Handwriting taught in French schools

[SaligoBay]

I can safely say that my children never ever were asked to write a story from their own imagination in primary school

My son had a very good teacher for his last year in école primaire, and she did the recommended "lanceur d'écriture".   They were given a title once a week and had to write something about it.  Short, long, fantasy, fact, n'importe, and grammar wasn't corrected either.

That was the first (and presumably last) time though.

Getting them to do creative stuff out of school is a nice thought, but unless they're personally motivated to do it as a hobby, it's very difficult, there's just so little time and energy left after a 9-hour school day plus an hour's homework. 

 

[chicfille]

[quote]OK,apologies. That didn't sound like what you were saying before. I agree in filling gaps in what an education system offers. In England,if you want a child to have good handwriting and accurate spell...[/quote]

I quite agree that undermining teachers is not helpful to anyone, so I don't do it. What I meant by "questioning silly rules" is simply that I would like my children to be able to differentiate the important and useful (the content) from the embellishment (the form), but only to themselves. I wouldn't encourage them to argue with their teachers over the colour in which they must underline their headings, or how big the loops on an H should be. I hope they will simply do as they are asked, whilst understanding that, in the grand scheme of things, these sorts of details, which are often over-emphasised in French schools, are not critical.

In the French system there is a lot of emphasis on uniformity and conformity and it doesn't, in my opinion, go very far to encourage children's individuality and natural curiosity. This is the gap I hope to fill.

But that's another question that has been amply debated in this forum!