There are strikes going on in France right now, its about the government and the fact that they are trying to change the retirement age from 60 to 62. Anyway, that's not out of the ordinary, in France, if you have an opinion about something, you strike. But today, I woke up to loud shouting and horns honking...and I thought, that's strange, what's going on? So I looked out my window, and it was high school kids, congregating in the streets and blocking the cars and shouting at them in unison! High school kids!
So anyway, jump to this afternoon ...I am in class and we are talking about some differences between France and America. One of the students told me that about once a year, high school kids will be striking about something, and they will LOCK the high school, not let anyone in and the teachers don't do anything about it! They are so worried about conflict that they just wait "until it passes" So school and everything stops for weeks because someone is trying to make a point. When I told them that if that happened in the states, the students who locked themselves in would most likely be arrested, they couldn't believe it. The other teacher said that if a student in France got arrested for something like that there would be a revolution! I'm all for freedom of speech, but I think letting students get away with stuff like that only on the basis of fear of conflict is a little much. But if we all did things the same way, it would be pretty boring huh?
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