Ecole Camou

Our summer in France ended quite eventfully and full of visitors. A trek down to the South West of France to visit friends, followed by house guests The McGeachie family, Munroe's and then John Bonham-Carter was a great way to end the summer.

The school year is in now full swing and full of new challenges.

This year, after months of tortured contemplation over school selection, we decided to put D back in her old bilingual Montessori and P into our local French public school. D is happy as a clam, to be with all her old friends and teachers. Her return to school has been met with nothing but smiles.

I wish I could say the same for P. She is faced with a new big school, big class, no friends, a rigid structure, the loss of her Montessori freedom and she doesn’t speak the language. She hates school and dreads going everyday.

A case of pneumonia two weeks into the school year didn’t help matters much. Now, after a week and half off from school, she is finally better and back facing her demons.
I had heard so many negative stories about the archaic French education system (according to expats), I figured how bad could it be? I know kids who go and they seem just fine. It’s not like we live in a rough neighbourhood. Most of it was untrue, thank goodness and there are lots of pluses to the French system, the focus on art and music for example.

Some of the old fashion education values do linger. The children call their teacher Maitress (which means master), they are not allowed to go to the bathroom during class time under any circumstances, their very adult lunch is served to them and they must eat everything on their plate and then, there is P’s Friday teacher.

P has a Maitress 4 days a week who seems to be quite lovely, not at all the corporal punishment type that I was warned about. But Fridays is a different story. Severe, very strict, yells all the time, including when the kids do their work incorrectly (Non French speaking kids included).

P’s biggest obstacle though seems to be making friends. Friends are the most important thing to P and she is usually quite good at making them. But I guess when “princess” is the game du jour in the school yard, a lack of the local language does seem to pose a problem. When your six year old tells you that she walks around the school yard by herself every lunch recess (which is an hour and half), and is peppered with another little girl punching her, I don’t know who is more tortured, the little girl or her mother hearing the story.

Am I having doubts over our decision to send P to French public school? Yes. Some kids handle these things better than others and you don’t know until you try.

She’ll get there.

Hang in there P, we love you and it's going to get easier!

La Parisienne

My first international road race - what a day! Over 15 000 woman took to the streets of Paris today, to take part in La Parisienne 6k. The European running moms; Vanessa, Andrea and myself ran like a still wind and soaked up the fun and spectacle of the most entertaining road race I have ever ran.

Live music was a-plenty with bands seranading us starting well before the start line and throughout the entire race. The music of the day was mostly african drummers, which I highly recommend if you want to get your groove on, while your running the streets of Paris.

Ottawa running moms, you would have fit in just fine here with your tutus. I wish you could have been here to join in on the fun.

Check our our little of vid of the race on youtube. Vanessa is the blond, Andrea with the smile. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLhuRt4oJv0