“I see that all our young people who watch television series where there are these graduations, they think it’s great. » Tuesday evening, when 20 minutes asked him if the announcements on school uniforms and graduation ceremonies did not have an “old-fashioned” side, Emmanuel Macron responded with the American example. Since we love so much Glee, Riverdaleintrigues based on prom or acceptance to Stanford, why not bring back a little American Dream in the French education system? 20 minutes reviewed the biggest clichés from American series with Esther Cyna, lecturer in American history at the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.
The graduation ceremony and the big party afterwards
Ah, being among your classmates, waiting to see your name called, going up on the stage, receiving your precious diploma from the hands of a professor. A great moment of emotion to close the high school chapter in style before starting another life. Emmanuel Macron dreams of importing it to France, particularly to college, to make a patent which no longer has much meaning sacred. “These ceremonies already exist in France, they are common in higher education,” notes Esther Cyna. If business schools largely launched the movement, “public universities are getting in on the action”.
But how can we give meaning to this ceremony and make it a universal rite? “In high schools, the question of the calendar arises with the baccalaureate and the catch-ups,” underlines Esther Cyna. Not sure that a ceremony on July 15 would attract many people. The specialist from the United States takes the opportunity to break the myth a little. “In the United States, each high school has its own diploma, there is no national baccalaureate. High school in France would not be a relevant scale. We can imagine an end-of-year ceremony but without a diploma”, knowing that the pretty paper arrives several months late in France. Not to mention that the event is expensive for establishments. “Catering, space rental… it’s tricky. »
Dresses and hats
A cliché in itself, the throwing of a hat in the air has lived on. “It’s increasingly prohibited, because they are very sharp and it can hurt,” corrects the historian. Beyond this liberating gesture, a question remains: whose outfits are these? Here again, “there is no homogeneous system in the United States”. Very often, capes are “rented by the family at the school, it’s the cheapest option”. Which again raises the question of the cost, at least the first year, for establishments to equip themselves with a wardrobe.
“I can’t see the State paying for that, but we can imagine fundraising, with cake sales and the involvement of local businesses,” imagines Esther Cyna, summoning another cliché of high school series. A sort of raffle where the funds raised would go to the black capes. As for hats, “they are often purchased because graduates customize them” and keep them as souvenirs.
Arts in high school
An essential series to tackle the clichés of American high school, Glee highlights “the important place of the arts” in this system. Across the Atlantic, students have time, materials and “a privileged space to express” their talent, welcomes Esther Cyna. “It would be a good thing to take from the American system,” even if it still requires funding and supervision. “There are already good things being done, with theater clubs for example, but we need to do more in agreement with the teaching teams,” she asks.
High school sports teams
They occupy a special place in the sociology of high schools, then universities. In the series, the athletes and cheerleaders are separate beings, installed well at the top of the adolescent social pyramid. All dressed in bomber jackets and skirts in the colors of the establishment, they are unmissable in the corridors. “I don’t see how that would be possible in France,” says Esther Cyna. Because around the sports team, “there is a whole question of the identity of a high school which is not as anchored in France”. While we sometimes struggle to remember the name of our college during a discussion with friends, “Americans will consider themselves an alumnus of their institution all their lives.”
However, the idea has something to seduce, a few months before the Olympic Games. And could revive Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, who has been struggling since her arrival at the head of National Education in addition to managing Sports. But “there is much less investment in sport in France than in the United States”, underlines Esther Cyna. And then, have you ever seen a high school gymnasium with stands worthy of the name in France?
Acceptance letters to a major university
For several years, Parcoursup has attracted strong criticism in France. Between hidden selection, ranking of wishes and computer bugs, post-baccalaureate orientation often turns into depression in the middle of the labyrinth. What if we replaced this obscure circuit with a return to the application files. Stanford, Columbia and Yale send letters every year, which can mean refusal as well as admission. Sweaty hands, pounding heart while you feverishly open the envelope in front of your whole family… This is a great memory!
“It’s an image that does not represent the reality experienced by the vast majority of high school students,” says Esther Cyna. “Most don’t apply to prestigious universities and just receive an email from the local university,” she describes. Even if there is nothing sexy about Parcoursup, “moving towards an American-style admission model is not a model to follow,” believes the expert.
Colleges at $100,000 a year
Well, no need to argue for long to say “we’ll leave it to them”. “This is really not desirable if we want a model of higher education open to all,” proclaims Esther Cyna, who points to an American model “based on exclusion.” The debt of the middle classes to finance studies is a “major unresolved political and social question, and a great disappointment of Joe Biden’s mandate”, underlines the historian.
There remains the famous question of the scholarship “which can open the doors of universities”, particularly for the athletes mentioned above. “But be careful, it’s over-represented in the series, we’re actually talking about barely 100 people per promotion.” Not to mention that the conditions are not as idyllic as fiction depicts. “Of course the athletes do not pay registration fees, but they also say that it is free work for four years,” warns the specialist in the history of education.
Fraternities and sororities
Phi Beta Kappa? Alpha Gamma Rho? Behind this sequence of Greek letters hide two brotherhoods, these American version BDEs, larger and more intense. “In the South of the United States, these are extremely powerful organizations,” explains Esther Cyna. We are not going to redo the picture for you on the integration, or even the hazing, of the new kids. But “just during the university years, there is control of the social scene, of the evenings organized” by these “houses”. As with high school, we are members of the brotherhood “for life”, and the mutual assistance between members extends into working life. So much so that “there is a whole secret around it, in Alabama we think that these organizations control the university, and not only that,” describes the historian.
She takes as an example the Delta Delta Delta sorority, created in 1888, “which exists on almost every campus” in America. These fraternities and sororities “raise very significant funds” and, far from simply organizing drinking parties, are fully involved in the life of the university and beyond. “These are very old organizations, and it would be incongruous to create them from scratch because they were created to compensate for the absence of nobility in the United States,” indicates Esther Cyna. On a small scale, however, there are such fraternities in France, whether it is the “very explicit network of engineering schools” or the remains of the student faluche.