Yes you read it. Don’t think because you’re sending your kids to school in French schools they’ll eat succulently cooked meals, as might be expected in the Terre of Haute Cuisine… School lunches are most often these days managed by large food catering companies like Avenance, Sodexho and another one, who also run company […]
France has a 4.5 day work week for students ( and their teachers). Meaning our dear little ones must rise and shine early on Wednesday morning, only to be asked to stay home after lunch time. Not very logical you have to admit. On the other hand they spend long days in […]
France’s officials and many of its citizens often boast about the quality of their educational system. For one who’s a parents of primary level children here, in a priviledged area west of Paris and who was taught by this system about 30 years back, it’s quite distressing to see how low demands on children are […]
Have you ever read or heard from others- usually working parents or mature adults- that, as a parent, and particularly a stay-at-home parent (and often a mom), you’re “doing the most important job“? Well, I know that deciding as a couple to raise happy, self-confident, open-minded, and healthy children, is one the most beautiful and […]
On a higher plane, newspapers and radios would include in their regular news, the way sports results are blasted out to our ears every fifteen minutes, information that'd be relevant to parents, such as school and day care rankings, missing children info, parents having found a great way to manage their work and family life, etc… I suggest The Chronicle call this daily or weekend section Family Matters (duh)…
More OECD countries focusing on early childhood as key to education success:
Finally, if the legislators can direct their glance not only towards higher education but towards those not-so-glamourous early years of education, that would be a great help to us parents who believe early experiences are the crucial stepping stones on which a child will build and develop - and who appreciate every help they can get to provide the best experience for their kids. And that state investment in those years is among the best investment they can make for the country.
Thanks to the OECD for pushing this thought too!
As a person inpired by both the North American and the French culture, I am struck by the somewhat negative connotation "Discipline" has in English- even more so in "Californian", the particularly " PC" English spoken on the West Coast.
In the French culture, it is not so negatively tainted, although this is changing. France is now seeing the results of the "No to Discipline, Yes to the Child"approach to education which is highly prevalent in California. Three-year olds are beating up on their parents over there too.. and on their babysitters, their "friends", their teachers…
