Best. Graduate. Ever.

In fact most activities like basketball, music, photography aren’t teach in High School because it’s “des activitées extra-scolaires”. Me, for example, i learned to play guitare in a “conservatoire de musique” and Judo in an “association sportive”.
So it’s possible to learn and practice other things than maths but apart from the school.

hum… I don’t know if what i said make sense

And let’s not forget their final exams! Holy Cow! To pass the Bac, you need to be a serious genius. High school in Canada is nothing like it.

I couldn’t image it. School, school, school then work, work, work. When do the French have fun? …

I was surprised at some of the differences between Japan’s education system and America’s after talking with Satoshi.

Their education system sounds more or less like the Irish one, so its quirks aren’t solely peculiar to France. I can’t imagine having had enough hours in the day to have done all the activities you described, archery and such!

well it depends if you’re school is rich though… a lot have sports facilities nearby with everything needed for sports… so when you have a bunch of free hours in a day (yes, it happens), you can do whatever you want, but there are not such things as official teams for school… it’s the same for newspapers : you can edit your own and even borrow computers to your school, it’s just DIY…

if you don’t go to preps schools after your BAC (where you work 24/7 with a 2 or 3% certitude of going in our french ‘ivy league’), you then recover from these years of torture in university, and then, omg, it’s exactly like your high schools… except you don’t have time to work anymore : parties, music, arts, drugs, sex… :p

b – so true so true!

ernest – that makes sense; i just wonder where french students would find the time to participate in extracurricular activities! i guess wednesdays and weekends.

jennifer – i guess if i were in lycee, i’d have to study less (or not at all!) to have a “life” then risk not passing the bac! i have a funny story about my s.o. taking the bac. (i’ll try to write about it soon)

kat – maybe you’ll write about that on your blog? i’m wondering about those differences in japan. (i think i might have a little bit of an idea since i had to go to j-school on saturdays but somehow i think it is stricter in japan)

redking – you usually could choose one extra-curricular activity during school time per semester (if you wanted) but there were also other things (like sports) you could participate in after school. much to the dismay of my tennis-playing family, i chose to play music instead of joining the tennis team. honestly, there was not a whole lot o studying going on at my school – but other schools might have offered a better education btw, the graduation rate at my highschool was 50%. (i know, that’s really bad.)

aliocha – after all that work and study, i now know why the french really take their vacations so seriously!

At Lycee, I had swimming, and, not kidding, girls wore string bikinis and the teacher wore a speedo.

Indeed, the amount of work in lycée pales in comparison to that in prépa…

Pretty funny…
Anybody know what S.O. stands for?
Thanks

speedo? me *shudders*

significant other. in my case, my french husband. (for some retarded reason, i hate saying husband. i think i’ll just say ‘him’ from now on.)

Me: “What time did high school start and finish in France?”
SO: “It started at 8am and ended at 6pm”

It’s wrong : most of time,we finish at 5.OO pm, never at 6.OO pm.
But it’s long it’s true and the Bac it’s very difficult !!!! We have 3 General Bac : S (Science), ES (Economic and social) and L (Litterature with 8h of philosophy per day!)

Hi,

I think that it could have been usefull to mention in this article that the school is FREE too.
Not really free in fact, but almost and believe me, poor students can learn too.

In USA or Japan, how much must your parents pay for your school?, Can everyone go to university if his parents have not at least an amount of money back ?

I’m not blaming, just comparing. The point is that the money given for radio station, and in a more general way, to have a descent campus like un us uni is user for allowing most of the people to learn. Too and unfortunately, the current government has prefered to put it in military, to make a second unusefull plane carrier boat.

Regards,

Flip

my school had 2 rugby pitches and a handball pitch.
There was a school rugby team but THEY picked you out.
I like the idea of having school newspapers and radios, it gives students experiences of future real jobs commitments.

i did my elementry in the states and my high in France, one of the main differences were the behaviors of the teachers. Young ones are like teenagers, they’re cool. They even dress like us. But one thing that took getting use to was that they would reuse the same cloths for a week.

i think that is more good the american school!

I think this is why the Fr do better than us in school but we should learn from onanather!
I have been in both systhems, I know.

This is wrong, i go to a french lycee, and we have a soccer team, a rugby team, and a swim team. We had speakers, assemblies, we had a student government (it is actually taken more seriously than in America),we had a school news paper. We also have a party upon graduation, and we had a band. And you miss, from America, do you get advanced credits when you apply at university, by taking the regular program (no AP or IB)? No
Do you get to learn at least three languages while still being able to take your sciences? No
Did you know that getting collee with your buds is actually one of the funnest things? Apperently not.
And do you get to wreck havock at your school on your last day of your last year? NOPE
Please, review your facts, and if you say that you are not putting anything down, than at least state some disadvantge of the education system in America such as the lack of geography skills, (lots of americans do not even know how to place their country on a map.)

BTW Your article shows the ethnocentricity of America!
Good job

Sorry, ikeep forgetting to add stuff, we finished at 16:30 and started at 9:00, never at 17:00. And we did not go on school saturdays. Maybe they should add Culture General, classes in America, it would help you a lot.

The French has a much stricter educational system it seems. Much more serious about their work and no play. I think that is great! Students need that in order to be more successful.