Aero: Piper Lambert-Vail – France 2018 – Life at School

Posted by LEAF Architect on Tuesday, September 11, 2018 · Leave a Comment

Aero: Piper Lambert-Vail – France 2018 – Life at School

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Piper Lambert-Vail

When we were in Vitré, we spent a few days with different classes in the school. A few basic things that I noticed in their day to day life that is very different from American high schools were the lunches, the structure of their language classes, and their schedule. I thought that some aspects of it were quite similar to the high school I went to.

In the school in Vitré, the school not only provided lunches for everyone with a card, they had clean silverware, glass cups, and reusable trays. Back in Canandaigua Academy, we didn’t have any form of reusable utensils, cups or platters, and we were only given half an hour to eat. In Vitré, not only were the meals nutritious and covered all basic food groups, they were given multiple options for the main course, drink, salad, fruit, and dessert. There was also a daily soup and bins of bread. When I was in high school, we were only allowed one piece of fruit, pizza or some form of chicken, and a milk. Their food is much healthier and a higher quality than American high schools.

In the language class that I attended, Mme. Guillaume rarely spoke French. Instead, she spoke English the majority of the time, only stopping and switching to French when the students learned a new word or looked too confused by what she was saying. This made me realize that in France, because they start languages so much earlier than American schools, they are able to understand more and learn in the language rather than learn English in French then struggle to catch up.

When I shadowed my host student, Léa, we attended her last class of the day, technology. In the class, there were only 6 other students and it felt more like a study hall than an actual class. The professor walked in, took attendance while everyone was goofing around, then let people go out and smoke, let kids play music, and did his own work on the computer. He briefly went over the content then gave each of the students packets to go over at home. This experience made me realize that not every class was different from ones that I took in high school, in fact, it was quite similar. On our way home that day, I asked Léa if that was how it was each time and if the class was easy. She said that it was like that every class but the work that they had to do was actually difficult. It feels a little nice knowing that some things, no matter where in the world, never change in high school.

Piper Lambert-Vail
Study Abroad – France 2018 @ FLCC

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