My guess is they have much more in common than you'd like to believe, at least from the perspective of young people, whose feelings don't tend to enter into adult considerations of whether a system is "good" or not. Certainly French schools are much more rigorous than those of the U.S., but there's still plenty of pressure and fear of failure put on students, and little decision-making power given them. At the end of the day, it's a conventional, western system with all the hierarchy, authoritarianism, and punitiveness of any other western school system.
As I indicated, in terms of critical thinking, there's nowhere to go but up from American public schooling, but you skipped over my characterization of all western schooling, including France's, as hierarchical, authoritarian, and punitive. The movie linked above, "Schooling the World," is well worth its short viewing time, as is the director's essay, "A Thousand Rivers," for those who have a hard time imagining alternatives to coercive education, which seems to include nearly 100% of social activist types. Let me get you started: "rigorous" and "humane" are two completely different qualities in education. Both are important, and not mutually exclusive, but different.
My guess is they have much more in common than you'd like to believe, at least from the perspective of young people, whose feelings don't tend to enter into adult considerations of whether a system is "good" or not. Certainly French schools are much more rigorous than those of the U.S., but there's still plenty of pressure and fear of failure put on students, and little decision-making power given them. At the end of the day, it's a conventional, western system with all the hierarchy, authoritarianism, and punitiveness of any other western school system.
Every school in France students have to do Philosophy. This means 'critical thinking.'
As I indicated, in terms of critical thinking, there's nowhere to go but up from American public schooling, but you skipped over my characterization of all western schooling, including France's, as hierarchical, authoritarian, and punitive. The movie linked above, "Schooling the World," is well worth its short viewing time, as is the director's essay, "A Thousand Rivers," for those who have a hard time imagining alternatives to coercive education, which seems to include nearly 100% of social activist types. Let me get you started: "rigorous" and "humane" are two completely different qualities in education. Both are important, and not mutually exclusive, but different.