La Rentrée 2010

September marks the return to everyday life here in France. La rentrée is an event so busy and fraught with anxiety, long lines, and bad traffic that we require a full five weeks of les vacances just to prepare for it!

This past week, for la rentrée scolaire, French children sported new backpacks and rejoined their classmates at schools all over the nation.  Compulsory education in France from ages six to sixteen dates back to the days of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.  He was the first leader of the French to promote a state system of public education, from primary school to the University of France, which he founded. 

Under Napoleon, education was managed by the state, rather than by the church as in pre-revolutionary times.  Mandatory public education served a dual role for the Emperor: it provided him with officials capable of administering his laws as well as officers capable of managing his army.  In Napoleon’s schools, young men were taught the importance of obedience and authority; while women, whom Napoleon believed were destined only for marriage, received religious instruction. 

Indeed, it wasn’t until the statesmen and ardent republican, Jules Ferry, became Minister of Education in the 1880s that girls joined boys in his completely secularized Ecole Républicaine.  But other than the inclusion of both sexes in the schools as well as the removal of religion, the Napoleonic educational system is little changed today: it remains strictly centralized with curricular and academic standards set by the Ministry of Education and applied nationwide.  It is said that on any Tuesday at 2:30 you will know exactly what French children of any age will be studying anywhere in the country, and how they will be studying it.   

This school year, consider giving your collégien (middle school student) or lycéen (high school student) a highly contextualized and ludique (engaging) view of the history of the French Revolution with the Time Traveler Tours’ prototype app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch:

Beware Madame la Guillotine

Coming soon!