local state Lycée (equivalent of sixth form college, except that it covers three academic years) where he could continue to do the baccalaureat in the end. But he is so bored. He goes out the house at 6.30am to catch a bus which meanders around for an hour. And then he spends most of the day doing nothing. He gets home at 7 pm, so tired out from doing nothing. Often classes are cancelled, and teachers are not replaced. He said he learns nothing in English (they just ignore him, and he gets on with writing stories) and nothing in German. He has been learning German at home for a few years with my husband, a German-speaker. We have asked the teachers if they could provide some work which is suitable for him, but they are not willing to do that. And he says he has learnt nothing in history. So three subjects! That’s quite a few hours per week. He is weak in maths and the maths teaching is good, so if he is here at home we would have to provide for that.
Being a very literary person – he wants to be a writer – he would go on to do Bac ‘L’. The letter L stands for literary subjects: the other two are S (science ) or ES (economics and social science). The problem is that the curriculum is very prescriptive, there is very little choice about subjects and options and next year and the year after would include the French ‘philosophie’ classes. I’ve looked at the curriculum and find it full of the most pessimistic, atheistic, nihilistic, negative philosophy possible. And only that. In other words, the choice of which philosophers to study is very selective and no attempt is made to be impartial, or to give a balanced variety of thinkers to study. He would therefore have another subject next year to bore him to tears. Nine hours per week of it!
And don’t get me started on how the French teachers impose an ideology – they are nothing but fanatics! There is propaganda imposed. It is not education. As I recall, with A Levels (for example, English Literature or History), as long as you can explain the pros and cons of the argument, you can take your own view in the end. Not so in the French ‘educational’ system which is just brain-washing: students are told what to say. One teacher gave him the top mark possible for a French essay because (being a bright kid) he had got the measure of her, and since he likes writing fiction, he had written it all as if he were a convinced communist! That would be all right if then you asked them to write it from the imaginary position of someone else with opposite views, but no, she took him seriously. The main teacher just told us that if we are not happy we can go somewhere else, and why don’t we go to live in another country?! Can you imagine such blatant racism in an English school? I think, and hope, a teacher in the UK would get the sack for speaking to a foreigner like that!
So we are about to start off on the ‘learn-for-the-A-Levels-at-home-route’ once again. Never say never! This child, N, is not such a difficult personality as the daughter S mentioned above. On the whole he is pretty easy-going. Luckily, like S and her interest in Archaeology, he also has a passion. He wants to be a writer, and any time he has free time he sits and writes his stories. He had an award-winning poem at a literary festival last summer. He also attends monthly poetry evenings amongst adults and last time stood up confidently in front of everyone and read a poem he had written that morning. Attending such evenings is easier if he doesn’t have to get up at 6.30am next day for a twelve hour school day. So we think it better for him to have time to do that, rather than to sit for hours on the bus and then to sit in a classroom learning nothing and being bored. He also has activities where he meets other youngsters; he plays rugby in a local club all year round,
swims in a summer swim club, and also takes part in Scouts. Last year the Scout camp was three weeks canoeing on the river Dordogne. When he is educated at home and there is more time, he may well have music lessons as we have a friend who goes around to houses (he would come to our home) giving guitar lessons. In the countryside around us there are also choirs and amateur dramatic or theatre groups, so these are possiblities.
The only good thing I can say about N’s experience in Lycée compared with a local comprehensive in the UK is that we have had absolutely no problem with bullying. There appears to be an easy atmosphere, at least amongst the pupils, and we are not worried about social problems nor about the times he has to hang around in the town. But not too many hours of that, thank you! For some young people the French system might be good; for example they are very good at vocational courses if you have someone who knows they want to do something practical such as training in hospitality, horticulture or similar, and they have old-fashioned apprentices. For a bright child who also has predominantly literary interests, it is a disaster!
Remember that song ‘Anything you can do, I can do better’ and sing it to the words ‘Anything school can do, you can do better!’ Sing it! Hold on to that!
Ruth Taylor, France
Fun article, love France.