British lecturer Peter Gumbel attacks French education culture | World news | The Observer

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A British teacher at one of the leading universities in Paris has produced an extraordinary indictment of France's admired schools, saying they humiliate pupils and could learn much from other countries, including Britain. In a book to be published this week, Peter Gumbel, a lecturer at the Institute of Political Science – known as Sciences Po – attacks a classroom culture that brands students "worthless" and that he says is counterproductive and contrary to France's republican ideals. On achève bien les écoliers? (They Shoot Schoolchildren, Don't They?) has already provoked a storm. "Why is France the only country in the world that discourages children because of what they cannot do, rather than encouraging them to do what they can?" Gumbel writes. "I believe France is missing a key element of what's wrong with the school system, an element that is immediately apparent to any foreigner who comes into contact with it: the harshness of the classroom culture. "It's a culture you can sum up as T'es nul (You're worthless). You hear these words all the time in France." Gumbel says studies by World Health Organisation groups and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Europe reveal that, in France, more than six out of 10 schoolchildren complain of being anxious, four in 10 have difficulty sleeping, and more than two in 10 have a stomach or headache at least once a week. "These studies show that, while French children score quite highly in European studies on their ability and performance, when asked they rate themselves below countries with low levels of literacy," he said. "So even when they have the ability, their self-esteem has been knocked out of them." Gumbel's book praises British schools, which may surprise UK parents accustomed to having them compared unfavourably with those across the channel. He told the Observer: "Although the French with their national curriculum have maintained standards and avoided being dumbed down, their system focuses on the transmission of knowledge and doesn't even remotely address the child or their wellbeing. "There is more to school than getting good marks, and in Britain schools are not just a about your brain but about sport and arts and finding lots of different ways of excelling. The British system may focus less on results, but it nurtures self-esteem, personality and character, which is something totally missing from the French system and this is tragic." Gumbel's attack has touched a nerve in France. On radio talk shows, his views have had overwhelming support from parents; his book was also given a six-page review in the respected news magazine Le Nouvel Observateur. Philippe Meirieu, a professor in education science, admitted: "Our way of testing and evaluating [pupils] discourages creativity and the personal involvement of the pupils. This is the cause of the relative passivity they show and that Peter Gumbel deplores. If pupils hardly ask questions in class it's because they don't really feel bothered about what they're being told or fear being stigmatised by their classmates." Patrick Gonthier, secretary- general of France's second-biggest teaching union, Unsa Education, said: "Our teaching staff could take this as an attack, but they are not being blamed. It's the whole French school system that is stubborn to change and remains profoundly elitist and dedicated to the grading and the selection of the best. For this to change and other teaching methods to be introduced into classes there has to be a strong consensus among professors, parents and politicians to challenge this elitism and focus on the success of everyone at school, and we are far from having that." Gumbel, 52, who also works as a journalist, has lived in Paris since 2002 and was prompted to criticise French schools, colleges and universities after putting his two daughters, now aged 10 and 13, into the education system. "There are 16,000 new teachers entering French schools this term who are undoubtedly very clever but haven't the slightest idea about how to teach, and that is scandalous," he said. "The key to good schools, as other countries have discovered, is having good teachers." 'Nobody talks about happiness' I used to think that French education was the best in the world, writes Peter Gumbel. Perhaps a little old-fashioned, but unlike the British or the Americans the French had resisted the temptation to dumb down their curriculum. That meant children left school at 18 with an admirably comprehensive knowledge of history, geography, maths, science and the liberal arts. And you didn't need to spend a fortune on private schools, because the state system provided the best education in the country. Then we moved to Paris and sent our two daughters to school. The teachers seemed good on the whole, and the programme was as rigorous as anticipated, but something was amiss. There were obvious symptoms: tummy aches and other signs of stress, an unhealthy phobia about making mistakes and flashes of self-doubt. "I'm hopeless at maths," my eldest daughter declared one day. "No, you're not, you just need to work at it harder," was my reply. "No, daddy, you don't understand anything. I'm hopeless." It was only when I started teaching at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris that I figured out the problem. Better known as Sciences Po, it's part of the "grandes écoles" network that has traditionally trained France's political and business elite. To get in you need to have done fabulously well at school. The big surprise for me was not how bright these students were – and most are very, very bright – but how low their self-confidence was. Getting them to participate in classroom discussions was like pulling teeth. Exam time was trauma time: every year, several burst into tears during the oral. That's when I started wondering whether my experiences were simply anecdotal or part of a bigger, system-wide pattern. It didn't take long to find a wealth of international comparative studies, conducted by the OECD and other respected institutions. They show conclusively that French children overall are more anxious and intimidated in school than their peers in Europe or other developed countries. They're so terrified by the idea of making mistakes and being lambasted for them, that they'd rather keep their mouths shut than put their hands up. The French education system has focused so narrowly on the transmission of knowledge that it has ignored that other key function of school: to build character and personality. There's almost no art, sport or music. Teamwork is an alien notion, as are such basic pedagogical concepts as positive reinforcement, and teachers receive only scant or no training in effective classroom techniques. The French are right to uphold standards, particularly when compared with Britain, but in the classrooms they go about it the wrong way. As one reviewer of my book told me: "You've broken a taboo. Nobody ever talks about happiness at school here." On achève bien les écoliers ("They Shoot Schoolkids, Don't They?"), by Peter Gumbel, will be published this week in French by Grasset.

But...

The point of schools is to learn stuff, and self-confident kids are just obnoxious. If I had to vote for one thing the modern world could use less of it'd probably be self esteem (well, CO2...). On the whole I'd still prefer the French system over the British one if I had to choose.

On the other hand, more teamwork would be nice. Not treating everything as a race to screw over the most people possible. Maybe if we had that in schools I wouldn't be dreading tomorrow's trip to see the university aid service in the safe knowledge that they will be rude, abrasive, uninformative and finally deliberately misleading (and these are people whose job is to be helpful).

I once had the girl who was going before me burst into tears in an oral exam. That was at law school though, and to be fair she seemed to know sweet F.A. about her subject. It was really distracting as I was trying to prepare my own piece in the same room.

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From feb 2007 but all the same tailor-made to put beside Peter Gumbel's article.

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B]Agnès Poirier: Les misérables Anglais[/B] Unhappy, ignorant, violent, disrespectful and obsessed with celebrity and money - that's how this French writer and London resident sees us I grew up in the late 1970s and 1980s in one of Paris's quietest and most unfashionable eastern quarters, the kind of place where nothing happens. My parents rented their flat (they still do); my school was a 10-minute walk away, and I knew all the shopkeepers in the area. There were - and still are - no franchises where sales assistants come and go every week. I knew all the people in the area but, more importantly, they knew me. The postman, for example, scolded me harshly the day I stole a letter from a neighbour, but he didn't tell my parents. I was so grateful, and still am whenever I bump into him. The baker's wife kept me with her behind the counter one afternoon after I had been followed by a louche figure all the way from school. She waited until my mum returned home to make sure I would not be alone. The school I attended was a state school. Therefore, it was the best one around. Only dunces with rich parents paid for education. My school was strict, and was open to everyone. There was no bullying. I had no idea what that meant until I came to Britain in my early 20s. As a teenager, I started going out with friends further away from my familiar environment, yet reactions from anonymous grown-ups were the same. We were asked, most often told, to shut up whenever we were too loud. We were even shouted at or chased in the streets by old concierges. In effect, we were always put back on to the tracks by an anonymous army of adults. Back on to the tracks, but not in the least subdued. We would take to the streets with our elders whenever the occasion rose. We could behave and yet dissent. And we were happy. All this, you may think, has nothing to do with you in Britain, today. I, though, believe it offers clues to the current state of your country. And, as an outsider living here, I hope you will bear with my temerity as I suggest my own experiences offer a signpost to a better way forward. For this is hardly the best of times for Britain: the nation is regularly denounced in international reports, and the facts tell their own story - such as London teenagers killed in their own homes. The reason why one was executed gang-style recently? He had cussed another youth by text message. A Unicef report ("An overview of child well-being in rich countries") this month placed British children at the bottom of the league of the 21 most developed nations, branding them the least well looked-after, the worst behaved, and the least happy. The Leader of the Opposition, David Cameron, was appalled and blamed the breakdown of families and called - a little naively perhaps - for absent fathers to be compelled to stay with their partner and play their role in their children's education. Speaking on the Today programme, Cameron sounded like a man possessed, making the questions and firing the arguments, all at once. Britain is sitting on the edge of a precipice. What it needs is a family man who really cares, he said. Thank you, David, for the metaphor. On Friday, a photograph of him with, in the background, a hooded teenager performing a pulling-the-trigger gesture common to gangs, was over all British papers. That's what he meant all along, Cameron argued: social breakdown is like a gun aimed at Britain. If we don't do something soon, the whole community will take the bullet. On the same day that Cameron was pictured visiting a community centre in Manchester, Tony Blair was holding a gun crime summit in Downing Street. Again, a crackdown on guns and tougher sentences were proposed. But, more importantly, associations and community leaders advocated greater social and family cohesion. "Social and family cohesion" are words on everybody's lips, not only in Britain but in the whole of Europe. For while Britain may lurch behind in all the reports about children's well-being, from the Unicef survey to substantial studies from the Institute of Public Policy Research, Save the Children and the Nuffield Foundation, all Europeans are concerned about the slow decay of family values - and the impact on society. What is happening to British youth may soon affect Dutch teenagers, even though today the latter come out best in the Unicef report. Europeans often see Britain as a weathervane of what awaits them and facts, sadly, have often proved them right. If social and family breakdown, at the levels observed in Britain, has yet to hit Scandinavian and Latin countries, some say it is only a question of time. What has so far helped them to keep a relative social and family cohesion is their culture. What culture? Well, it is one which still declines to put money, performance, competition and consumerism at the heart of society. I have already outlined some aspects of my own upbringing, but what was key to it all was family. There were always reunions and anniversaries, and there were always occasions to be merry, and especially to eat and drink for hours, while seated at the table. This didn't mean universal brotherly love. It often became a tempestuous mêlée about politics. Brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, parents and children would often part, cross and angry; that is, until the next celebration. Conflicts and tensions were played out aloud, theatrically, thus almost instantly defused. At school and at home, we were not taught to outdo each other. Money was not an aim to aspire to in life. We were told everything was possible. It was only a question of will and effort. You could be what you wanted to be, a street sweeper or a cosmonaut; both were useful to society. Education was never presented as an investment in potential earning and spending power, but as personal fulfilment. You may argue, of course, that in the past 20 years, things have changed everywhere in Europe, and not for the better. Yes, things have changed because Europe more and more embraces the culture prevailing in Britain. Why is that so? For a mixture of reasons, including fascination and blindness. The Blair years have indeed mesmerised Europeans, especially at a time when their economies seemed to stall. British arts, for very good reasons, became the toast of Europe. All things British were suddenly fashionable: Blairism, Burberry and bling. European youth started flocking to London. But the majority of the young Europeans who went on to stay and live in Britain came only for the dosh, not forShakespeare. They can be found working where solidarity and humanity are dirty words: the City. While wealth and celebrity were glorified, in the rest of Britain the cost of living simply rose; the gap between rich and poor stretched beyond reason; the meaning of life was filled by shopping; schools became obsessed with league tables. Britain has become richer, but is it happier? If what I describe seems obvious, it is striking to me as a Frenchwoman living here that no British politician wants either to identify the culprit or take the necessary measures, as this would entail a revolutionary overhaul. To say that ultra-liberalism, deregulation and capitalism are the core of the matter would be considered political suicide in Britain. It is, however, common sense: a culture based on celebrity and money, as Britain is today, can bring only social havoc. To undo it requires political will. Principled policies can, in turn, breed a new culture. Education is, of course, at the heart of public policy. It must be excellent, free and open to all. Financed by all through the taxation system, it must act as a neutral, secular place, where children of all backgrounds mix. Gordon Brown's idea of creating a children's minister at cabinet level may be a step in the right direction. However, if British politicians persist with US-style taxation and refuse to embrace Europe as the future of Britain,news of children killing each other will continue to bombard us. It is nothing less than a choice of civilisation.

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The postman, for example, scolded me harshly the day I stole a letter from a neighbour, but he didn't tell my parents. I was so grateful, and still am whenever I bump into him.

So... Er... why did you steal this letter then? Was it interesting?

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The two articles posted, though, are severely contradicting each others. Peter Gumbell describes the french education culture as ultra-competitive and nasty, Agnès Poirier seems to remember only honey and milk and criticise the British for their competitiveness. Only one is going to be correct.

TBH, I think Peter Gumbell's account is closer to the truth. But, like Zichao pointed out, I think schools are meant to "focus on the transmission of knowledge exclusively". My parents are teachers and they too have always pointed out that they were professors, not social workers and that schools shouldn't be made a scapegoat for the failings of the parents/societal work-life balance...

One thing that I think Peter Gumbell got wrong is the reason french kids don't participate in class (and that's indeed true, even at university level). I really don't think it's fear of failure. I am not sure what it is but I would venture two hypothesis.

One, culture/knowledge lost its cool. French kids know they got to do well in exams to progress in the french system (which universities/schools you attend pretty much determine your career trajectory) but they have no particular interest in what is being taught. It's just a mean to an end. My parents (and they might be a bit socially conservative but they're not passeists) always lament than, with the passing of years, kids more and more refuse to get interested. All they care about is this year's Reality Show. My father got so fed up that, by the end, he was stating to some hard cases: "Look, I'll teach you if you're interested in learning. Otherwise, no problem, I won't. My salary doesn't change whether you succeed or fail." He was driving his college superintendant crazy...

And, second, maybe as a consequence of the importance of exams, teachers are seen as the ennemy. By definition, you do not collaborate with the ennemy so no kids will ever want to be seen answering a question or taking an interest.

One last thing: I am not too sure that this lack of self-confidence sticks. If you ever been around ex-students from the "Grandes Ecoles", there is no one so arrogant, so full of themselves and so cuntish as them... except, maybe, very rich people.

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Originally Posted by Gilles de Rais

One last thing: I am not too sure that this lack of self-confidence sticks. If you ever been around ex-students from the "Grandes Ecoles", there is no one so arrogant, so full of themselves and so cuntish as them... except, maybe, very rich people.

Touché.

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