Abuse in France from a young age had made me what I am today

 In this blog I thought I would write about my school experiences in France. At the start I was still living in both countries which was confusing as whenever I had vacations in one country I would have to go to school in the other country and so on. We eventually moved to France when I was 7 years old. Every two years in France you have to move school as it all part of a community. The classes were very small I would say about 26 of us . The teacher had to teach two very different classes which was confusing. 

I remember my first day of school very well. My mother had given me 'post it' cards with things in French like 'I don't understand' which unfortunately I used every 10 mins as I was completely lost. No one spoke English, the teacher spoke very little and I had no idea what I was learning about. On the second day which was a Tuesday (there's no primary school on Wednesdays) I was given a newspaper which I was asked to summarise a chosen article. At that time I had no idea what was being said so I put my hand up and the teacher gave me the newspaper which of course was in French and I couldn't understand a word of it. Two days later I stood up in front of the class and the teacher made an announcement 'please tell us about The I.R.A and why they bombed'. I just stood there in silence and got a miserable 0/20 grade. A simular situation happened when there was a parents gathering in the town hall and I was introduced to one of the other pupils parents when I embarrassed the whole table calling his mother framboise (raspberry) instead of Françoise. Everything was graded in French schools even when you copied off the blackboard and had a few spelling mistakes. Also they didn't like my English writing so I had to learn the calligraphic way of all the letters of the alphabet in upper and lower case. 

Our teacher lived in a small house next to the school and was often seen with an espresso in one hand and a cigarette in the other. I was shocked that he smoked inside the classroom and even allowed parents to smoke. He didn't like me at all, I don't think anyone did. He used to phone up my mother and say things like 'your daughter is singing in English in the school yard I'm rather concerned'. He used to enjoy punishing us. A good way he did this was to hit us on the head with the heaviest book he could find (that happened to me once, all I was trying to do was ask for help and out came the encyclopaedia) and another was that he would shut us up by putting scotch tape on our mouths (this only happened to me once). I was also hit on the face a few times as a punishment and a few of the other pupils were as well. Occasionally when one of the pupils was misbehaving he would invite the parents round for school dinner which was rather embarrassing. This happened to me a few times too. Friday was the worst day as we had .... English classes. The worst of all was that the English tutor was pronouncing everything incorrectly so I corrected her and the whole class turned to me and said 'we don't listen to you, we listen to the teacher' before I was sent out of class. I was with that teacher for two years and eventually became bilingual (don't ask me how) and was ready to move to the next school.

When I was about 9 I moved schools. The teacher this time was female and in my opinion even stricter than the previous male teacher I had. She didn't used to hit us but she was good at other punishments like sending us outside a lot during classes and inviting parents round for a meeting about their kids. She didn't smoke which was a bonus or hit any of us but she did have these strange things such as -auto dictations which was basically a dictation but we had to memorise it ourselves and had 10 mins to write it all down. I preferred the normal dictations myself. When I was about 9 and a half or nearly 10 years the teacher called my parents in for one final meeting and said I wasn't coping in any subjects and what they wanted to do about my education. My parents decided it wasn't best for me to carry on there and started looking at new schools for me. They eventually found one about an hour from where we lived in the centre of Bordeaux which was an international school and I would have to stay weekly with a family and return weekends. 

My first host family were horrible, in fact they lied to my parents about everyone in the house being under suspervision at all times and she never was. We were not allowed to talk over dinner, I wasn't allowed to stroke the dog and no TV was allowed. I never met my host dad as his wife was always out in the evenings with him so me and my host sister (who also went to the same school) were locked in from 7pm and were not allowed to answer the phone or do anything in the house but sleep. At least I had my own room but that still didn't make me comfortable. Because I never listened to my host mom she tied me up to the end of the bed where I cried and cried for hours. Since that incident I have had problems with lifting my left arm. One evening my mother was trying to contact me and the phone wasn't answered so my parents drove down to see what was happening. I woke up hearing noises of people arguing, my parents eventually found out the truth and I was taken away and we stayed In a local hotel for the night.

My second host family lived about 10/15 min walk from the school. The days were really long. I started in primary which was 8:55-4pm and then the following year I moved to secondary which was 10:00am-6.30pm on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays were 8:55-6.30pm and Wednesdays and Fridays 8:55-1.30pm. The family had four children themselves and also had other students living with them so there were roughly about 11/12 of us in a two storied town house opposite the park. In my first year I shared a room with their eldest daughter but then that had to change as another student was moving in so I ended up sharing a double bed with my host mom. I did knock on the door a few times and was asked to FUCK OFF. I was only being sociable until the other student opened the door and said 'this is my room now get out'. There was no television license in this household so we all used to crowd round one of the smallest TV screens I have even seen and watch VHS all night. I never looked forward to going home a weekends, the only person I was looking forward to seeing was my dog and the next door neighbours. Sunday night was always a rush as we had to try and beat the Monday Bordeaux traffic. My mother would drop me off at school and then go to my host family to drop my bag and clothes off, have a cup of tea and then drive home. She used to call me on twice a week just to see how I was and she usually travelled up to Bordeaux on Wednesday afternoons for a catch up and to take me swimming. 

So those are my memories of education in France. I hope it's all changed now.