Thanks to a round trip by train from Marseille to Montpellier in less than 24 hours, with the boat still in Marseille just a few days before the start of the new school year, I went to Azur’s new elementary school in Carnon last Thursday to meet the headmistress and finalize his enrolment file. On my return, when I’d finished the debriefing with him, my son reassured me with a very sober “Don’t worry, I’ll adapt”.

But do I really want him to adapt to a system riddled with absurd rules that bases its discipline on the supremacy of grown-ups, rather than on mutual respect, and that insults children’s sovereignty to dispose of their own bodies, enjoy their precious mobility and satisfy their primary needs without asking for adult approval?

Make no mistake about it, the headmistress is a helpful and caring woman, who, as a newcomer to the school, took great care to explain to me how it works and the number of pupils (eight classes, including five double-level primary classes of 20 to 23 pupils, recently merged with a three-class nursery section and a UEMA), as well as showing me around and outlining her plans for improvement, for example, to make better use of outdoor spaces, and celebrating the topography of the playground, which encircles the school and, in addition to its concrete section, is lined with mature trees, which she says, alas, are forbidden to climb.

She also confirmed, when I asked her, that teachers generally start being addressed in the formal manner around CE2, but that Azur could ask her teacher how to address her. And, another point confirmed, that you had to raise your hand to ask permission before going to the bathroom. My pet peeve. Permission to go to the bathroom. And the object of my eternal resentment against the psychorigid French system. Never in an adult gathering would one imagine having to ask permission to go and relieve oneself, one is content to slip away discreetly with a little “je reviens”, and there’s nothing to suggest that children aren’t capable of the same elegance. In any case, when I was younger, I would so much have liked to have enjoyed the same latitude and thus spared myself a pair of painful incidents that have filled me with shame practically to this day.

The first was in CE2 class, when I was squirming in my chair at the back of the class, waiting for the right moment to declare my urge, when finally, unable to stand it any longer, I raised my finger just as the teacher (Mme Dagama), had asked a question and received me with a “Ah, perhaps Salomé has something interesting to say?” and my retort “Could I go to the toilet?” made all my classmates laugh.

The second, by far the most humiliating, took place at school. My urge to pee manifested itself shortly before the end of class, and between the fear of interrupting a maths teacher (Mme Coutoux), who was certainly much appreciated, but strict enough to require us to keep to ourselves, and the certainty of being able to hold out until the end of class, I found myself finally pissing on my chair, in the front row, with two minutes to go, praying that the pupils would be sufficiently absorbed in the lesson not to notice anything, but knowing full well, when the bell finally rang and the room was cleared to let in the next class, that I’d left behind a wet chair, where the urine was probably still dripping onto the floor, without daring to look at it, and I had to find a way to hide my soiled pants, and that’s when, in the spirit of best friends, mine, Camille, lent me a vest which I tied around my waist, keeping it on for the rest of the afternoon.

The shame I felt for years following this episode has turned to anger at the French education system, which, far from encouraging children to take responsibility, scorns their autonomy. It would have taken more to break my spirit, but I have no wish for my children to be subjected to the same debilitating humiliations, nor to be reduced to little soldiers who are ordered in rows to swallow academic knowledge despite their own aptitudes and enthusiasm, and who are made to swallow grammar and conjugation rules while being told to sit still in pairs behind a desk, without bothering to pass on basic ancestral knowledge, such as learning to recognize edible plants in nature, or identifying the weather by the shape of the clouds in the sky.

And despite the kindness of the headmistress, my observations and the answers to my far-fetched questions (which wouldn’t be far-fetched in a New Zealand context, since the trees were marked with little red crosses when climbing was forbidden, or with smiley faces when it was allowed, and the playground had a garden where vegetables and herbs were grown, and that none of the schools I attended had gates, let alone double-locked in the presence of pupils and teachers) have done anything to reassure me about the evolution of the French system over the last twenty years.

So yes, I’m afraid, even if my children are ultra-resilient, that they’ll have to endure an environment that isn’t conducive to their blossoming or the realization of their full potential, and, utopian that I am, I dream of restructuring the Ministry of National Education into a Ministry of National Blossoming, of which education would be one of the tools, and not the least, but which wouldn’t lose sight of the end behind what should, in my opinion, only be one of the means.

At D-1 we distract ourselves from the stress as best we can. I finish filling in the registration form for Zéphyr, who is taking tests to validate his entry into the ninth grade tomorrow afternoon. Azur is busking, with a sign inviting passers-by to reward his spontaneous display of pole vaulting with a few coins, moping over the abject failure of his enterprise, and wondering how else he can earn a bit of pocket money quickly. Zephyr takes advantage of the situation to steal his place in the mast and take his turn swinging. They’ve already finished the twelve comics they each borrowed from the library yesterday, the binders are packed and all that’s left to do is have dinner, sleep and get started…