[by Tarik Yildiz]

• Kerim (54 years old, works in construction) and Fatma (42 years old, stay-at-home mother), parents originally from Turkey, parents of a student at XXX college in YYY (A, in fourth grade). 
• Ahmed (42 years old, unemployed since September 2021) and Samira (40 years old, stay-at-home), parents of a sixth-grade (B) student at XXX college in YYY)
• Fatoumata, a 51-year-old single mother, born in Mali, living in YYY. Her daughter is in fifth grade.

What is school? What does it represent?

Kerim: "I always told children that school was very important. It's where they can learn, they can prepare themselves to have a good job, not like us! I always tell them that they have to work hard at school. I can't help them, I don't speak French very well but if they work they can get good grades." 

Fatma: "I always tell my children that my dream would be to be in their place. We didn't have the chance to go to school for long. Now everyone goes, everyone has the right to learn, everyone has the right to study. Everyone knows that school is the most important thing, that without it children won't be able to have a decent job. I push my children but it's not always easy because they don't realize that it's an opportunity."

Ahmed: "School is normally to learn things, get diplomas, choose a job, earn money without having to do things that are too difficult like I did when I worked in construction. School is all that, you have to have diplomas to be a boss or manager or things like that..."

Samira “You have to work hard at school of course. I think everyone tells their children that. But sometimes it’s hard to keep up with homework and classes. When I go to parent-teacher meetings, I’m often a bit sad. The teachers tell me that my son is chatty, for example, or has behavioral problems. I tell him that school is important, but I’m not with him in class. In class, there are the teachers: I tell them to punish him if he causes problems. You’re the teachers, it’s with you that he does stupid things. They say they can’t do it in place of the parents… But that’s not what my husband and I tell them, just to punish him so that he doesn’t do it anymore and that he progresses.”

On the need for authority 

Ahmed: “One day I told my son’s head teacher: you have to hit him if he doesn’t listen to you. With me, he listens! But the problem in France is that they are too soft, they don’t know how to punish. They just say that it’s not good. I’m not saying that you have to hit him, but at least be a little hard. Otherwise it’s no use, children don’t listen to anything at all. That’s normal: they’re children!”

Fatma: “Our daughter is well-behaved, she doesn’t cause any problems at school. But she tells us: in the classroom, it’s always chaos. They [the other students] shout, they throw things in the classroom, they fight in the playground, sometimes even in the classroom. Some teachers are strict, and there’s no noise, they can work. But others can’t get respect, and there’s no way to work. My daughter doesn’t tell me everything, but I know that she’s sometimes afraid when she sees children who are violent like savages! And you know what? Nobody says anything to them, or almost nothing… They’re still in the classroom, even if they fight like animals. There are no consequences for what they do. They ruin the lives of all the students and nobody does anything. One day, a student insulted a teacher: there was a disciplinary council and he was excluded for a few days. What is this punishment?” He must have had a lot of fun, had an extra holiday, and came back to school even worse!”

Kerim “Children don’t respect teachers. I see it everywhere, even when I walk past the school. They don’t respect because no one forces them to respect them. We find excuses for them, we tell them it’s not good… But that’s it, without action, without being harsh. I want to put my daughter in a private school but unfortunately for the moment her file has not been accepted. There, if a child does something disrespectful he is immediately punished or else he is directly fired. The principal of the school one day said that he couldn’t fire children like that because it would be transferring the problem elsewhere. But that’s what I want: we just have to transfer the students who cause problems to a special school, that way the others will be left alone!”

About the programs

Samira: "Honestly, I don't know anything about the programs. I don't know what they really study, I'm not up to it. I trust the teachers, but the problem is that it's not like in good schools. What is a good school? A school where there aren't as many problems with violence, where they teach Latin, Greek, subjects for the best... Here there isn't all that or else the teachers are never there. One year they taught Latin or Greek, I don't remember, but the teacher was never there."

Ahmed: "Yes, I know that it's only in the best neighborhoods, the best schools that we learn certain things. Here they don't do it, they think that the students can't learn, that it's too difficult. I would like teachers to raise the level, so that we can be equal but no, that's not the case. They just learn the basics while in good schools they go further, they learn French but also other languages, even ancient languages. They make a more difficult program for the children and that helps them progress. Here they don't do that..."

Fatoumata: “At first I liked the school activities, the dances, the events they organized. But one day my daughter Haby told me that they were listening to Maître Gims at school, a singer. I told her to turn the music down and she said to me: we learn that in French! I’m sure they don’t do that in other schools where there are no foreigners [students from immigrant families]. I thought they were learning great things, classical music, good French and all that! Actually no, that’s why the children can’t go far!”

On religions at school

Fatoumata: "We talk too much about religion. We have to let people believe what they want. I don't want my children to eat pork in the canteen, even the veil I don't understand why it's a problem outside of school for school trips. We don't bother anyone. The State is strict on that but not strict on everything else while some people do whatever they want at school. We have to punish them first."

Kerim: "I agree with secularism, everyone does what they want at home and at school we don't talk about religion. But on the other hand, be careful, sometimes the school does strange things, they can teach children things that I don't want. For example, from the sixth grade onwards they talked about homosexuality, things like that, marriage for homosexuals... Why do they talk about that to children? They are there to learn subjects. Religion or principles, that's the role of the parents of the house, not the school! I wanted to put my children in a Catholic school but it was too complicated to support them and after that it was too late because they accept that in the sixth grade..."