As Dollar Strengthens, U.S. Students in Europe Feel the Benefits
This month, some of the world’s most popular schools opened in Europe, including the prestigious French school, Lycée Charlemagne and a new school in the Belgian city of Brussels, the Lycée Louis Pasteur. Each school is the latest in a long line of public, private, and alternative schools that have built an international reputation for excellence in teaching.
At first, it seemed as though the French school, Lycée Charlemagne, would prove to be one of the most successful. The school, founded in the 1620s, is considered to be one of the first schools in the world to offer public education to the working class. At the school, students learn in a class-room environment and learn by doing, not learning by rote. And while today’s students are taught with computers, chalkboards, and laptops; in the 1700s, students had to memorize their lessons and then go out into the streets and ask for money to buy chalk and chalkboards.
The school’s focus on what it calls the Real World and Making Knowledge and Learning Matter, though not without controversy, has given students in France the opportunity to attend a college-preparatory school that has traditionally only been available to upper-class children. It would have been unusual, then, for this school to be the first of its kind to open in Europe.
The Real World is a program based on the idea that in order for education to have a greater impact on the world, it’s vital to build schools like Lycée Charlemagne, that truly reflect today’s world and offer students the opportunity to do so. This makes the school a leading proponent for global education, and has led to its success.
Though the school has only been open since September 2011, it already has a strong reputation in France. A majority of French citizens believe that it’s essential that their children attend a school like this in order to learn properly, and more than 70 percent of families have already made reservations for the school’s new students.
“The school is an excellent place for learning,” says Jocelyn,
