The Award Winning Film "The Class" and the Differences it Shows Between the French and American School Systems

“The Class” came out in France last week and has been generating much hype and debate. It is a film about a French teacher’s struggle to engage, teach and discipline a class full of 14-year olds from different cultural backgrounds. “The Class,” in French called “Entre les murs,” was the winner at this year's Cannes Film Festival, and will be coming out in the States later this year.

The film is particularly interesting because of its flirtation with documentary. There are no professional actors in the film. Instead, the roles are played by school children and teachers themselves. François Bégaudeau, who plays the insecure but good intentioned French teacher, taught French in a Parisian middle school for several years, wrote a book about his experience and then went on to co-direct the film with Laurent Cantet. Cantet auditioned students at François Dolto middle school for the student roles, a so-called “difficult school” in a rough Paris neighborhood that has a culturally diverse student body. The newly minted actors agreed to come in on weekends to film throughout the course of the year. The amateur acting is amazingly good, and the film is all the more powerful for the fact that it is a direct creation of the environment it represents.


This film gives the viewer access to a French classroom, and the differences between the French educational system and the American one abound. A general difference between the two systems is the educational philosophy on how to best prompt children forward. The French get out the stick of chastisement to motivate students, while Americans tend to pull out a carrot of encouragement.

Teachers in France are supposed to have power and to flex it. At one point in the film, the principle chastises a student for sitting before being told to and tells the student to stand only to then hae him sit back down again on the principle's orders. We can see exactly who needs to be in charge and just how little voice French students are supposed to have.

This love of hierarchy can also be seen in the first lesson taught in “The Class.” The primary lesson here is one of discipline and control. We see the teenagers coming into the classroom like teenagers: they laugh, they hit each other, they talk, they don’t settle down. Teacher Bégaudeau thus begins his first course of the year with a long monologue berating his students on their rowdiness. His class will start on time, not 15 minutes late, no exceptions. Unfortunately for Bégaudeau, a plucky girl quickly reminds him that no class in the school starts on time. We see how Bégaudeau’s power over the class is much more tenuous than he would hope.

My French friend was shocked by the disrespect of the class as they came into the room, and uttered a few gasps of disbelief at the nerve of the children. I was shocked instead by the teacher deciding to start the year off with chastisement. My educational experience would say that Bégaudeau should begin his first class with an attempt at an inspiring introduction to the material to be covered that year. Throughout the following classes, Bégaudeau is prone to chastise and tease students who cannot get the right answers despite the fact that Bégaudeau is clearly dedicated to his students and wants the best for them. This kind of chastisement from the good intentioned teacher seems entirely out of line from an American perspective.


Another major difference between the two school systems is the French acceptance of publicly discussing students’ success or failure. At one point in the film, teachers hold a meeting to discuss student results and progress. During the course of this meeting Bégaudeau says that a particular student is a lost cause and is worthless. This shocked me, especially because he made these comment in front of two students who had been nominated to attend the teachers' meeting. Word eventually gets back to the difficult “Souleymane” in question, and Souleymane is hurt by his teacher’s poor opinion of him and eventually acts out as a result.

Apparently, students in teacher meetings is a common practice in French schools. Children are nominated to attend teachers' conferences in order to hold teachers accountable for what they say. In the US, this type of public discussion of students is considered highly detrimental to the educational process. According to an American viewpoint, if a student knows that he or she is either at the top or at the bottom of a class, the student will not try as hard nor be as inspired. Americans would (ideally) give constructive criticism and encouragement directly to the student and only talk about student failure to the student, the student’s parent and peer teachers.

One challenge in the film is highly relevant to both French and American cultures : when does discipline go too far? Souleymane is one of Bégaudeau’s most difficult students. He is a tall, handsome boy full of barely contained rage and belligerence. For most of the year Bégadeau has difficulty making Souleymane participate in class. Part of the problem is that Souleymane, who is the son of Malian immigrants who do not speak French, has difficulty writing and reading. Souleymane only becomes inspired when Bégaudeau encourages him to “write” his autobiographical essay with photos instead of through an essay. But Souleymane’s hostile attitude and constant challenge to Bégaudeau’s authority finally get him kicked out of class. The major conflict of the film turns around whether or not Souleymane will be expelled. This leads to questions of the benefit of discipline: Is it better to punish and expel, or to pass over a student’s bad behavior? Should a 14-year old be held responsible for difficult behavior and to what point? What if a school’s decision to punish will result in the student being cut off from the education system completely? (In Souleymane’s case, we are led to believe that if he is expelled, Souleymane's father will send him back to Mali). These questions are not answered in the film, and both arguments for and against towing the discipline line are introduced, discussed and challenged.

"The Class" puts the subject of the French classroom under a lens and brings up many questions of how best to educate children as well as the challenges of the children of immigrant parents. It is a thought provoking film and relevant wherever you live. Go see it when it comes out in the US later this year. Until then, you can write your reactions and responses to this post below.