By Cécile Richetta

What does it mean when your education system relies on cyclical anxiety? When a nation systematically terrifies its children and marginalizes uniqueness? What does it mean to value mathematics more than the arts? To evaluate a child’s worth? And what should we conclude when the international press captures perfectly the French education in a few words: “Sit down and shut up”?

As a former student of the French school system, I can testify that it was deeply problematic. Caught in a rigid loop, students are being moulded into the ideal of the French society, and it is scary to see. From a young age, children are humiliated in front of an entire classroom for being “dumb”, when they don’t correctly answer questions that are considered “basic knowledge”. September induces the annual panic attack, and by the end of middle school, the system has created fourteen-year-old pariahs.

Concerned about the damages that monotony and rigidity can entail, I met and discussed with Salomé Alvarez, a member of Marelle et Compagnie, an NGO with a simple aim: breaking the cycle and proving to French society that there is more than one path, that divergence is strength, and that innovation is salvation. The small association created an independent school and proposed a viable alternative to the French education, under a simple motto: “A child’s job is creating the adult he will become”.

GP: Hi Salomé! First, let’s start with a few introductory questions. How did you discover Marelle et Compagnie? For how long have you been working for this NGO? What is your position within the association?

I discovered this school in the first place thanks to carpooling. A mother had her child in this school and talked to me about it. Beginning of October, I started looking for a civic service, because I really wanted to engage and be active in an association. I looked up different announcements and saw that this specific school was offering a civic service position for 8 months. I applied; I had an interview the next week. Geraldine, the director and project manager welcomed me and explained to me how the school worked, and the different missions that I would be assigned to. Part of it consisted in helping the teacher, and another part of my internship was centered on creating relationships with the village inhabitants. The latter was more or less similar to the previous internships that I did during my course of studies (DUT, Carrière Sociale, Gestion Urbaine), and the former part about school was going to be a big discovery that really interested me, so I was hired.

GP: Why did you decide to join Marelle et Compagnie?

Because of the school and its innovative methods that I really wanted to discover, and the civic service is a very effective means to be part of it. I have had many friends who had difficulties in the traditional education system because of the way it functions, and not because they were “dumb”—as they used to hearing during their childhood. The discussions that I had with Geraldine during my interview made me realize that I would find answers to many things.

GP: Could you give us one (or more) concrete example(s) of a difference between the traditional education and the innovative pedagogy of La Marelle?

At La Marelle, there is no grade. There is a single unique class and the children are between 4 and 11 years old. It is a wide range but this is how it works, all can learn from each other. For certain workshops they are put into smaller groups, but for instance we have one boy who is 7 years old and who participates to the workshops of the 9 to 11 years old. The basic principal is to follow each child’s own rhythm, to guide him or her towards what he or she wants to learn and not force him or her into learning what we want him to know. It allows the child to develop on his or her own terms, and he or she will naturally choose to learn things he likes and aspires to, and therefore will have fewer difficulties. There is no grade to “pass” like CE2, CM1, CM2 [ED: the French equivalent of American middle school grades], thus there’s no written evaluation either. There is not really any kind of test to pass, but the teacher has to be very attentive, has to know each child individually in order to be aware of which aptitudes have been learn or not.

GP: After working for this NGO, what opinion do you have regarding France’s education system? What are its biggest flaws?

According to me, the problem of grading is one of its biggest flaws. I do not imply that grades are inherently a bad thing, but rather that what comes out of them can create an issue. It creates competition between students according to their GPA [ED: graded out of 20 points, 0 being the lowest and 20 being the highest]. If a child is the only one who obtained a 12/20 while all the others have 14 or higher, she will feel like she failed. If she does not acquire the same skills at the same moment as all the others, she might feel like a loser and many children lose their confidence, which can become deeply problematic for the most fragile ones. It is really easy for a child to give up.

Our education is too broad, and does not allow children to grow or to discover what they are most passionate about. Many finish middle school and choose standard high school by default, because they haven’t been given a chance to discover something else that they could’ve liked better. At La Marelle for instance, there is a weekly workshop where professionals from all backgrounds come present their paths and their jobs. If I remember well, in the Scandinavian countries the children can pick “areas” of specialization, like craftsmanship or scientific professions.

In France, our education system only cares about the foundational skills (maths, French, history, etc.) but the students never learn to be a “human” or “citizen”, at least not in a concrete way. At La Marelle for instance, every Friday afternoon are dedicated to the counsel. It is a moment of exchange where the children and the educative team decide together of the topics concerning the school that are deemed important. There is a time for discussion for each theme, a time for individual expression (with the “talking stick” going around) and an individual vote to take decision.

There is also a moment of “blabla” [ED: translated into chitchat]. If a child had an issue with another one during the week, she has to remember what it was and that they will have to have a “blabla” with him or her after the counsel. During this time, each has to say what has bugged them and how he or she felt at the instant of the issue. It changes from the “you did this… you said that.” The child has to speak in “I” to say what she really felt, in order then to really understand why the situation happened this way. It is a precious moment to learn how to deal with a conflict.

GP: How would you evaluate the success of this program?

To my mind it is obviously a success. I don’t know how the team actually evaluates but just seeing that there is already some children on the waiting list to enter the program and that families come settle in the region, its success is quite certain. There are also similar programs that are trying to implement themselves in Dordogne and maybe even a Montessori middle school.

GP: Will the children who followed the educative programme La Marelle have some difficulties with integrating back into the traditional education system? That is to say, is the traditional system ready to welcome children who have started their education in your association?

To me I’d say that it really depends on the child. It was my first question after my first days at the school. Geraldine told me that those who went to middle school had no difficulties whatsoever and that others were homeschooled (their parents’ choice, hence their initial placement in the alternative program). To my understanding, I’d say they must be a bit lost upon arriving in the normal system for sure, but in the mean time they are very adaptable and ready to meet the challenges ahead. It is a topic that the teacher talks a lot about with the children because some still complain about the years that they spent in their previous school. Some children are however very fragile and still protected at home, so we must give them even more attention and prepare them as much as possible for what is coming. Some Montessori schools with “participatory education” are starting to implement themselves in France, but they are only a few.

The necessary knowledge to enter middle school needs anyway to be taught to the students and during their last year at our school, they spend some weekly individual time with a history-geography teacher coming from a traditional middle school, who comes to prepare them for the change.

Geraldine, when she has the time, also tries to go meet up with principals from surrounding middle schools in order to ask these questions too. Some are open-minded, some aren’t.

GP: What kind of society does La Marelle want to create with its program?

La Marelle is part of the network Colibris Thus it aspires to create a society of mutual help, sharing, and tolerance based on respect and cooperation.

GP: The NGO does not only focus on children but also on their environment and their relationships with previous generations. How did the adults welcome this initiative? Was their any positive feedback?

There is some every day. Many adults (more or less old) participate in the school life in their own way. The parents are really involved in the school life and get engaged in everyday tasks and workshops. This is part of the “requirements” for enrolment and everyone agrees on the condition that there should not be too much difference between the two educations [ED: the school education and the parents’ education]. If a child goes home and the environment she or he was in during the day is questioned, it would not be beneficial for her or him.

Some retired people come to give yoga classes, and are sometimes here during lunchtime. Others come present their professions like said previously. There are also some people who come to give workshops (how to create a leather wallet, a workshop on a microscope, hiking adventures, how to work with wood, etc.). The children also help the village inhabitants collect leafs during the fall season. The inhabitants are invited to the “knowledge market” (a moment when each child can show what he has learned (poetry, fine arts) and the others can pass by his stall so the child can display his skills) at the end of every year.

GP: A last advice for our Minister of Education?

Invest in education. Don’t just simply see it as an economic machine that is too expensive for the state, but as our future. They need to rethink what education is… what it means to educate someone and what should be the role of a school. Open up possibilities for the children and do not try to comply with corporations’ demands for education…