Kindergarten in France

Despite teaching for nearly 4 months, it has been really hard for me to talk or write about it. I’m overwhelmed and I don’t feel like I have it all figured out yet. I’ve decided it’s time to broach the subject; ready or not. Here is the first of a few installations on the French School System and my teaching experience. Thanks for reading! Enjoy:):)

In France 84% of parents send their child to public kindergarten starting at age 3, although school isn’t compulsory until age 5. If the parents sign their child up for kindergarten at 3, they are obliged to keep sending them the following years. Three year olds go to school only in the morning.

All kindergarten’s are locked after school starts. Parents do not have the right to watch classes, pick up their child early or drop them off late. Ten years ago a man came into a kindergarten in Paris and murdered all the students with a gun. Since then the kindergarten doors have been locked for security reasons. The Kindergartens are open twice a year during school hours for parents to come look at their child’s work.

I thought closing the schools was an interesting reaction since almost nobody has a gun in France, and the probability of one of the rare gun holders doing a school shooting is pretty low. I think about how many school shootings their have been in the United States, and how the same discourse follows each time.

Currently there is legislation on the table to cut public education so that it starts at age 5. Everyone I have talked to is absolutely appalled by this. School is seen as an important part of socialization and 5 is considered way too late to start. School is also viewed as a social equalizer of sorts. Some kids don’t have parents that will start helping them learn to read and write at three, therefore school is considered pivotal to giving each child a similar educational opportunities.

Day cares are much rarer in France and they are not viewed with much respect. There is a lot of talk about how starting school at five would affect working mothers. The fact that the effect on women is being talked about is certainly a mark of progress in gender equality. However, why are women in question and not all parents? The answer is that; in France as in the United States, ‘parenting’ is frequently a thin disguise for ‘mothering’.