Should kids have to choose a career by age fourteen?

This week we take a look at the educational systems in France, England, and the US and wonder what they tell us about the souls of these nations.

Theadora being tortured by French education

Yesterday morning we attended a “portes ouvertes” (open doors) at the Lycée Philippe Lamour in Nimes, France, the city closest to us. Tim has spent weeks researching various state lycées (high schools) in our region, and has found three that have a special theatre option. Our 14-year-old daughter is passionate about acting, and wants to receive as much early training as possible. She has been taking a weekly course at the French drama school Cours Florent in Montpellier and speeding through Michael Shurtleff’s Audition, which I found so useful as a young actor. She can’t wait to get to lycée, because she can take many more hours of theatre there.

Theo has been miserable in this last year of French middle school (collège), where her teachers yell at the children, enforce absurd and arbitrary rules, and where all learning is rote memorization. There is no room for creativity. There are no sports, no school play. You can do these things, but they are not part of school.

The other kids have all grown up in the same town and have been in school together their entire lives. They view Theo as an alien in their midst, someone weird and different. Too tall, too English, too studious. Someone to be avoided. (Kids there tell Theo, “When you’re born in Ganges, you grow up in Ganges, and you die in Ganges”).

Theadora thrived at the International Baccalaureate school she attended for three years in Uzbekistan, thanks to the UK Foreign Office footing the bill. She participated in every single aspect of school life, joining every sports team, performing in the school play, and enjoying creative assignments. She wrote her first play, imagined a journey on the Silk Road in centuries past, and designed boats and cars. But IB schools here are expensive, offer no scholarships, and are impossible for us now that Tim is retired and I have not been able to work as much as I’d like. Thus, state schools.

Next year, Theadora enters a whole new level of French education: lycée, Everyone has told us it will be better. The kids will be less conformist and more diverse, the teachers will trust the kids more, and T will be able to study things she loves, like theatre.

I didn’t have much hope of Theadora feeling enthusiasm for the first lycée we visited, given her loathing of French education overall. Tim and I are also not fans of the French education system. While it was largely good for Theadora in primary school (in Bolivia and London), where she had kind and inspirational teachers, we share her dim views of its unimaginative curriculum and sadistic teaching.

But when Theo saw the campus of Lycée Philippe Lamour, the trees, the greenery, the theatre space, and met several friendly teachers, she transformed.

The morning began with a presentation of the structure of the system, which was useful for those of us unfamiliar with the workings of this level of education. For the first year, Theadora could take four hours of theatre per week, and the following two years she could take nine hours of theatre each week! In high school! I try to imagine such a thing in an American high school. I never got so much of an hour of theatrical education in high school, other than what I got from the director of the plays in which I performed after hours. I am so envious.

Theadora decided right there and then that the Lycée Philippe Lamour was the lycée for her. Tim and I were amazed and grateful to see her so enthusiastic.

The French system requires early specialization. By the time you are fourteen, you are asked to choose the direction of your career. This early specialization works for kids like Theo who are sure of what they want to do with their lives. But how many kids can be sure at 14 or 15? This is the age at which French schools decide which kids can go on to high school at all, and which will be diverted into professional training/technical education. If you don’t have the grades to get into the more academic lycées, the system just shuffles you into the other track, no matter what your dreams might be. It all feels cruel and premature. 

The UK also requires increasing specialization throughout high school. Students must take exams in five subjects at the end of their sophomore year in order to be able to take their next level (A-level) exams in their last year of high school. They then need to study just three subjects for their A-levels to apply to university.

And—this will sound insane to Americans—most kids study just one thing in university, and for just three years. They might study English or Maths or History, but certainly not all three. I find this astonishing, because I come from a country that values a “well-rounded” education. I was a theatre major in college, but I also got to study history, science, psychology, sociology, and sports.

It’s impossible to make useful generalizations about US education, given that it varies so much from state to state and from county to county. But one thing I deeply appreciate about the US system is that I was expected to study a broad variety of subjects until the last two years of college, when I had to declare a major. This gave me the opportunity to try as many subjects as possible, and to discover unexpected passions, like environmental science and geology. The things I learned about pesticides, integrated pest management, and crop diversity guide the way I shop and eat to this day. All those other subjects I studied were not useless. They taught me how to think in other ways. They taught me how to be a better human.

For these reasons, I resist early specialization. I still strongly favor US university education over the highly specialized university education in the UK or in France because I feel like it creates more interesting, versatile, and educated humans.

However. I struggle to consider sending my daughter to a US university (though this may be out of my hands if she decides she wants to go there). Here’s a little anecdote to illustrate why:

I recently received news of disappointing blood tests just before the worst job interview of my life. No exaggeration. I can’t blame my bloods, but they didn’t help. I was offered the interview for a creative writing teaching position by a large university in Atlanta. I had applied back in the autumn, when I was feeling expansive and hopeful about my future. I’m not sure why I applied to a university in Georgia, as I don’t really want to move back to the US, unless it’s to New York City. New York is one of the only places—alongside New Orleans and parts of California— for which I could consider giving up free healthcare.

But creative writing jobs are thin on the ground. I wanted to acquit myself brilliantly in my interview. I don’t want anyone to think poorly of me, least of all my writing peers. Maybe they would persuade me that a move to Georgia was the right thing to do. Such a thing could happen.

Before the interview, I spent time on the university’s website, investigating the department, the faculty members, the curriculum. It’s an impressive program. But when I first clicked on the site, I was greeted with a massive emergency alert about an armed intruder on campus. Everyone had been told to shelter in place. This is exactly why I fear for my family at a US university.

When I researched the suburb of Atlanta in which the university is located, the website said that its gun laws were “very strict.” I thought this meant that they required background checks and permits or perhaps banned them outright. But no. It meant that every head of household is required to own a gun and ammunition. Could this really be true? I had no idea such laws existed. I researched it. It does exist. But there are exemptions to this law. Felons, “paupers,” and people with disabilities don’t need to own guns. That’s a relief. It also provides exemption for conscientious or religious objectors. But still. The fact that this law exists at all and what it suggests about the politics of the place horrifies me.

The suburb claimed that crime plummeted when everyone had a gun. (So, that whole armed-intruder alert instructing everyone to shelter in place, that was a one-off?) You know what lowers crime rates? Fewer guns. In London there are a fair number of stabbings, but it’s a bit easier to run from a knife than from an automatic rifle.

Despite this, I was open to persuasion. Maybe they provide their faculty members with bullet-proof vests? At least if I got shot I would be cheating cancer.

It was the shortest interview I’ve had thus far, with a 30-minute time limit (in comparison, my Newcastle interview was 90 minutes long). They didn’t ask me to prepare anything (unlike the UK universities, which all have asked me to prepare actual classes and syllabi). Each of the committee members got to ask one or two questions. They told me they had to ask the exact same questions to each candidate.

And my brain froze. I’m usually reasonably articulate in interviews, entertaining even. But I stammered and felt unable to think on my feet. The first question was, what kind of class would you teach here? Which is a pretty broad and involved question. Still, you’d think I wouldn’t struggle with that one. I talked about the classes I have prepared for other interviews (thank goodness they made me do homework), but I didn’t have my notes in front of me and couldn’t remember everything. Can I blame the chemo? I even struggled to articulate my literary influences, which is something I should know. (The first thing to come to mind was Nancy Drew, and no, I didn’t say that). The committee members were all very kind, but I feel I disappointed them. Which is probably for the best, given my reluctance to move to gun country.

This is why, though I prefer American-style education, I hope that no US university will offer my daughter the scholarship she would need to attend. It just doesn’t feel worth the risk.

I hate to be put in this position, longing for my daughter to have the educational opportunities I had, but fearing for her safety. I don’t want to give up hope that one day the US will come to its senses about guns, but will things change in the next three years? It seems unlikely.

I hope I’m wrong.

PS: It occurs to me that I haven’t explained why we initially put Theo in French education! When we moved to Bolivia in 2012, she was two and three quarters. We dropped her into the local nursery, where she became fluent in Spanish. When she was ready to start school at age four, the choices near us were the American school (too expensive and all teaching in English) and the French School. Around that time, we bought our house here in France, so we knew she would eventually need French. Also, the French school taught in both Spanish and French, so Theo could keep learning Spanish while picking up French. It’s so easy for little people! They are just sponges. I was so envious. She loved French school back then!

Talk to me: I’d love to hear what YOU think these differences in educational systems say about the souls of these nations.

Next Week: A writing post inspired by Yoko Ono! I can’t wait to share it with you.