Letter From Paris - School Leavings
Paris Kiosque - September 1999 - Volume 6, Number 9
Copyright (c) 1999 Harriet Welty-Rochefort - Used with permission.
Summer in Paris: for
tourists, the delight of a cold drink on the terrace
of a Parisian café and seeing the sights. For Parisians,
the beginning of les vacances. For French students, the joy
of the end of the year and for their parents,
relief.
As the mother of two Franco-American sons, I
have had the privilege of raising them in France, coupled
with the joys and sorrows and mysteries resulting from putting
them in French schools. It took me years, for example,
to understand the French educational system. Now that they are
almost out of it (our 22-year-old just graduated from a
grande école with a degree in Applied Mathematics and the
17-year-old is, at the very moment I pen this, in
the midst of his French "Bac", a nationwide exam all
French high school students have to take before they can
leave school) I have finally figured it out! Better late
than never....
Almost everything in the French educational system
is different from the U.S. system so even after getting
used to most of it, there are still some things
that surprise me. For example, "graduation" U.S. style, with caps
and gowns and solemn music, doesn't exist in France. Considering
how rigorous the French educational system is, I thought that
at the end of the road students would be "rewarded"
for their efforts by some kind of elaborate ceremony. My
eldest son, for example, worked like a trooper to get
into one of the nation's most elite schools but when
it came time to graduate from it, the least one
can say is that the departure ceremonies were understated -
and his school is one of the few which took
the trouble to do anything at all!
We parents
were invited to a ceremony where speeches were given and
the diplomas handed out. However, with no music or program
or faculty filing in in academic garb, the whole thing
looked more like an insurance convention than a graduation. The
speeches were rather funny, though. You can hardly imagine an
American college president warning the future graduates that "the higher
a monkey climbs, the more he shows his a--" or
"two intellectuals who are seated will never go as far
as one a------ who walks". It sounds a bit vulgar
in translation, but since the speech was laced with citations
from famous French philosophers and writers, those two comments brought
a bit of welcome comic relief.
As for leaving
high school....in France, no one gets a high school diploma
until taking and passing the nationwide school leaving exam called
the "Baccalauréat". My youngest son's "Bac" went like this: Monday:
a four hour written Philosophy exam, Wednesday, a four hour
History and Geography exam in the morning followed by a
three hour Math exam in the afternoon. Thursday, a one
hour written text in English, and Friday, a FIVE hour
exam in Economics. After that, a one hour oral exam
in German and it's all over but the waiting (students
get their results three weeks later). Multiple choice, by the
way, does not exist in France. If you don't know
it, there's no way to fake. Believe me, by the
time kids get out of high school here, they have
richly deserved it!
.....and a Lockout
Perhaps
it's the strain of my youngest son's "Bac" but of
late I have started doing odd and incomprehensible things. On
a recent Wednesday morning I was in my nightgown out
on the little back porch of our fourth floor apartment
hanging up some clothes when wham! the door banged shut
behind me. Even in decent dress this would have been
bad enough. To add to the already catastrophic circumstances, the
nightgown was diaphanous, the concierge didn't have the key to
my apartment, and my son had gone to school and
wouldn't be home for at least another three or four
hours. All of this flashed through my mind as I
stood there locked out of my own apartment. What to
do? No use running down the stairs to see the
concierge since she didn't have the key. Workers renovating the
building were swarming all over the place so my main
objective was either to become invisible or find refuge quickly.
Now here's where a powerful stereotype about the "cold
French" breaks down. As is often the case in Paris,
I had never been inside my neighbor's apartment. Our relationship
was limited to "Bonjour" and my admiring comments about her
Dalmatian. Every once in a while we would engage in
mutual complaining about the building management as we waited for
the elevator. However, from that to having her take me
in.......
I screwed up my courage and buzzed on
her back door. The Dalmatian barked and I stood there,
hoping desperately that it wouldn't be her husband who answered.
Fortunately, it was Madame. She took one look at me,
whisked me inside, and put me in a black wool
coat hanging near the door. "Now", she said, "I'm going
to run you a bath and give you some clothes
- you must be the size I was before I
put on weight - and that will give you time
to think about what you want to do. If you
need me to drive you someplace, I will. Otherwise, you
can wait here until your son comes home."
Thus
it was that, at the hour I am usually running
around Paris, I found myself in my neighbor's bathtub, calmly
soaping myself and sizing up my options. Yes, I could
wait for my son to come home, but when would
that be? I could call a locksmith but it would
cost me more than 600FF ($100) which I found too
high a price to pay for my stupidity. I opted
instead to call the mother of one of my son's
friends to find out where the boys might go after
leaving school. After dying laughing at my story, her Gallic
logic took hold. "Come on over here and on va
déjeuner. ("We'll lunch) Je t'invite." ("It's on me") she urged.
In France, since even the most dire problem seems to
be solved by food, I decided that was indeed the
most reasonable solution while awaiting my son's return.
In
my neighbor's clothes, which did indeed fit, I was on
my way to the friend's when I happened upon one
of the building management workers I have known for years.
A thought popped into my head. "Laurent, I'm locked out!
Any ideas as to how I can get back in?"
He reflected for about a half a second. "I'm
going to do a small job but I'll be back
in five minutes. I think we might be able to
get your door open with an X-ray."
Loaning me
10 FF for coffee and leaving me to ponder how
an X-ray could open a door, Laurent sped off. Ten
minutes later, true to his word, he was back. At
the door, he took out an X-ray, folded in four,
and began to slide it up and down. The door
gave, gave...and opened. In the split second it took me
to realize how easy it would be to burgle a
place, I saw my son and put two and two
together. He (not the X-ray) had opened the door. From
the expression on his face, he was having a hard
time figuring out why I was standing there in odd-looking
clothes accompanied by a man with an X-ray. Laurent politely
did not offer any comments on our crazy family.
For this alone, he got a well-deserved tip. Madame, my
neighbor, received the prettiest bouquet of roses I could find.
My concierge got a double of the key. As for
me, I no longer go out on the back porch
clad in only a nightgown! And if anyone ever dares
to say that the French are "cold" or "unfriendly", will
you please send them to me?
Harriet Welty-Rochefort, a bona fide Midwesterner from
Iowa, visited Paris for the first time while in
college. She became so completely enamored of
France that she stayed - and has been there ever since.
Married to a Frenchman and the mother of two
Franco-American boys, Harriet Welty-Rochefort writes
on business, lifestyle and travel for major U.S.
publications. Her book -
French Toast
- is a lighthearted look at
French manners and mores.
Writes Leslie Caron: French Toast includes the most delightful barbs at France's
subtle but deep-rooted codes of behaviour...I read the book on the EuroStar between
Paris and London and wished the train had not reached its top speed of 300 kph!
Reviewed in the Los Angeles Times on January 2, 1998, French Toast
is published in the U.S. by St. Martin's Press.
You may contact Harriet directly at
hwelty@club-internet.fr.
Editor's Note:
Dear Readers, while our writers are always
delighted to hear and to receive comments, both about their columns in the The Paris Kiosque,
as well as your experiences in Paris,
they are unable to answer any requests
for travel information.
Thank you for your understanding.
