Change

Change is good, right?

Last Saturday, I attended Suzanne's CP orientation which was also my inititaion into the French school system.

So far, school has been pre-school. But next year, CP...it's literacy bootcamp. CP - classe préparatoire - is the the first year of REAL school in France. The kids go in kids, but come out FRENCH kids. No, seriously, you should see the list of school supplies my 6 year old needs : a cartable (not a back pack, no wheels), specific color notebooks, 3 color highlighters, pencils, pens, pencil sharpener...what happened to the communal pencil sharpener and the lucky kid who got to sharpen ALL the class pencils?

I learned that my daughter will have recess twice during the day - 15 minutes each time! - and that she'll have an intense swimming course at some point during the year where they will go 4 times during the week for a month.

From next year on, the kids no longer call their teachers' by their first name. Suzanne will be in Madame B's class, who seems to be the more gentler of the 2 CP teachers. But, she is seperated from all her good friends which I'm sad for her about...

So what can an American mother say about her half-French child's scolarization? I'm totally and utterly terrified! There, I said it. The part that I find reassuring is that I called the public bilingual school in Lille and spoke to the director. I explained our situation and she said, "oh, no problem. You live in Lille and your daughter's bilingual so call me in the first semestre de CE1." I figure if it's a bilingual section full of bilingual enfants it must be a little kinder and gentler than a pure French school environment, right?

Then I had to figure out what CE1 was (for the record, it's CP, CE1, CE2, CM1, CM2....). I guess it'll be a learning curve for everyone!

In the meantime, I'll be spending 2 months in the US with my kids this summer. I mentioned this to Madame B during orientation and she didn't seemed fazed about the bilingualism at all which is also a relief.

And I haven't even started talking about Max starting school next year! Oy vey!

So in the immortal words of Sam Cooke, change is gonna come...