The weight of French learning

It's that time of year again when the streets are full of small children staggering under the load of giant school bags.  My 12-year-old daughter insists that she needs to lug her 10 kilos of books, binders, exercise books and equipment every day to her classes. On top of that, she has to look cool, which means carrying it all in one of those floppy back-packs made by the single US brand that is de rigueur for French teenagers (not the classic cartable in the photo). Every year, the over-loaded cartable is a national story and nothing happens.      

Now, help is at hand. Pupils on the Côte d'Azur are being supplied with memory sticks in a scheme to ease the back-breaking load. The age of the virtual satchel is at hand, we are told.

All 13,000 pupils starting collège, or junior secondary school, in the Alpes-Maritime département have received 512-megabyte sticks which will be pre-loaded with selected texts and used to transport class-work and exercises.  Pupils will still have to carry most text books, but the project, promoted by Christian Estrosi, who is both département president and Minister for Regional Development, should lighten the burden for the 11-year-olds.

For two decades, Governments have been trying without success to limit the extraordinary load that French teachers require their pupils to carry daily. Les cartables of collège pupils typically carry about 10 kilogrammes. Primary school children carry four to six kilos. This is far above the maximum of 10 percent of the child's weight which was laid down in 1995 by Ségolène Royal, the Socialist, when she was schools minister.

Some specialists estimate that as many as 15% of children may suffer spinal problems later as a result of their heavy bags. La Croix newspaper joked this week: "Our frail children have their backs bashed around and their vertebrae crushed. Generations have suffered this way, preventing France from collecting medals at world athletics championships. Every new year we complain and moan and the next year we start again."

Royal, who has four children and is the Socialist favourite for next spring's presidential elections, wanted schools to install lockers, but the idea was too costly and the education establishment thought it was too American.

Christiane Alain, head of health for the Federation of Parent-Teachers Councils (FCPE), says that bag weight remains a serious health problem. "Last year we weighed the satchels in five secondary schools in the Loire Atlantique and 80 percent were too heavy -- above 10 percent of the pupil's weight," she said.   

"The memory stick is an interesting idea provided that every pupil is equipped with a computer," added Alain. "I get a bit annoyed when they always make the computer a solution. Books have their virtues and they should be kept".

In the Alpes-Maritimes, 80 percent of pupils have computers at home and all have access to them at school. "It is usually the better-off families who do not have computers  -- for ideological reasons," said Eric Goldinger, an official with the département council. "For the families who want them, we are going to offer older collège computers at attractive prices when we replace them. "The aim of the stick is to help transfer class lessons. The teacher can store lessons and pupils can down-load them on the school website. ... This will mean they do not have to carry their exercise books all the time."   Among innovations, the area schools have introduced electronic blackboards so pupils can store on their memory sticks everything the teacher draws or writes.

I'm not so sure that the memory sticks are a great idea. Handwriting and real books have virtues that cannot be stored in digits. And my main problem, along with most parents I suspect, is getting my children off the computer rather than encouraging more use.   

Comments

[Tara]

I'm smiling as I read this. I teach six-year-olds in America. A full third of my students bring roller-style backpacks to school. This, even though they take home one slender folder a night - and a slender book, twice a week.

I do understand where their parents are coming from, however. These back problems are serious.

It doesn't stop me from stifling a grin, though, when I see their tiny folders fall into the great black space in their backpacks, and watch them totter down the halls toward home.

[Frank Schnittger]

Parents and teachers are paranoid about computers because you can never be sure that their children are using them to study, to engage in electronic social networking, to play games, or to visit dodgy sites.

But the reality is that computers are here to stay, and that they can also offer many advantages over traditional teaching/learning methods. There is no reason, for instance, that the entire course syllabus cannot be available online, together with exercises and tests, and that children who want to, or who are sick at home, cannot cover the material at their own pace.

My kids are all computer enthusiasts and use them for a mixture of study, work, games and social networking (Bebo, MSN net and E-mail). We live in a rural area and it’s a great way to keep in touch with friends that you can rarely get to see. It also dramatically increases the size of their reference world if they are doing some research for a project.

They all went to a Montessori school till aged 11 and learnt to work independently, at their own pace, in small groups, and in a self directed way. What impressed me about the Montessori school is that the kids were always equally busy and focused regardless of whether the teacher was in the room or not. This contrasted with my own education where all hell broke lose once the teacher left the room and the name of the game was to do as little as possible and get away with everything that you could.

It seems to me that some of the resistance to computers in the home and in the classroom is based on the assumptions of the old teaching methods: that kids are naturally lazy, disruptive, cheats and that teachers must dominate and control the whole teaching process if any good is to come out of it.

Networked computers can be deeply subversive of traditional, authoritarian, disciplinarian social hierarchies and thus they are banned to libraries with lots of controls as to who can use them for what. This diminishes much of their value to the education process.

One of my previous jobs (some years ago) involved putting in a PC network based computer infrastructure into a large multi-national company. This involved very early versions of Microsoft Office Software to computerise memo and report generation, communication, time/meeting management and knowledge management processes generally. The first problem in justifying the project was to demonstrate its costs effectiveness: How could we justify hundreds of thousands of pounds to send a few memos by e-mail instead of the dedicated onsite postal service which would have to be retained for external post in any case.

I was able to demonstrate that we would need far fewer clerical/secretarial staff if all meetings were arranged on-line and all short memos were typed by managers themselves. The second problem was overcoming the resistance of older managers and Directors who felt they might be shown up by more computer literate younger colleagues. It was quite a battle and took quite some time. (I ended up arranging discrete off site one to one tuition for some of the Directors and senior managers).

The result was a revolution in our business and in many more. Huge numbers of secretarial and clerical jobs were saved, whole layers of management were removed, and a much more democratic culture became the norm because Directors could no longer run their Departments like feudal fiefdoms.

The point of this little digression is as follows: Computers, mobile phones, and the internet are changing business and society very dramatically indeed. Early computer systems just automated some existing processes, later systems totally transformed how business is done. The education systems is still in the dark ages as far as the potential of computers and the internet is concerned. Old/more traditional teachers are naturally fearful of the changes that may come, and of their own ability to adapt.

But I have no doubt that education/learning in the future will be much more computer/internet centric. This will create dramatic changes in the learning process and how both students and teachers will work. Teachers will become less the direct imparters of knowledge and more facilitators of the learning process – helping students in difficulty, “localising” knowledge by relating in directly to a students experience, running project and discussion groups. Bright students will be able to cover many more courses in much greater depth than a teacher aiming at the average in the class could possibly cover. Teachers will have more time to help the poor students.

The social hierarchy of the school system will also change. Teachers and students will become more partners in the learning process and less severely differentiated by an authoritarian “chain of command”. Much of this is profoundly unsettling to those of a more traditional mindset. But it will come because the experience of business (particularly international big business) is that the breaking down of the old hierarchical social age/class based structures results in a veritable explosion of creativity and productivity at all levels of the business.

Modern businesses simply couldn’t function without computers and the internet being at the heart of nearly all of the key production and management processes within the business. The larger and more sophisticated the business, the more true this is. The education system has a long way to go in order to catch up. But catch up it will. And anybody who tries to stand in the way had better get used to the idea that they will soon become obsolete.

[john gregory Flinn]

Our son has to carry his books as well. He had one of those wheely bags last year, but does'nt use it now preferring the floppy back-pack that you describe.
I'm sure there's an element of machismo involved here.
However he also has a 'casier' or locker in which he can store most books he needs, except access times are restricted so he still ends up carrying a lot of stuff.
No sign of memory sticks up here in Pas de Calais!

[deborah]

Am I the only to person to find Mr Schnittger's comments way
too long? sorry but I just can't concentrate, old age no doubt.

Surely the whole point of a blog is for people to give quick comments, otherwise just start a blog of your own.

[Abbott Katz]

I can commiserate with Mr. Bremner; my 16-year-old daughter has just graduated high school in Paris, thus freeing her to overthrow the hardbound yoke cinched daily to her back. I've often wondered how she contended with the burden; perhaps nowadays she's wondering too. The real technological remedy: mass recourse to e-book readers of the sort promulgated by Irex and SONY. Commit all textbooks to e-readable form, empty the schoolbag, and tote that 10-ounce reader instead.

[Hugues]

I might sound a bit presumptuous, but I happen to have written the definitive article on this supposedly intractable problem our kids face (in French) :

http://hugues.blogs.com/commvat/2005/11/gestion_des_sto.html

[Robert Marchenoir]

How very French.

An easy solution is at hand for this ridiculous problem: leave the books at school, and take home the only one or two necessary for study. A mongoloid, illiterate native from the backward tribes of Papua New-Guinea (hi, Boris!) could have figured this. Not the millions of super-brainy luminaries running the French department of education and its associated unions.

Instead, we are now told to spend zillions of euros out of our taxes, in order to build up a horrendously complex system of e-books, computer servers and memory sticks. Expect delays, extra costs for families -- insufficiently compensated by yet another social allowance -- compatibility problems and bugs galore, quick obsolescence, intractable issues when shifting from paper to computer and back again, etc.

But then, putting up lockers in school would be definitely too cheap, too simple, too tacky. In short, really uncool.

Hughes: nice blog, but there are two words in your comment you could have done without: "might" and "a bit".

[John Hornsby]

A former colleague of mine used to take his textbooks apart very carefully and put the pages he needed for the day's lessons into a file. Thus all he had to transport was a sort of mini-briefcase.

[GAG]

My three children were schooled in France and were expected by their teachers to carry all of their text books back and forth to school, whether they were required or not. Of course, I told my children not too and to use their common sense. I don’t want to condemn all French teachers but common sense appears to be a rare commodity in French education establishments.

Didn’t Mme Royal say recently that she wished to put 2 adults in each classroom and didn’t the ‘Canard Enchainé’ newspaper comment that it would be difficult to find 2 adults in a whole school, let alone in each classroom !
GAG

[Hugues]

Robert Marchenoir,

I have to stop trying to be funny around here: there’s always someone to remind me I haven’t got what it takes. So when I said I had written the “definitive article” on heavy schoolbags, it was meant as a joke… As a pleasant and droll way of telling people that I, too, had written something worth reading on the subject. And also, obviously, as a cunning marketing ploy to get new readers for my blog (it works).

But in truth, and I’m convinced somebody as subtle as you had instantly realised it, I was perfectly aware of not having written the real “definitive article” on schoolbags and I’m sure other people we’ll try their luck at that (as even our host has done just that today). Do I need to explain the “might” and the “bit” in the same way? You tell me. I’ll be happy to oblige.

Hum, I’m writing this and I’m wondering: is this good for my blog? Will people think, “Wow, this guy is indeed really funny in a sarcastic sort of way and I just have to check him out” or will they say “Enough already, we’ve come here to read about those heavy schoolbags the French kids have to carry”?

We’ll see.

[Robert Marchenoir]

Deborah: I, for one, appreciate Frank Schnittger's posts very much. I find them superbly written, and full of the sort of wisdom seldom found on blogs. They also fit well within the tone set by Charles Bremner here, which is a reason why I come back often.

Thoughtfulness sometimes exceeds the capacity of two-liners.

Most computer mice have wheels nowadays, and there are, alas, plenty of blogs full of snappy, rude, ill-written and moronic comments.

[Frank Schnittger]

Thanks for your kind words, Robert. I do appreciate I can “go on a bit” when talking about a favourite subject and that my approach can be a bit tangential to the original post. It’s probably time I moved on to more specialised forums because I don’t have much experience of France and must irritate other bloggers when I always present an outsiders view. I keep telling myself its time to get out more and stop this blogging lark and then along comes a dull day and I succumb to temptation again. Maybe I’ll give it up for Lent….

[Robert Marchenoir]

Hughes, my comment was also an attempt at being funny. Maybe it was not so successful after all. I hope at least it was not offensive.

[Maggie]

Don't go to another blog, Frank. I like your comments too. I sometimes think you must be very old to have such a store of wisdom, and then you talk about your children being still in school...

But actually, I did not really agree with you this time. I do think schools need to be human. I've a clipping here from the DT, April 05, which says "Computers 'Hinder Progress of Pupils In Maths and Literacy' "

"...the evidence so far suggests that computer use in schools does not seem to contribute substantially to students' learning of basic skills such as maths or reading. Indeed, the more pupils used computers, the worse they performed, said Thomas Fuchs and Ludger Wossmann of Munich University...."

Of course, I don't think you were proposing them primarily for primary school kids, having sent your own kids to Montessori.

And then your comment "Huge numbers of secretarial and clerical jobs were saved". Do you mean "saved" or "got rid of"?

Not a remark to be made in France, Frank!!

[Clementine]

Ah, those Eastp*ack bags gave me scoliosis !
Yes, French schools lack practical sense (ever heard of lockers?).

[john gregory Flinn]

For Clementine and Robert Marchenoir;
The French schools my son and daughter attend do have lockers - as I said in my earlier post.
I can't say if this is common-place in France, but I feel sure other schools do so as well - cool or uncool!
We don't experience the sort of problems with French schools that seems to arouse such bitter criticism and sarcasm on this and other blogs. Generally, they are a street better than English State schools - and I've taught at a few of them!
Perhaps such posts are made to stimulate debate?

PS; Robert, you spelt Hugues wrong!

[christopher muir]

The fact that the French are prepared to allow their children to be no more than mules transporting heavy books between school and home is strange indeed. Especially so. as school lockers are not permitted, it seems, because they are an American idea. To sacrifice the well-being of children on such spurious grounds is taking a matter of prejudice too far. I suppose that every country has its faults, but this is surely a sad reflection on a country renowned for being a logical society.

[Sarah Hague]

It does seem that the solution is glaringly obvious. That's probably what makes it so unattractive... That and being an American hand-me-down.

[Hugues]

At the same time, American style lockers tend to be much heavier than French cartables… Wouldn’t the cure be worse than the disease?

[Frank Schnittger]

Thanks Maggie, but I don't see computers as dehumanising a school, but rather of freeing up teachers from being primarily deliverers of content to being more focused on the learning process and of the growing and development of the children in their care. Their role will be more in motivating, encouraging, exciting, sharing, facilitating, leading, and relating to the child’s own experience and stage of development – rather than just transferring facts from their heads into the child’s. (I know I’m engaging in rhetorical exaggeration here!).

Handwriting and real books will still have their place, of course, so Charles can relax, and as you suggest, computers will become more important as the child gets older. I do have a concern that this process could go too far and that some of the social and interpersonal aspects of learning could be lost. People have different learning styles – visual, auditory, emotional, social, interactive, sensory and logical – and it is important that the education process caters for as many of these as possible. My late wife hardly ever attended a formal lecture but picked up almost everything she needed from informal discussions with staff and students over coffee or somebody’s paper. She had several post grad qualifications – and was an acknowledged expert in her field – so that method certainly worked for her!

I appreciate that the “saving” of jobs is an odd terminology in France, and in the public sector everywhere. But in Ireland we have “saved” many thousands of jobs, making the economy much more competitive, and as a result the number of jobs in the economy has more than doubled from under 1 Million to over 2 Million. The changing nature of work (and education) is something we will all have to face sooner or later!

[Maggie]

My kids had to carry all that weight too.

When they built the new collège here, I remember all the parents asking if there would be lockers, and being told that there wouldn't be, because the kids would just wreck them. That was one of the reasons I said earlier on that schools in France tend to expect poor behaviour from the students, whereas schools in Canada generally like kids and don't expect any major problems from them. Isn't there a saying that what you expect is what you get?

When they built the new collège here, they also built an appartment building on the grounds for the directrice to live in. But in the school there wasn't even a single hook where the students could hang up their jackets. They walked around all day long looking like hitch-hikers, and there were always problems of theft from the school bags, which during certain activities would be stored in a room supposedly under surveillance.

But I do believe there are lockers there now.

John Gregory Flinn, you told me that your son was in a chess club at school, and your daughter in a drama group. I feel quite sure that these clubs you mention take place during noon hour, because in my experience in France, when school is finished the kids are sent off the school premises as fast as possible. Three minutes after the final bell, most of the teachers are already on the auto-route, and in the evenings and on weekends, the school is locked and bolted up like a tomb -- after supper there is no basketball team practising, no choir singing or band playing, no drama club rehearsing, or anything else.

There is nothing to make the students feel that the school belongs to THEM. They are kept waiting behind barriers, allowed in minutes before classes start, and sent out again immediately when classes are over.

[Maggie]

"I don't see computers as dehumanising a school, but rather of freeing up teachers from being primarily deliverers of content to being more focused on the learning process and of the growing and development of the children in their care. Their role will be more in motivating, encouraging, exciting, sharing, facilitating, leading, and relating to the child’s own experience and stage of development – rather than just transferring facts from their heads into the child’s."

Frank, I am sure that most teachers have ALWAYS been motivating, encouraging, exciting, sharing, facilitating, leading and relating to the child's own experience and stage of development.

They have never JUST transferred facts.

It's the COMPUTER that just transfers facts. It's the COMPUTER that doesn't know how to motivate, encourage, excite, share, facilitate and relate to the child's own experience.

Isn't it?

[Robert Marchenoir]

Maggie, your remarks about barriers in front of schools, the absence of hooks for pupils' coats, are so right to the point. I keep being amazed that nobody in France seems to notice, let alone object to such things.

The truth is that people do not like people here. I mean real people, not the theoretical human beings pampered in various blabbings about "human rights".

Authorities, civil servants and shop assistants do not care about citizens' and customers' needs. They generally fear, dislike and despise them. The less they see them, the quicker they go out the door, the better.

[colin grayson]

an old friend of mine , who I shall not name for obvious reasons , was formerly a housemaster at a british public school , which ,for those who are unfamiliar with this system , means living with a group of students who are boarders there [ as well as with his wife and children ]

he then became the director of a teacher training college where high school graduates could take a B.Ed degree and go into teaching

after a year he stopped the admission of young people direct from school ; he insisted on a gap year , usefully employed ,because , he said , most were choosing this career for the short hours and long holidays to which they were accustomed ; so they could apply for a place to be reserved a year in advance

lo and behold , some 50 % changed their minds and didn't enter the college after all ! I won't attempt to explain why , am not quite sure myself ; I wonder if it is because they actually left school , whereas most teachers , in effect , never do
I notice that a recent survey of french university students showed that some 70 % wish to become functionaries when they graduate ; does this include teaching , I wonder ?

[Sarah Hague]

Robert, you are spot on. Another example is hospital administrations which don't like patients as they mess up the place, and don't really like doctors either as they are too stroppy.

Estate agents are legendary in their contempt of potential renters.

For service industries, the word 'service' has an obscure meaning.

[Frank Schnittger]

Maggie - you left out the "(I know I’m engaging in rhetorical exaggeration here!)." part of my quote, and also the "I do have a concern that this process could go too far and that some of the social and interpersonal aspects of learning could be lost". I don't think that our views are really all that different - although computers can do more than just transmit facts as well: like a mobile phone, they are increasingly becoming communication devices between people - like this blog! I would personally be very sorry to see the education process depersonalised - like it can be in large universities which huge class sizes. You will note that I have never called for computers to replace ir reduce the number of teachers, quite the reverse, hopefully they could enable teachers to give individual students more individual attention.

[john gregory Flinn]

For Maggie.
Yes, my son's chess club is during lunch break.
No, my daughter's drama option is both during the school day and afterwards.
There are also clubs and activities open wednesday pm for Karting, Basketball, Badminton and choir-singing etc., which all require teachers' presence.
Yes, the school opens and shuts promptly and in a orderly fashion. This suits the students, teachers and parents, but most of all it is a requirement for the effective management and organisation of a very important enterprise. The boys' internat (lodging) is on school premises which means the school stays open all the time (except sundays).

Why should the students feel that the school belongs to themselves?
It belongs to the State, and provides a service (to students). Students and Parents have a say about the delivery of, and participate in that service. (Is there some polemic here that I'm missing?)

Clearly there is something that has turned you (and others) right off French schools.
I often quibble about the pedantry of the Maths teacher, the leftist bias of the History teacher and the frequent changes of 'Le Proviseur' and/or deputy. But these are all normal background to an active school curriculum, and not necessarily negative.

We enjoy your colourful critique of French schools but, overall do not see them at all like you do.