The Oberlin Review
<< Front page Commentary November 17, 2006

A Different Mode of Educational Operation

Allow me to begin with an image: a Hieronymus Bosch painting of a Soviet breadline inside a Hurricane Katrina shelter housed in a concrete storage warehouse. You may think I exaggerate, but you who have school websites, PRESTO and course catalogues cannot imagine the administrative (and architectural) disaster that is the Parisian University system. So stay close as I, your Virgil, take you through a nightmarish inferno of disorganization, ugly buildings, frustration and lots and lots of wasted time.

I will, for the sake of your convenience and my sanity, present in detail only one of the more remarkable excerpts from the story of my relationship with the Parisian University system. It goes like this: Soon after my arrival in Paris, I was pleased to see that one of the universities I am able to take classes at, the Sorbonne, had several courses in which I was interested. The Friday before classes were to start, I went to the Sorbonne building for more information about the classes I was planning on attending the next week. In an extraordinary and bewildering turn of events, one that even now I can’t completely believe occurred, I was told by an official, calmly, routinely, as if she were simply directing me to the W.C,, that classes would not in fact be starting on Monday. The entire schedule for the year had been revised at the last minute and classes would be starting and ending a month late. 

Imagine, if you will, arriving in Oberlin in your brand new Converse All-Stars, smile on face, ready to learn, and being told to come back in a month. Why did I cut short my summer vacation? What about my prestigious New York publishing internship next summer? Outrage, violence, student strikes! But what is truly astonishing about the depicted event is that nobody seemed surprised. Evidently, the destruction of students’ and professors’ carefully constructed plans is a routine occurrence, not worthy of drastic action or even casual complaint. 

And this is not an isolated incident. Class schedules, when they exist, are posted, often long after classes begin, at the university buildings where students must go to examine them, copy them down, all the while knowing there’s no chance in hell they won’t be changed at the last minute. Websites have not been updated in years. There are no drinking fountains in buildings. How can the French be satisfied with such a disorganized, disorderly, difficult system, especially when they’re thirsty? 

In short, because it works. This rigidly structured yet laxly executed public education system manages, God knows how, to produce a very highly educated population. This is noticeable in conversations with French people, on the streets, and even on television. I often see and hear homeless people with well-written cardboard signs making eloquent speeches on subways. On television, one of the most popular show formats is debates between political figures, professors, scientists and other authorities. During most political elections, a full 80 percent of the French population votes. And honestly, have you ever seen a vending machine on the street that sells literary classics instead of Coca-Cola Classics? Not in the U.S. 

In France, education is not a privilege like it is in the United States. It is a right. Education, beginning with nursery school for four-year-olds all the way through university, is essentially free. Contests and examinations regulate entrance into the country’s most prestigious schools and professions, ensuring a purely merit-based selection system. Those who are not accepted into the “Grandes Ecoles,” as the top schools are called, are guaranteed a spot in university or professional school. 

This universal education system has its price, the disorganization I discussed earlier being part of it. Moreover, students are normally required to choose an academic track leading to a profession during high school or shortly after. The French government thinks it would be inefficient to pay for students to double-major or change their minds about their career. I had never met a 21-year-old medical student until I came to Paris. 

For the French, a highly educated, informed and involved population is well worth the price of a rather inflexible, and from an American point of view, hellish school system. If I had the choice of finishing my studies at Oberlin or at a Paris University, I would easily choose Oberlin. But I would also prefer a more highly educated and involved American Public. In the U.S, you can get a great education if you can afford it. In Paris, you are guaranteed education, but one with more restrictions and difficulties. It can’t be both ways, and where the French have chosen a system of social responsibility, the Americans prefer one of personal responsibility.

Get your filthy hands off me, Government, I got this.


 
 
   

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