Author: Laurel Zuckerman
Published: 2007
Genre: Memoir
When I picked up Sorbonne Confidential I was expecting just an insight into life as a student at the Sorbonne, I got a lot less of this, but it was still an interesting read. The book is more about the course that Laurel Zuckerman enrolled for in her bid to become an English teacher. The author does a great job explaining the intricate and complicated French education system, and this was particularly interesting as it is a very topical discussion in France. Proponents of the system are adamant that it should not be changed, whilst the reformists argue that it is a system that has not kept up with the rest of the world, and is producing a nation of thinkers rather than doers.
After being laid off from her I.T. job of more than 18 years, Ms Zuckerman's character Alice Wunderland decides to study to be an English teacher in French schools. This, she reasons, is an investment that will ensure that she will always be employable. As a bilingual Franco-American, with a degree from one of France's elite grand écoles; HEC , she finds the rigour and competition of the agrégation exam preparation challenging but also steeped in way too much bureaucracy. She finds it both incredulous and hilarious that she has to go through several hours' worth of examinations; dissertation in French, commentary in English, French grammar, English phonetics and translation just to be able to teach high school English. Working with a system that believes so much in its ways and traditions is challenging for Alice, and realising that the system works more against native English speakers than it does for them, is a realisation that the author comes to with much humour.
I found the book funny because some of the French quirks she describes I am now familiar with. In the end, I got the sense that her initial scepticism towards the education system is softened somewhat. By her own admission, there is a method to what she initially saw as the madness. For example, in being able to write a fully comprehensible and well-argued dissertation in French in order to teach English, the system teaches one to argue logically - the presumption being that once this can be done convincingly in French, to French students who are taught to argue and debate philosophically in school from a very early age, this earns one the students' respect, which is half the battle of being a good teacher.
The author retains her sense of humour throughout the book, and handles the fact that her more than twenty years living in France, married to a Frenchman, raising bilingual children and speaking fluent French did not equip her with the skills to be able to teach French. Even with her years in France, she realises that she's not as fully integrated as the French would like her to be. It makes one wonder, what does it take?
This was a good read on living with and trying to understand the French - or a part of what makes them so French. It followed closely on Sarah Turnbull's Almost French, which I have yet to review.
Made me want to learn more about: The French education system and what it is that makes the Grand Écoles so...Grand.
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