Living in France, feeling I will never ever fit in here. All because of a school trip.

[Greythorne]

we live in France. DH is French.

Kids go to local school. I find I have to take a big gulp and accept the "culture clash" about tonnes of things and I am willing to do so because the kids are half French and hey, we live here, so I have to.

But tonight i feel near tears because we have just got a letter home from school to say there is a school trip for DD1 in a few weeks, just before the end of the school year. Dd1 is 5 years 5 months and in the equivalent of Year Reception.

The school is organising a trip for 5 days to a riding stables about 60 miles away. 5 days. 4 nights.

I just don't feel she is ready for this. I just feel I am not ready for this. I am just sick and tired of always feeling out if step with my community, with the school, with the people who should be my peers.

I mentioned my concerns to another mum, who just laughed it off and said, "tu sais, il faut couper le cordon un jour!" (you know, one day you have to cut the cord).

The trip is not mandatory but the teacher is putting pressure on parents to let their kids attend as it will be the culmination of a whole project about farms, horses, whatever.

I am just so demoralised. I try and I try to fit in here but this is just too much. I have read so many threads on MN about school trips / scout trips / what have you and I tend to agree with the posters who say: let them go, let them spread their wings, they will be safe.

But never have I seen a trip for 5 days at 5 years old.

I feel sick.

Read Natacha Polony (a columnist on Le Figaro).

LeBFG - my DH, who is as French as they come, is also the most anxious person I know. "Il faut se méfier", and, to the DC "attention, tu vas te faire mal" are his stockphrases. I'm sure he gets it from a combination of his education and MIL :o

My DH is the most arrogant person I know thus the english are more arrogant than the french. Bonsoir, I've just spent 10mins trying to find a webpage where Polony says french adults are anxious bacause of the ed system - you'll have to help me out.

No, I don't have to help you out! If you want to know about French people and French culture and to comment knowledgeably about them, you aren't going to find one single cosy little article to do so. You will have to work much, much harder than that!

Not nice Bonsoir!

I quote: there is "a lot of open discussion in France about how the education system contributes to making French adults anxious"

I just don't recognise this to be true in my neck of the woods.

NotSureICanCarryOn - re "As an english person, you think..."

You need to learn to read English, as someone else said. I already said on this thread that I am not English.

Where here exactly is your neck of the woods? I don't read much French press but even I have seen discussions of French education system re its effects on stifling individuality & encouraging conformity, and yes, people's anxiety levels and self-confidence.

here

Continual assessment does not mean continual testing!

English schools are not homogenous.
French schools have a reputation of being homogenous. However from the experience of friends who have gone "to live in France for a year or two"; they vary a lot. One child in one family threatened to bring herself back to the UK and live with Grandad if her parents didn't return. Another family are still there years later, as far as I know.

"I'm led to believe that there is also continual assessment and relentless SAT testing in UK schools."

I don't have a problem with frequent assessment.

Bizarre and potentially damaging examples that come to my mind are, for example, 4 year olds getting a sad face sticker on their coloring page because they haven't managed to color completely within the lines, or because they used some color other than brown for tree trunk and green for the leaves.

I assume nobody here needs to be explained how is sort of attitude in education, starting at such early ages, can easily stifle creativity and encourage conformity.

Yes, there is plenty of debate about the ed system - failing ethnic minorities, dyslexics... I'm not trying to defend it! Plenty of the expats I have met end up sending their DC's back to UK when they are a bit older because they prefer a system where more time is devoted to self-expression and so on.

I'm in the South West and so appreciate there are differences across the country - perhaps the adults being referred to are Parisian? Then may I suggest they come from high achieving parents and this is one reason they feel anxious? I'm hoping to encourage people to avoid making crass cultural generalisations and simplistic cause/effect arguments.

I'm in the south-east (obviously ) so not terribly familiar with many Parisian people, but I have to say many of the characteristics frequently recognised in French people by foreign residents can be seen here, too. And those of us with children in the French education system can easily see where these are coming from

Here is another example: DD didn't want to take a jacket to school several weeks ago, and I asked why. Apparently, some woman at cantine is making all kids wear there jackets in the récré (open-air courtyard), even when they are sweating in them.

I wrote to the teacher in DD's cahier de correspondence, asking her to tell this person to leave DD alone, assuring her that DD is perfectly capable of deciding when to put her jacket on and when to take it off.

Many French parents then thanked me when this practice then stopped. It had not occurred to them that they could have said something to stop this idiotic bullying of their children to keep jackets on under the sun at high noon, in the month of May, in the South of France

Good on you Cote for making a stand. The benefits of being an outsider can be that - a different perspective. I was talking to DH last night saying if OP took a stand perhaps the other mothers would thank her - then they could allow themselves to do the same!

I remember we had to wear jumpers in school through the spring months in the Devon (btw, my french friends are always when I mention school uniforms)..not the same as S Fr of course! Poor things.

I'm very used to hearing expats complaining about everything french and it's so annoying. So I try and point out positives or try and explain the percieved negatives - e.g. a kid I was tutoring complained the maths has lots of rote phrases they have to learn by heart. I then realised this was because there is an emphasis on application of logic in addition to working out the sums. Quite nice really.

In general, and yes huge generalisation coming up, children are focused on what they do wrong and talk about results in terms of how many faults they have, which makes them extremely anxious when they do anything new or different in an educational context because they want to avoid being penalised for not undermine something or using the wrong colour. This carries right the way through to the extent that thinking outside the box is positively discouraged and students at university level are incapable of articulating an opinion. The concours system doesn't help either IMO, adding as it does to the enormous pressure because if you don't make the cut then you don't get to become one of the elite/have a stable job etc. That much is fairly well recognised. Pressure generates anxiety. Removal of familiarity generates anxiety. If a child is trained to work in one particular way by the educational system then they are going to find it hard, maybe even nerve-wracking, to do something different when their frame of reference is removed.

*underlining

Having gone through the very selective french system with 'the concours' etc... I actually don't think it gives a lot to the students. It is a very good way to separate people who can cope under pressure and those who can't but ime that's the one thing it can do.
However, the system certainly teach people to 'get on with things and work'. hence companies like Toyota who chose to set up their factory in France rather than other countries because the 'rentabilite' of french workers is higher.
In the same way, student at Uni might find it more difficult to express their own opinions but they are much better equipped to put them into a format that makes them understandable and readable( ie the form will be very good).

As anything it is very easy to look only at the good sides or the bad sides of a system. education in France has always been something very important (and a reason why parents would think twice before complaining to a teacher. Teachers still have a better respect in France than in the UK imo). But that means that the system is put under scrutiny n a regular basis.

But I don't believe that the education system is in itself the cause of all the se awful characteristics of french people. It is much more engrained than that and would be still a 'characteristic' even with a different education system. The same way that, even though the english system puts more emphasis in creativity, the english society is still very conservative, with a few ways for english people to 'let steam out' from time to time. You don't seem to need that in countries like France.

Oh dear. How to say this kindly....

"the system certainly teach people to 'get on with things and work'. hence companies like Toyota who chose to set up their factory in France rather than other countries because the 'rentabilite' of french workers is higher."

Without meaning to hurt your feelings... companies don't open factories in a country because of high worker productivity. Toyota must have been angling some incentive or EU import/export law when they opened up their factory in France, because, as is very well known, France is every big corporation's nightmare: Social state, strict rules on how many hours people can work, nearly impossible to fire someone once you've hired him. Oh and the grèves! Almost every week, either trains don't work because of some strike or other, or there is some disruption in the airport because pilots, stewardesses, ground personnel, or some such strike. As Toyota found out in March 2011 when hundreds of workers strikes for several weeks

(/ memory: I once walked the entire length of Monaco to find a cash machine that would give me money. I couldn't find one. No money in any cash dispenser. Because the guys who transport cash to them were striking. I kid you not.]

Anyway, a French worker produces about the same as an American worker in an hour, but for every 100 hours an American worker works, a French worker does 88 hours. Trust me, Toyota must have had some very important other reasons to have a plant in France.

"student at Uni might find it more difficult to express their own opinions but they are much better equipped to put them into a format that makes them understandable and readable( ie the form will be very good)"

I don't know which is more sad - what you have just said, or that you seem to think this is a good thing

"education in France has always been something very important (and a reason why parents would think twice before complaining to a teacher"

So it is not because they don't have the courage to step out of line? Not because conformity and obedience to authority has been drummed into them since maternelle?

When I complained, it wasn't because I think education isn't important, by the way. I can't believe I actually had to say this

"the english society is still very conservative, with a few ways for english people to 'let steam out' from time to time. You don't seem to need that in countries like France."

I don't understand. From where I sit, English seem to be blowing off all the steam they want via binge drinking

Well, I have had a read of this threat and I must say I am less than impressed.

Those who feel that they don't fit into another culture, be it in France, Belgium, Germany, wherever - maybe you should consider that the reason that you do not fit in is your large number of prejudices towards the local population. If you think that it is all so much better in Britain, why don't you pack your bags and go? Why should your host country have to adapt to your whims? They don't need you and they are perfectly happy without you. The arrogance and the cheek!

If you want to integrate, then do it! ADAPT, LET GO OFF YOUR BRITISH VALUES (whatever they may be!) and try to be more tolerant. Don't forget you are a guest, nothing more.

If the UK ultimately decides to leave the EU, you will not have this dilemma any more because in most cases you will be out and maybe that is for the better. I hope that you realise that you are not serving the UK well, local people will just think that Brits are arrogant know-it-alls. Nothing to be proud off.

Sorry for repeat posts, but this is a brilliant read on the topic of Toyota's factory in France and the clash of the Japanese & French attitudes towards work.

The French education system is in the business of moulding people into French people. Its whole premise is wildly different to the Anglo-Saxon mindset - it is about instruction (filling empty heads). Of course it makes adults the way they are - that's what it is aiming to do.

That is not a value judgement or a criticism, just an observation. It is the reason why the French have set up schools all over the world, for their expat population, and the reason why the French are obsessed with their children going to a French sous contrat school: it is not sufficient to have a French passport to be French. You need to have been through the French system and have a French bac as well.

I think many people living abroad have that moment where they realise they will never entirely fit in and will always be the 'foreigner', my husband (who is not British) has certainly had that moment.

dikkertjedap you sound rather narrow-minded yourself, as you fail to realise that most foreign groups have exactly the same pull towards the country they left and criticise the country where they stay, even if they love living there! This is nothing unique to the British, I have seen it with Eastern Europeans who moan about the UK, but wouldn't go back to their host countries whatsoever!

And EE's like my husband also notice the freedom in the school system in terms of thinking and creativity, again this is nothing novel.

Values change within countries as well as between countries, this is not always a bad thing.

Dikkertjedap, I disagree in a way, I think it is easy to feel alone and estranged in a new country, and this sense of loneliness make people more sensitive to cultural differences.

I agree however, that this thread has been really unpleasant, because the condescending tone of some posters has turned what could have been an interesting analysis of the main attitudes towards education and child rearing in France, into a very unsavoury bashing of the culture of another country.

Likewise, there are British schools all over the world so that the expats don't have to mix with the locals...

British schools abroad are independent schools and don't have to follow the NC etc. French schools abroad are fundamentally state schools and follow to the letter the prescriptions of the French NC. They give priority to children coming from French sous contrat schools. It's a very different scenario.