Personal Log: Rob Versteegt

Today, I finally watched a movie which I wanted to see for a long time: être et avoir. It is a movie, or actually more like a documentary, about a small French school, which only consists of one class, with children from the ages of 4 through 12. The class is being followed through the school year, making you see the developments here. The teacher there has to make sure all the kids are getting all the education they need to get, at their own level that they can understand. Not an easy job...

Since I finished the 'school for teachers', and I've got a diploma saying I'm allowed to teach classes, I looked at this film at a somewhat professional view. What are the cultural differences between the French educational system and the Dutch one, how does the teacher handle problems, etc.

About the differences: The main difference that I saw was that at the beginning of the day, the children came into the class, and walked to their tables... but didn't sit down! Instead, they all waited for the teacher to enter the classroom, and give permission to sit down. In the Netherlands, the teacher is already in the classroom, while when the children come in, they go play for a little while, or they go sit in one big circle.

Another difference that I saw, was that the children were learning how to write, and do math, at a very young age: from 4 or 5 years old, they have to learn letters, numbers, etc. In Holland, the first few years of the primary school (consisting of children of 4 through 6 years old) are dedicated to develop the children's way of expressing themselves. Art, drama, music... there's a lot of that in these classes. In the movie, I only saw these children sing once, and that was only at the end...

What I also saw (and hopefully that's not a difference,) is the fact that the teacher never became angry. Sure, he was agitated sometimes, about a child who didn't want to finish his drawing, but that was it. Always, there was a feeling of warmth and love for these children. Which was possible, since there were only 13 children here.

In the movie, the director also showed the lives of the children out of school. It gave me an interesting glimpse at the situation at home: a family, not that bright it seemed, was helping the child (12 years old) with his homework. When the child made a mistake, the mother slapped him in the face... hard. Now it made sense why that child was afraid of making mistakes at school...

There is so much more to tell about this movie. It was wonderful to see this teacher react to the children's behaviour... and to see the children's reactions to his behaviour. I think the final scene will forever stick with me: the teacher wishing his children a great vacation, knowing that the next schoolyear, he probably won't see some of those children again. This is familiar to me, since in my workplacementships, the children grew on me... saying goodbye is very difficult when you know you probably won't ever see them again.

All in all, I thought this was a great movie. It was certainly a lot of recognition on my part. If you're looking for action-movies, don't watch this one. If you're wondering what the life of a teacher (or schoolchild) is like, you should definitely watch this.