So That’s Why I Left Teaching

Entre Les Murs (The Class) is a must-see for everyone contemplating a career in education and for those already making it. Set in a French secondary school in Paris, this quasi-documentary observes what goes on in the class of Francois Marin, the thirty something French teacher. The pupils (14/15 year olds and all the children of immigrants, some first generation whose parents speak no French) are fairly bright but not overly enamoured with school and learning, and it’s a real eye-opener into the French system of education.

Esmeralda and Louise are the class representatives who, get this, sit in on disciplinary hearings and even at staff meetings where the behaviour, attitude and progress of their fellow students are discussed in a very open and frank way. They aren’t even asked to leave the room when they become the subject of discussion themselves! This of course is the single school event when copious notes are taken by the girls for distribution to their classmates!

One of the quirkiest aspects of the film is that François Bégaudeau who plays the part of the teacher is actually playing himself, since he wrote the autobiographical novel on which the film is based. Moreover the students and other staff members are all played by real students etc, something that seems to give a truly authentic feel to what is seen on screen.

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The 2 hours and 10 minutes saw my reactions ranging from impatience, rage and outrage all the way through to acute amusement. The funniest scene was watching these 14 year olds trying to conjugate French verbs, and they just couldn’t. M. Marin’s attempts to teach and justify the teaching of the imperfect subjunctive were also hilarious, especially when you took a look around the room at who was being taught.

François Bégaudeau is superb as himself, but what really struck me was the reality >of the film. It took me right back to the secondary school I taught in for a year in a Paris suburb, and no matter how frustrating the scenes were as they played out before my eyes I kept saying “Yes” into myself – I was right there with M. Marin and it was all I could do to stop myself replying in very strong terms to the abuse I saw him taking from the gobby louts.

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