Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. Even the most the most cursory knowledge of French culture assembles these three indissoluble national principles of freedom of expression (perhaps along with a few strains of Edith Piaf and an order of Freedom Fries.) Whether you are a Francophile, or you studied French theory in your high school and college Gen Eds, the names Décarts, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Diderot, Hugo, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Proust, Sartre, Camus, or Simone de Beauvoir probably mean something to you. The profound and often revolutionary works of French philosophers, artists, and authors has, without question, radically influenced the way the world thinks today. So now I ask, based upon my personal experiences as a student in a French university, how have the French gone so wrong?
I began my studies this semester at the University of Toulouse le Mirail full of naïve and grandiose hopes of esoteric discussions on the merits of existentialism and lively student uprisings against Sarkozy’s Orwellian dictates. These expectations weren’t unmerited; le Mirail has a reputation as the most liberal university in France. Thus, I was surprised by the grade on my first paper, an essay about an article espousing a central European University. The paper was riddled with red marks like a “No Shooting” sign by the side of the highway is filled with bullet holes. Entire paragraphs were scratched out and the piece was headed by the despairing comment “Erreurs Grossières” or, “Big Problems.” I stayed after class bearing my shameful essay like a scarlet letter.
“Oh yes, your paper,” the professor said distractedly with more than a hint of contempt. “You added ideas that weren’t in the article. That’s not to be done in my course.”
No original opinions concerning articles about polemic subjects? I tried valiantly to digest this concept, but couldn’t quite stomach it. A few weeks later, I was asked to write an open-ended essay for the midterm exam of my grammar course. The inane subject was “What role should a father, as a man, take in raising his son?” I went off on a self-righteous rant about feminism, the Hollywood obsession with machismo, and the growing presence of non-traditional families. I admit, I may have overdone it. The paper was returned with a good grade, but with one ominous comment at the end reading, “This is a grammar course” and several heavy question marks next to my main points.
I got bored. I started to create conflicts with professors over banal subjects. We discussed the enthralling topic “Do you like football?” and I responded with a scathing comparison between France and the falling Roman Empire. We talked about advertisements and I tried to start a debate about the subconscious. My role as the perpetual and erudite Devil’s Advocate never got very far and probably annoyed everyone. Perhaps, I thought, I should start to keep my head down.
Despite this new avowal, I couldn’t restrain myself from going entirely overboard for my French literature class. Charged with a short presentation about Symbolism, I read the biography of Baudelaire, revisited most of Les Fleurs du Mal, and wrote an elaborate comparative lecture about Baudelaire’s influence on Symbolism. I delivered the presentation with all the academic pomp and excitement of a visiting professor. After only three short minutes, however, the professor stopped me mid-sentence. Like a cowboy breaking a spirited horse, she tore my presentation apart piece by piece in front of my classmates and admonished me for “wasting everyone’s time.” My request for a meeting concerning my failed presentation was met with a rushed rendez-vous that consisted of the professor reading the presentation instruction sheet more loudly than I could ask questions. She roughly palmed and quickly discarded the books I showed as my sources saying I “would only confuse myself and the other students” by citing theses texts. “I would do better,” she said while hastily donning her coat, “to read Henri Mitterand,” a high school text that I already studied two years ago.
“You are the only student in the entire year that didn’t understand this assignment,” she lamented. “I don’t know why.”
Well I do. The reason I didn’t write a satisfactory presentation is because I honestly do not understand the purpose of the assignment. That is to say, I cannot understand what purpose this absolute suppression of free thought in the French educational system could possibly serve. Perhaps it is some sort of “Wax on wax off” theory that mindless repetition will later lead to greater artistic capability. But I don’t think so. The snuffing-out of the creative flame in the dictatorship of the French classroom is carried out with such systematic efficiency, such gleeful authority, that I believe this to be a direct attack on the intellectual health of the country, a definitive end to France’s illustrious academic past. My experiences in the French classroom have deeply disturbed me.
I can only hope that this first impression of French higher education is unique to my particular classes and university because today, without any sentiment of nostalgia, I submitted a transfer application to the rigorous political science school l’Institut d’Etudes Politiques. Included with my transcripts, letter of motivation, and CV is a small sealed envelope. It contains an academic evaluation completed by my professors from the Mirail. I have not opened the envelope because, as my professors and I can finally agree, I have no desire to read a biased essay.
