Hello, this is my first message here. My son is 14 and has been to French school in France for the last 6 years. We are not very happy with the standard of schools here in our area and his education is suffering. He is also very upset at the everyday barrage of anti British sentiment aimed at them by the teachers. All little things but all are coming from some place nasty. One must wonder what it is that these people (French Teachers not French People) fear... Only last week he was told, whilst studying the UK in geography, that the British are Xenophobic, that they manufacture nothing, that they refuse to turn back the clocks in winter and forward in Spring...!! (Even being told that at the moment Paris is GMT +2 hours!!!)... He was refused entry onto a school trip because he had no French ID card (although he did have a British passport). He was also incorrectly told that the British hate the EU. In fact it was the French who stopped the UK joining the EEC in 1960 and kept them out for another 13 years. The teacher spent 2 classes going on about how the British are the only country in the world who drive on the left (In fact there are 74, one is India with a population on 1 Billion). He also claimed that we use yards and pounds when in fact t is illegal in the UK to sell anything in pounds. I could go on but I don't want to sound like I hate the French.. I do not.. I guess it is teachers... They are the same the world over... They live amongst children and want to be men.... I am not being anti French, I love the French... but it has to be said that there is no hope for the French ever to understand the Brits if this is the filth taught in schools. Anyway, we don’t think any kind of Nationalism is good for a young mind so now want to teach him at home, partly for his educational needs and mostly for his cultural and social needs... I presume there is some sort of process that must be undergone to do this. If anyone has experience of this I would be glad to hear from you. We hope to teach our son ourselves and not use home tutors. We are not qualified teachers but are degree educated (I have a degree in Civil Engineering and an LLB and my wife has one in Psychology).. As I say... not qualified teachers but we very much fear the lobotomy required in Teacher training school. Kinda strayed from the point there. Brendan
How extraordinary - I've educated three children here in a mixture of private and public schooling, town and deeply rural and I can honestly say that none of mine have ever come across this sort of prejudice from the teachers. At one rural school my youngest got a lot of stick from the boys for being English but as she realised herself it had a lot to do with a)being a girl, b)being taller than they were and c) being much cleverer than they were and going to the top of the class in her first week.
Obviously you can't allow this to go on - have you tried talking to the school? If your son is actually being given the wrong facts you've got a strong case for complaint. If that doesn't get you anywhere have you considered sending him to a private school? They really aren't very expensive, I'm out of date now but I do know that at the college we sent our children too the bill for the school meals came to quite a bit more than the bill for the tuition. Most private schools are Catholic but even if you're very anti-religion you don't have to worry about children stuffed with dogma, private schools that receive state funding (and most of them do ) aren't allowed to have religious instruction in school hours and any religious stuff is voluntary anyway.
The teacher was correct about one thing at least France is GMT plus 2 hours at the moment. GMT is 1021 am UK time is plus one hour ie 1121hrs and France is GMT plus 2 hours ie 1221 hrs
Boiling a frog
deadbeat wrote:Hello, this is my first message here. we want to teach him at home, partly for his educational needs and mostly for his cultural and social needs...
Hello, this is my first message here. we want to teach him at home, partly for his educational needs and mostly for his cultural and social needs...
I home educated my 4 children for a number of years. It was an evolution and not a revolution. It started when one of them was not progressing in school and slowly, one by one, all my children opted to be schooled at home. Home education is why I now live in France. I came here intially for them to learn French and then they decided to join the French education system. One of my children continues to be home educated because that is better for her. Home education opens windows to children's minds and offers horizons not dreamed off in the conventional educational system.
And as for social interaction, there are two sides to that - the bad side is the bullying, the sexual pressure, the drug taking, the prejudice etc. Home educated children are protected from that for longer. They can get their social interaction from all sorts of activities, such as sports clubs and scouts/guides etc etc.
Brendan (deadbeat) - I've sent you a PM.
The best book on Home Education is edited by Terri Dowty and is called 'Free Range Education - how home education works'. I recommend it to anyone thinking about home schooling.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Free-Range-Education-Home-Works/dp/1903458072/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207916394&sr=1-2
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