Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Yet another national protest day

Jessica spent the night at a friend's house. We all knew she would not have school today. Already her lycée was blocked, again, yesterday and she could not get in. Today is the national day of anti-CPE protest so we knew she wouldn't get in today either.

The kids have missed out on a whole lot of school. These same kids missed out on a reasonable amount of school last year as well due to the strikes against Fillon's law. No one actually has a solution as to how these kids are going to catch up on the basics they've lost out on over this and last year.

Last Tuesday evening was supposed to be our annual performance by Word for Word. As happened last year we had to reschedule at the very last minute. The performance was therefore rescheduled for tonight. Again... we had to cancel at the very last minute (Sunday) due to today's strikes and protests. Word for Word is going to start thinking twice before coming to France!

The kids have missed out on a lot of school. We, in our tiny little international world at our one individual school, have missed out on our valuable annual social occasions (The International Meal and now Word for Word). We are even now starting to wonder if we'll be able to hold the school dance on May 13th. Even more alarming are questions as to such vital occurrences as admissions tests, Bac preparation tests (bac blanc) and the final bac tests themselves. Many feel that we have sacrificed an entire year of students around the country. Some feel we have sacrificed an entire generation. No matter how you look at it we have certainly penalised and handicapped students around the country.

A friend of mine sent me a wonderful phrase yesterday:

It's such a paradox that protesters are fighting for the maintenance of the status quo rather than change, and that the main goal of militant students is to secure a safe job for life!

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