The French don’t rip

I wish I had a picture of my students’ faces when I asked them to rip a tiny piece of paper out of their notebooks. We were playing a game and I needed the kids to write down their phone numbers and put them in a bag, lottery style. I didn’t feel like giving out paper to do this, so I asked them simply to rip a corner off a sheet of paper and use that. OMG!
They were shocked, almost scared. See here in France, students are taught to be very precise. I mean REALLY precise. Rulers are used regularly and usually not even for math class. Anything cut or folded, is often measured first and underlining always requires a ruler

to create the straightest line possible. When I ask kids to write the date in their notebooks, they inherently underline the date in red. That’s just how it goes. If I ask them to write something down, I usually get a couple of hands going up, asking me what color pen to use and whether or not they can use a pencil. It’s crazy, I have 9 year olds using fountain pens and not pencils!

Every time I ask them to paste a paper in their notebook or write anything down, the first question is where and on what page. I assume, they would just use the next available free space, but that’s not the case. And often times, I end up responding “comme tu veux”(as you like), cause I could care less, it’s their notebook!

Anyways, to show the kids what I wanted them to do, I took one kid’s notebook, which I now know is treated like the Bible, and ripped off the corner. I swear there were gasps. Everyone turned their head looking to the back of the room where the teacher was, with a face asking, really we can do this, we can rip paper out of our notebook? Oh the horror, the insanity, the REBELLION!

I know when I was there age there were rules as to how you set up your paper, write you name in the upper right hand corner and always use pencil in math class, but here it’s hilarious. So, as an outsider all I can do is graciously help these kids to rebel just a bit and let them rip to their hearts’ content!

note: that picture is supposed to mimic “The Scream” Don’t judge...I know it’s pathetic!