Visit to Ecole Sacré- Coeur
St. Chély d'Apcher
Lozère
A
couple of weeks before les vacances de Noël I visited l'Ecole du Sacré-Coeur,
in the mountain village of St. Chely d'Apcher, in the département of Lozère.
At this collège et lycée (middle school and high school) hôtelier,
students train to go into the hotel and restaurant business or to become chefs.
In the collège, students follow a general course of study,
similar to any middle school. However,
once they begin their studies at the lycée, they choose their specialty,
which will eventually qualify them to go straight from high school into
business.
The
students' choice depends on whether they prefer a hands-on approach - preparing
and serving food or performing reception and custodial duties - or whether they
prefer a more academic approach, in which case they enroll in the course leading
to a baccalaureate (le Bac) in hotel and restaurant management.
The students explained to me that this latter choice is quite a
challenge, requiring eight hours of coursework daily, plus homework and evening
duty in the school's on-site hotel and restaurant.
Whichever direction the students choose, they make their decision at the
age of 15. In all the classes I
visited, I asked students how they could be sure, at such an early age, of their
career choice. One or two said they
were not sure, and they could always change later, but the rest were quite
certain about what they wanted. When
I suggested that most American young people would be hard-pressed to make a
career choice so early, the French students conceded that not everyone, even in
France, can know what he or she wants at 15.
For them, however, their minds were made up.
During my two days at Sacré-Coeur, I visited its kitchens and computer
labs, as well as its classrooms. I
was lodged in the school's extremely comfortable hotel, welcomed by student
receptionists, who prepared petit déjeuner each morning and offered an apéritif
(pre-dinner drink) each evening. Lunches
and dinners were prepared and served by students in the school's dining room,
which is open to the public.
The
young man who was my attentive and conscientious waiter one evening, was
definitely working for an "A" in his class (or in French terms a
10/10). His teacher, who was
overseeing the dining room, explained to him the ritual of opening and serving
the wine, how to place and remove plates, and trickiest of all, how to dole
slippery morsels of gnocchi with a pair of spoons held in one hand from a
serving dish held in the other. This
was certainly the challenge of the evening, but the gnocchi arrived safely on my
plate and was delicious. He was a
little shy about speaking English, but said he liked his English classes, and
knew he must learn the language better, as he realized that in his future, many
of his customers will be English speakers.
In the English classes I visited, students had prepared questions for me.
They, too, were shy about speaking English, and most of the time we
reverted to French. Nonetheless,
they had thought-provoking questions, many to do with September 11, the Bush
administration, and America's role internationally.
I was impressed with their knowledge and interest in world events.
From an American
perspective, a surprising observation of this school was that at 16, students
begin their study of wine. When I
told them that, in the US, the drinking age is 21 and even in a supermarket a
young person is asked for an ID to buy alcohol, they laughed incredulously.
I don't think they really believed me.
(However, in comparing laws as they affect young people, the students
were in firm agreement that our minimum age of 16 for a driver's license is much
more reasonable than their 18.) For
the French way of life, wine is an essential complement to a meal; and at this
school, viticulture is part of the coursework.
Some students enroll in the more specialized sommelier course, and I was
fortunate enough to witness the oral exam one young sommelier.
He was required to identify various wines and the region each came from,
describe the cultivation of the grapes, and explain why each wine is appropriate
for a certain dish.