Collèges de France, Mara Goyet

Will the middle school ever be a place of memory? Like the Pantheon, the Tour de France, or Alesia? Alesia, especially. For now, it contents itself with being a place of woes. Therein lies its tragic beauty, there begins its comedic strength.
In a single breath, the middle school must solve the cruel question of the photocopier toner and that of the immortality of the Greek gods. It must convince students of the grace of free thought while making them understand that a 12-year-old kid is not going to refute the Pythagorean theorem. It must officially allow the young human (who knows if it's not a frustrated Mozart?) to flourish while unofficially enjoining them to shut up (after all, sometimes, you have to teach a class).
This universe, as low as it is sublime, as prosaic as it is complex, is both familiar and unknown. Collèges de France invites you on a picturesque stroll within its walls, to discover its indestructible monuments (the platforms, the coffee machine), its valiant natives (teachers, students, student life advisors), its age-old traditions (detentions, the cafeteria), its charming folklore (acronyms, jargon), its ancestral myths (authority, elitism), its dark areas, its relentless wars with their martyrs, their heroes, their traitors.

Mara Goyet, 29, has been teaching history and geography for five years in a middle school in the Parisian suburbs.