In Elementary school French students memorize two or more poems by heart every month. A friend explained to me that the history of France can be found in poetry. She also told me that poetry is used as a tool to teach students French. It is an interactive way to think about conjugations, tenses, and spelling. A lot of words sound alike in French but they are written with different endings or with a different gender. My French friend was shocked when I told her, that I might have memorized two poems my entire school career.
I think the use of poetry at a young age is excellent. The memorization requires parents to get involved because a five year old who can barely read can’t learn a poem without help. Additionally these young students start to have analytical conversations at a very young age. Through poetry French kids start to learn much earlier that the world isn’t as simple as right and wrong.
All elementary schools are closed on Wednesday. It is thanks to this that I have a babysitting job on Wednesday. It is considered too much for a kid to go to school 5 days a week. Even Middles Schools are only open in the morning on Wednesdays. Here in France, closing school on Wednesday is an unquestioned cultural assumption about what kids need. Just as in the United States nobody questions 40 minute lunch breaks and 5 day school weeks. I’m realizing a lot about my own cultural assumptions about normalcy through French cultural assumptions.
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The memorization of poetry as part of a circulum is a great idea. Although, I think that the nationalist implications in the cases that your citing are a little bit problematic, the ability to store things in memory is something that is extremely useful. In addition, if you couple that with some other communication activities. IE. Some sort of imporvised experiance, and something involving consensus building or dispute resolution, you're really building a strong society based on critical thinking.
Funny story, I wrote you a big letter, but its on paper in a note book. I'll try and write you another one on the computer that's more up to date.
Send me an email, or a Facebook about germany, it sounds like it was fun. If it had house music, it had to be.
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