Bac 2011

LE BAC...C'EST PARTI! Over 6,000 students in our part of France start the official bac today with the famous/dreaded Philosophy exam -- or as it called here, le bac philo. Almost 200 of those students are from the school where I teach. Bonne chance tout le monde!

Update: The newspaper websites are already printing the subjects from today's philosophy bac. Here they are (students choose one to write on for two hours)

• L'art est-il moins nécessaire que la science ? (Is art less necessary than science?)
• La liberté est-elle menacée par l'égalité ? (Is freedom threatened by equality?)
• La culture dénature-t-elle l'homme ? (Not really sure how to translate this one correctly, but it's something like 'Does culture misrepresent man?')
• Peut-on avoir raison contre les faits? (Can we be right about the facts?)

Students also get to comment on an extract from one philosopher they have studied (again, chose one and write for two hours). This year the extracts are from: Gay Science (Nietzsche), Thoughts (Pascal), and Benefits (Seneca).

Geez, my dad is going to love this!