If only Environmental Studies was so much fun!

The thing about French education is that it is far superior that most pedagogical setups in the world. I am truly blessed to be part of such a well organized, well structured system even if it's for the shortest time. I know many of you will disagree with me. But hear me out first. I come from India and completed most of education there. Indian education is excellent on would say that Indian students are extremely smart. We are grounded in various streams, be it arts, science or commerce. For example, in History class, an Indian student will have studied all the historical facts about the Russian Revolution. They can narrate the exact time and date of the various battles in the world. They know by rote all the political leaders that participated in the numerous historical events. But try asking them what is their opinion on Stalin or Communism? or maybe more simpler, What is the need to have wars? An Indian student in such a situation will be dumbstruck because we were never allowed to have an opinion! What the teacher gave to us, would be the final word. No discussion, no opinions. The thing I hated most about my school were my teachers because they smothered all our voices. All they wanted was robots who could tell you the exact time when the Russian people gathered at St. Peter's square and exactly how many people were murdered on Bloody Friday. What we feel about the event was never take into account. So here is where French education is far superior than ours. Because A) all students must give an opinion. B) No one is ever wrong in a classroom. C) There is plenty of room for mistakes. I'm not speaking for the entire French teaching force here, because I have met some really horrible french teachers and their students literally hate their subjects. But the majority who I have worked with have always given their students space to express and embrace their subject matter. 
I am currently in my second week of observation (all language assistants when they come to a new institution in France are required to undergo a Période d'Observation, where we have to sit in various classes and observe how the teacher conducts his/her class.) I have to admit that in my new collège there isn't a single class out of the eight I observed that wasn't up to the mark. All the teachers weren't friendly to me, but they certainly were kind to the students and I took tons of pointers on classroom management. I noticed that the older kids respond well to friendly sarcasm :) The students even have music class once  a week and it was such a pleasurable relaxing hour for me and the participants. The only times an Indian student will get to learn music is if he is willing to pay for it in a private institute. ha! My most favourite class so far was SVT (environmental studies) which completely blew me away. I was amazed at the alarming difference in attitude towards the environment between the French students and their Indian counterparts. The children here were fully aware of the various environmental problems and they even had fun exercises on how to combat the damage. On the day I was assisting, they were working on the various minerals that exist in nature and the different sources that can corrode them. They were asked to furnish their own ideas on the topic and were graded on basis of originality, neatness, etc. I kept thinking about my school days and the last time someone asked me to do such kind of an assignment and the answer is NEVER! Isn't that a shame? India is facing so many climate changes and if the education board could take some pointers from the French, we would have created a few nature friendly citizens who would in turn take a small but necessary step in reversing India's climatic downfall. It's not that the Indians don't care about the environment, it's just that they are not aware of it! Below are some of the assignments which the students submitted and I loved every single one of them!

We later studied about the various kinds of leaves and the teacher had brought in many branches from her own garden with tons of little critters crawling over them. I was a bit uneasy but the students were having a marvelous time! They were asked to observe the leaves and define the type they had. Let's see what I got!

I identified my leaf as Une Feuille Lisse which means a smooth leaf without any teeth or dents and I was correct! Never too late to learn anything is it? :)