Ecole Jeannine Manuel

March 23nd, 2018

All of the parents in Kate's school just received an email from the director, Madame Zebulon, that EJM had been ranked as the top lycée in France for the sixth consecutive year.  (It was tied for first with Henri IV in one ranking and second behind Henri IV and in front of Louis-le-Grand in another ranking.  Just for some perspective, Jean-Paul Sarte, Guy de Maupassant, Emmanuel Macron, and our friend Esther Duflo number among Henri IV's alumni, while Louis-le-Grand had Degas, Voltaire, Derrida, Delacroix, Molière, Robespierre, and Victor Hugo among its students.  These are pretty august institutions.)  Great news, of course, and certainly good reason for Madame Zebulon to be proud.  It came as somewhat of a surprise to us, though, given Kate's experience.  Math, in particular, has been a disaster, way below the level, the challenge, and the quality of teaching that she would have had in Newton.  I suppose all schools have good and bad teachers, so let me reflect on the parts of Kate's experience at EJM that have been positive.

First, let me say that EJM is not diverse in the sense the word is often used in the US---there are very few black students at the school.  The student body is also quite upper class, for the most part.  That being said, though, it has a lot of diversity in other dimensions.  There are students from all over the world, many of whom have lived in multiple countries---Kate's group of friends includes French, Korean, British, Turkish, Portuguese, Iranian, and Brazilian students, as well as a number of students born in France or the US with parents from Mexico, Canada, India, Italy, Belgium, South Africa, and others.  Newton is a pretty international place, but not that international.  Parents also tend to be an interesting group:  academics, diplomats, business people, writers, musicians, chefs, even royalty, many having grown up or lived abroad.  It has been very useful and interesting for Kate to get this more international perspective.  It has certainly had an impact on her---she says that she is determined to have a job that allows her to split her time between multiple countries when she grows up.  

Surprisingly for us, one of the most substantive and well-taught classes she has had this year has been English.  They have read Edith Wharton, Willa Cather, Robert Cormier, and others.  They have memorized and recited poetry by many, including Robert Browning and Edna St Vincent Millay.  Their readings of the literature have been close and detailed.  They have written essays, received substantive comments and criticism, and rewritten the essays.  This class has certainly been higher quality than Anna's freshman English class at Newton North was.  

Another surprisingly useful and challenging class has been PE.  PE in the US has basically given up.  It would be considered unfair to grade students on performance or even improvement, so, implicitly they cannot be graded on effort, either.  (How can you tell the hard-working but incompetent swimmer from the one who doesn't even try?)  When effort cannot be induced, then PE class just degenerates into this ridiculous charade where everyone gets dressed in athletic clothes and sits around gossiping with their friends and pretending to make an effort.  (The statement refers mostly to my daughters' and their friends' experiences with US PE classes.  I get the feeling that boys sometimes approach PE differently.)  Here in France, Kate's actual mark in PE is based on her measured performance:  how far she could throw a Nerf football, how fast she could run a mile, how far up the class badminton ladder she could proceed, etc.  As a result, she has gotten a lot of exercise and also gained real athletic skills in the process.  I am super impressed with PE and wish that some of these ideas could be applied in the US.  For instance, students could be graded in PE but their grades would not appear in their academic index (so a good student who was a poor athlete would not be punished in college admissions for something unrelated to academics).  But perhaps just being given a grade based on performance could be enough incentive for kids to actually put in effort.  There has been an indirect benefit to Kate as well.  She always thought of herself as bad at sports.  I assume that attitude resulted from her never putting in any effort in her PE classes and consequently performing poorly.  Now she puts in effort, sees improvement, updates her thoughts on where she is in the distribution of athletic skill, and has altered her self-image as an athlete.  That change can potentially have life-long benefits.

Her science class has been a disappointment, but she has actually learned a fair amount of science despite the class.  She was offered the opportunity to participate in an extracurricular physics program (Physique Plus) taught by a retired physics professor to the strongest science students in troisième.  It runs for two hours every Tuesday after school, alternating between lectures by the professor (in French) and labs run by another teacher (in English).  Among the topics they have studied are subatomic particles, the big bang and radiation, and information and computing theory.  They have done a number of substantive labs, including one where they estimated the value of absolute zero. 

And then, of course, there's French.  Glenn and I agreed at the beginning of the year that if becoming fluent in French was Kate's only academic achievement, we would declare victory.  So declare victory we must.  I don't think that Kate would quite describe herself as fluent---she still has a lot of room for learning and improvement---but her French is vastly better than it was, and there is still one-third of the school year to go.  Last night, Glenn and I listened with pride and amazement as she carried on a seven-minute phone conversation with my tennis instructor to see if there would be a time that she could fit in a lesson.  She was able to ask the right questions, explain her schedule to him, understand all of his responses, negotiate possible times, and then finally agree that the only possibility would be to fit in lessons on an ad hoc basis because their schedules didn't mesh.  She would probably not be mistaken for a native French speaker, but I suppose you would say that she is now functionally fluent, able to understand pretty much everything and competently express whatever she needs to say.  

She had studied French in the US for three years before coming here, so she would have picked up some additional facility with the language just living here for a year and absorbing what was around her.  I am sure, though, that most of the credit goes to EJM's adaptation curriculum.  She has three academic classes (French, Special French, and History/Geography) with the other adaptation students taught entirely in French.  History/Geography has been a mixed bag due to excessive teacher absences, but just to have three academic courses taught entirely in French makes a big difference.  In addition, she has art, music, and PE also taught in French.  In those classes, she is mixed in with the regular students in the school, all of whom are fluent in French.  Physique Plus is half in French as well. 

In addition to the academics, I should say, finally, that Kate loves EJM.  And that's important.  In our preparations to come here, we briefly considered the possibility of just having her enter our neighborhood French public school but dismissed it as too traumatizing.  We would have hated if her most salient memory of the year was sitting for hours in class unable to understand most of what was going on or communicate with anyone.  (She would have learned French quickly, but the first couple of months would have been brutal.)  At EJM, she was given an immediate group of friends, the adaptation class, and bonded with them quickly.  From that base, she has made friends outside of adaptation as well.  EJM, for better or worse, has also been light on the homework, which has given her plenty of time to socialize both during and outside of school.  (EJM has very long lunch breaks, like all French schools, and Kate loves the socializing potential.)

There are certainly things we would like to see change at the school and in adaptation in particular.  On balance, though, we are happy that Kate ended up at EJM and are grateful for all of the very positive aspects of her education this year.