We’re in the Swing of School

School bus to International Bilingual School of Provence, picking up kids near Aix city center.

With day #15 about to start, it feels like a relief to have some school days now behind us. Every day is still brand new, and I pick up both kids after having been obsessively thinking about them making their way all day long. Upon pick-up at 5:30, they range from giddy to grumpy, not very predictably. They get on the school bus at 8 and off it again at 5:30. We’ve gotten much better at catching the bus, and can even get back in the door by 5:55 now — down from 7pm when we first began navigating rush hour traffic. Taking the school bus is fun and easy, and the bus is very nice

Setting the Scene: The school is out in the countryside, occupying a sloping hillside of open farmland and small forest. The classrooms are in rows of modular classroom units (think California-style), anchored by a large stucco refitted farmhouse that contains the administration, la cantine (with hair-net ladies and gangly chef-hatted Chef who steps out into the dining room to observe the youth eating), and some laboratory and computer spaces. Off the back of the main house, espaliered trees form a dense leafy ceiling over a large outside terrace where all meals and social time occurs. Only in the dead of winter apparently, do the students use indoor spaces or awning covered areas. Their coats are hung on hooks outside.

There’s a pool!  But, as the Dean has explained, they do not allow swimming in the fall months because with the new school year starting, the students are too “agitated” to benefit from swimming. Student agitation is a theme of concern apparently, as we were also “reassured” that the middle graders do not have a prom because it is too likely that such an event would cause their hormones to become overly-agitated. Instead the dances are for 6th, 7th, 8th, 11th and 12th graders-interesting approach to middle-adolescence. We’re still getting over that making-out during recess and smoking once off the school bus back in the city are fully integrated student activities, not found to be overly agitating.

The day is long and very structured. 60-minute classes one after the other. They have a 15 minute break in the morning and afternoon, and an hour for lunch. A mid-morning snack is baguettes and cheese, lunch is basically dinner.

Dmitri is lucky to have three two-hour sports sections each week, but by 9th grade that is reduced to two hours of sports all week long. This is probably the biggest hurdle we are figuring out for Jack. Athletics do not happen at school in high school, and are tucked in around the edges at his age apparently. We recently found out that youth swimming starts at 9pm! This evening I am taking Jack to a pick-up soccer game for 9th graders, organized by some like-minded families, and later this week he’s going to try out the town track and field youth team. They are called the “Les Cadets” (The Cadets!) and a friendly young coach named Pierre is waiting to meet Jack. We’re just staying open-minded about maximum newness-track and field included!

Dmitri’s grade has 44 kids in it and they are all being immersed in a bilingual program. A few are already at ease with both French and English, but several speak neither.  Dmitri let us know that a Russian girl in is class only speaks with her hands over her face, which makes it a bit hard to understand her. So I think we are doing okay so far. The school strives to meet many different cultural and academic student needs and I guess we’ll see how effective they are at it. In the signed rules, the school reviews its mission of intercultural tolerance demonstrated by respectful dress, language and behavior. Respectful dress includes “no exuberant hair colors, piercings, or language on clothing, and no underwear showing at any time”. By 9th grade the kids are divided into French-language or English-language tracks out of necessity. Jack’s friend Ivan, a boarder from Russia, is learning both, and hanging in there apparently. Reportedly by Dmitri and Jack, most classes are actually taught in some degree of what we’ll call, Frenglish, and many teachers are, of course, not native English speakers. Dmitri’s teacher for his class “Maternelle-Langue English” teacher is British, so I guess that counts! So far so good with the British English! Oh, and by the way, never say “chouette” or “super” in French! It’s like saying you are from “San Fran” or “the big apple”.  In other words, dorky!

Both kids have a dizzying array of subjects. Forget integrated learning or a reduced transition time philosophy.  Dmitri has, seriously, 11 subjects, including Chemistry AND Physics AND Biology. Go figure. He also has History and Geography, Math, English, French, X-tra French (separate class!), Art, and Gym. I feel like I need a nap! Thank goodness for the “Cahier des Texte- the very French invention in that keeps everything organized in a required special book.

Jack takes English, French, X-tra French, History, Geography, Economics, Physics, Math, Biology, Art, and “a tiny bit of sports”. So far the teachers are well-liked, range from young to “old”, and are “nice-strict” or just plain nice. The “Vie Scolaire” is an office where the mysterious but well-liked, Mr. Gorini, can fix any problem apparently-from a headache to having a big book that contains all the homework assignments for every single teacher! So you can always figure out how to remedy a problem with Mr. Gorini, although I am not sure he speaks English, so we’ll see. We do know already however, that he can bandage up double skinned knees pretty nicely.

Now we dive into week #3 and see where that takes us!

La Rentree or “How to Freak Out About School Supplies”

Just a fraction of the school supplies on our list or rentree shopping.

School Supplies: Full disclosure is that the Kiryk family has been unknowingly living in a school-supply vacuum for the past decade. At school in Cambridge, our kids put on clean clothes and show up in their classrooms on day #1; that’s it. Many American parents are faced with school supply lists from both public and private schools, but that’s how Shady Hill does it. Little did we know what alternate universe was in France.  In fact, school supplies are such a big deal that it gets attention on the local news, and is referred to in conversation constantly in August. Concerned checking in as to how one is coping is the norm. Upon arrival at our cottage in Aix, we were not asked about electricity or our new digs, but about how “la rentree” was going for us etrangers! References are made as to how extreme the stress-levels of parents (read: mothers) must be about the “RENTREE” (“rahn-trey”: re-entrance to school). They even have a name for it!

The List: The French have got it “goin’ on” when it comes to school supplies. The list online looked quaint and reasonable to the uninitiated when we saw it online from in July. Little did we know that it translated into the biggest forest-stripping mountain of paper products and redundant notebooks, plus math tools, and uber-specific writing implements. Dmitri, who’s 11, is now the proud owner of approximately 1092 sheets of A4 graph paper (Yes, the French actually do write on technical graph paper, which Dmitri now calmly explains is for precise penmanship and for ease of underlining the teacher’s name), separate packets of “drawing” and colored construction paper, and he owns a plastic protractor plus metal compass in a little box. His ruler and red pen are just for underlining the teacher’s name.  So far, Jack’s school supplies weigh in at 22.5 pounds, including a few textbooks (ed note: that’s true).

The best invention we’ve come across is a very specific homework planner, “Le Cahier des Textes”. Previously unknown, the French globally dominate Executive Function science — for those for whom this means anything. It’s a brilliant design, never before seen in America, and every French kid must have one. Required! We’re learning how to optimize its use, but suffice it to say that any ambivalence about a homework planner is in our distant past. Maybe we’ll start an import business to EF-challenged America.

Socialism at its best: So, here’s the real thing:  all of these supply requirements are basically identical for every school-child in France — public, private, parochial. That’s right, every kid buys just about the same list. Who knew? So, when unsure how to proceed and just about losing our minds after the first trip to the school supply store, I had a revelation. If I go without children, unobtrusively stand behind any mom (pick cashmere sweater and loafers or burka — you’ll be good either way) in the Carrefour (Target meets Costco), and watch what they buy, I can just yank the same stuff off the shelves and I will get it right. It worked.  And, if you forget your red pen, your seat-mate will absolutely have one!

More EF Tips for America: The “Carnet de Liaison”. This is a 5×7 soft-covered school-issued notebook, required to be covered at home in regulation plastic (yes, you buy that too). It contains the student’s daily schedule, the rules of the school-which we all had to sign and have available at all times, followed by many pages of the “communication format”.  When a teacher or parent wants to communicate, we record a note to each other.  The student then will present the book to the designated adult, who will read it and respond. Total transparency! No secret -teacher emails from a fretting parent, no avoidance (sig required), and no tardiness either! If late to class, the book gets signed and must be presented at home. While our boys were a bit intimidated at first by the concept of carrying around their Carnet de Liaison, they now don’t think twice. Oh, and so far, no “communiques” in either, Phew!