The French Comrades Start Their Education Young

Kindergarten is not mandatory here in Virginia. Children are required by law to start their education in the first grade, when they are six. Kindergarten is optional.

When the future Baron turned six, I didn’t want to send him to school. I had taught him to read when he was four, and he was reading Hardy Boys books when he was five. First grade would have been excruciatingly boring for him, even if there were nothing else negative about the public schools.

So I home-schooled him. To do that, you had to use an approved curriculum, or have a bachelors degree (that was the rule back then; I don’t know if it still is). Fortunately, I had a degree from the College of William and Mary, so I satisfied the second criterion. Once a year we had to submit something for the state to look at — I don’t remember exactly what it was — but that procedure went through our local school board, and involved people we knew. So it was smooth sailing.

I doubt the French have the same opportunities to keep their kids out of the public crèche. I assume that France, like most of Western Europe, makes home-schooling very difficult, if not impossible.

And now President Emmanuel “Toy Boy” Macron has just issued a decree (or edict, or ukase, or bull, or whatever they call them in France; here in the USA it would be an executive order) requiring that all children begin school at the age of three. This is full-bore Soviet-style socialism, where the state takes control of the child as early as possible.

Many thanks to Ava Lon for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Video transcript (timed from two originally separate clips):

00:00   Emmanuel Macron made it official: compulsory schooling
00:04   from the age of 3, starting in the fall of 2019.
00:08   I decided to make kindergarten compulsory in France,
00:12   and therefore lower the mandatory school age from 6 to 3 years,
00:16   starting in the fall of 2019. By this school obligation and this new ambition
00:20   for kindergarten, France will be able
00:24   to engage in the third educational way: the one that would be able to reunite
00:28   the cognitive demands that we observe for example in Asian countries,
00:32   and the affective demands that we can see being manifested in
00:36   Northern European countries. It’s self-evident that this dialog between
00:40   the sensitive and the intellect introduces in kindergarten
00:44   arts, music. Precisely all those forms of awakening
00:48   that accelerate learning — and of which you just reminded me — are essential,
00:53   and they will play an increasing role; I care about it in particular.
     
00:00   Q: School at three. What for?
00:04   In France, kindergarten will be mandatory for 3-year-old children, starting in the fall of 2019.
00:08   This was announced by Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday [April 3] during the debates about kindergarten.
00:16   This is a symbolic measure since 97% of 3-years-olds already go to school
00:20   Q: But what for, exactly?
00:24   The answer from Anne Pommier de Santi, a teacher and researcher in education.
00:28   Q: Kindergarten: what is it for?
00:33   A: First of all it’s there to socialize the child. It’s his first contact with school,
00:37   first contact, in general, with a collectivity and with other children.
00:41   It’s fundamental: live with the others, coexist, learn new rules,
00:45   learn to rub shoulders with new grown-ups other than those who were in his family.
00:49   Q: What do you learn at 3 years old? A: Lots and lots
00:53   of development and learning are targeted, such as the exploration of the world,
00:57   the acquisition of the spoken and written language,
01:01   the first contacts with the world of mathematics,
01:06   with the foundations of enumeration,
01:10   and also everything involved with the exploration of matter, of objects, of the visual arts,
01:14   of expression, of physical and athletic activities,
01:18   It’s very vast, in fact, the kindergarten world.
01:22   Q: A French specificity? A: Well, French specificity really resides in the fact that
01:26   97% of children go to school [already],
01:30   even though it’s not compulsory; when there are other countries in Europe
01:35   or elsewhere, where children don’t go to school before turning six, or even later,
01:39   starting at seven years old. I think that you cannot deny that in France it’s also
01:43   a form of babysitting, so it’s very practical
01:47   for families, but I think that there is a true confidence of families in kindergarten
01:51   that results in the fact that parents in general entrust us with their children, to the teachers,
01:55   to be able to take care of their lives.
 

17 thoughts on “The French Comrades Start Their Education Young

  1. Same effort is being waged in the Czech Republic. Mandatory kindergardens and also requirements for the kindergardens to be able to accomodate babies few months old. It was all done by our evil education minister Valachova, who is ‘Czech Donald Trump’s’ – I mean Slovak Andrej Babis’ horse.

    Now tell me Babylon has no king on top of the pyramid, and they all do it at the same time just because it is fashionable at the moment.

  2. Kafir kindergartens – a painful topic for Russian “zamotashki”
    (A contemptuous moniker for women packed in Muslim rags)
    In our country, kindergartens are not expensive and are financed by the state. Therefore, it is a great temptation for them to place their offspring there.
    In social networks there is an eternal groan: non-halal food, drawing, songs, dances, “mixing of the sexes” … And when preparations for the holidays begin – New Year, congratulations to moms on March 8, etc. – the Muslim segment begins hysterical convulsions.
    Once I talked with one young teacher, she told me that according to the rules of the Department of Education, she can not force such children to participate in social events.

    But they do not want to pay for private Muslim kindergartens.

  3. @Baron: It is strangely short sighted to indulge in the strictly CONUS hyperbole of “full bore Soviet-style socialism” in France.

    Consider firstly what home schooling Minnesota Somali Muslims would or do give if permitted in the Twin Cities or elsewhere.

    That fact is highly relevant to France because as in all of the EU, the % of children under 5 that are non-European, specifically, MENA-type Muslims, is rising all the time. The figure for this age cohort is well over 50% in many EU cities.

    So I suspect that Macron is looking to square the circle: he wants to play the dhimmi in dar al-harb for reasons of French domestic and foreign policy (the anti-Assad ISIS supporters: France, the UK and USA are the drivers of the pending WWIII commencing in Syria for the sake of helping Israel, selling weapons and stymying Russian natgas supplies to the EU).

    But Macron playing the dhimmi has risks for him, because little jihadists keep on getting born in la belle France, and may chop some kuffar voters’ heads at an inopportune moment as they get older.

    So Macron needs at least to identify via kindergarten teacher reports which 3 year olds are likely to be useful for, or prosecutable by his security people in 10 years time, as the respective need arises.

    Either a little jihadi that was identified as a High Potential at 3 yrs. (aggression, physicality, antecedents) can be used against l’ennemi du jour in due course when an adolescent or he can be prosecuted to great French PR effect to reassure the kuffar voters in France.

    Facebook and other Internet Big Data mining of such little jihadis will give a good automated picture of them by about 2025 as they frequent the social media 2018-2025.

    Kindergarten teachers can be told to attempt Westernisation of the non-jihadi Muslim child material or to celebrate its Cultural Diversity, depending on what is expedient in domestic politics at any moment in time.

    Such teachers are invariably SJWs, so will not cause Macron electoral heartburn by ever mentioning Charlemagne (genocidal); Joan of Arc (laudable feminist sadly misguided by White Privilege Catholicism) or such literary figures as Rimbaud (African slave trader).

    Macron cannot lose: he is able to identify future footsoldiers or Islamic patsies early on while presenting a facade of earnest integrating Frenchness to win back the Le Pen voters.

  4. I’m sure it’ll come here too.

    The only vaguely good thing I can see from it is that it might also “socialise” the Muslim population. But no, they’ll probably pass up on it, and face no consequences, unlike regular people who don’t want their kids turned into comrades. That’s the reality of what will happen, if you want my guess.

  5. Learn something new every day. 97% of French children go to school at the age of 3? And you come out looking like toy-boy. Also interesting Marcon and his wife have no children as is true of Angela Merkel and most of the other soft tyrants so interested in YOUR children.

  6. This really is a complex issue. In the news feed above, we read that the UK govt is concerned about homeschooling as it may perpetuate self-imposed apartheid (my word, not theirs) among muslims. It certainly does among muslim and ultra-orthodox jewish families who send their children to unregistered religious schools.

    On the other hand, I understand why some “western” parents would want to prevent their children being indoctrinated with the current political orthodoxy.

    • That’s why we home-schooled. We didn’t want our son stuck in a government school listening to the pc nonsense…e.g., why Harriet Tubman equals the whole of the Civil War.

      Also, there was the problem of his self-education. He read dictionaries and encyclopedias for fun; discovered the WWI Poets on his own on our bookshelves and was enthralled. He didn’t need the ridicule he’d get for writing sonnets either…*that* had to wait until college when he would get into arguments with his professor re the need for scansion and rhyme.

      When he was about 7th-grade level, someone offered to pay his tuition to a Friends’ School. They have a very good reputation. Turned out to be a bunch of left-wing atheists (the kids) who were too kewl for skool. They tried to get Pink Floyd’s tune for 8th-grade graduation, i.e., “We Don’t Need No Education”…buncha entitled rich kids.

      When I saw that the high school English lit curriculum didn’t include even one dead white male, we withdrew him and found a small private school where Shakespeare was taught. Wonder of wonders: no bullies. And they even had bus service. For a third the cost. The really nice thing was an arrangement the school had with a nearby private college (male only): if there was a course the students wanted and the high school didn’t provide, then the kids could drive over to the college and take it there. For free if the student wasn’t using it for college credits. So he got to take French (from a ‘bleedin’ socialist, according to him) and Statistics. The latter class was the only one I ever saw him study for.

  7. I didn’t see any research validation on the effects of such early schooling. In other words, like Head Start and Common Core, this is a huge, untested, unverified social experiment on an entire country full of children. Can there be any more blatant example of the anarcho-tyranny…or perhaps, just tyranny.

    Perhaps the worst effects of this is not that intelligent children will be changed in their thought-patterns by idiot, leftist professors. It is that super-bright children will have no opportunity to develop their own path. It has been observed that a true genius learns a subject himself, once he decides to. The most anyone can do to facilitate this process is to stay out of the way. So, this idiotic decree slices off the top end of the creativity curve.

    It’s paradoxical that as a civilization, culture, and country crumbles through a lack of logical thinking (think of the impetus to start a war with Russia over Syria, a non-vital interest for the US if there was ever one), the mechanisms of thought control and social conformity become stronger.

    • It is that super-bright children will have no opportunity to develop their own path…

      Agreed. The future Baron (fB) has above average intelligence and even as a child had great curiosity. On his own, he became an avid bird watcher to the point that he could identify their calls, their nests, their eggs, etc He knew how long it took a particular bird to fledge and if there were one or two clutches of eggs in a mating season…

      …his knowledge got us interested, but we never figured out how he became so knowledgeable before the internet. We must have had some field guides that were at his eye level. I’ll have to ask.

      At age nine or ten he found the Periodic Table and he was off and running. Always knew he wanted to focus on chemistry but didn’t go on past a bachelor’s. College campuses are a cesspit for a libertarian. Or maybe an anarcho-libertarian? He’s hard to classify, except that he abstains from voting in national elections.

  8. A major reason for expanding the age range of compulsory tuition are the employment figures. The more children go to school, the less children show up as unemployed juveniles. (That applies, of course, to raising the compulsory age, not lowering it.)

    That means more jobs for teachers (here comes in the lowering of the age). And it’s a great opportunity to indoctrinate children much longer. A win-win for everybody. Except for sanity.

    • And don’t kid yourself, it’s big business.

      Just to illustrate: Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan has C$190 BILLION under administration. This is almost 2/3 of the provincial debt, which is the largest of a sub-national jurisdiction in the world.

      (Yes, it does occur to me that there could be the beginnings of a solution of sorts in there! As an aside, these left-wing teachers are quite hard-nosed when it comes to their pensions. Just sayin’)

  9. What child needs to be in school at 3???? What are they learning they can’t learn at home? My progeny aren’t geniuses (one is special needs) but I am capable of teaching letters and colours. Nevermind the parental bond. The family is an institution that crosses time and culture and scientifically backed as a key component in a chold’s development. No wonder the Marxists hate it so much. Is this how they aim to control their jihadi soldiers? Muslims are big on family too….in their own perverse way.

  10. It may not be as bad as it seems. Parents can choose to educate their children at home (no children from other families allowed) by filing notice within 8 days.

    However, families must also submit to government inspection (health and achievement) at least once per year. If the results are not satisfactory, parents have one month to make corrections:

    https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F23429

    Families who do not register can be subject to a fine of 1,500 €.

    If the results are unsatisfactory and parents refuse to register their child in a government school, they can be subject to six months in prison and a fine of 7,500 €

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