The being has a test this week in history, about the French Revolution. Yesterday, I was talking with her about that. People often complain about public schools, saying that kids come out without having learned anything, and things like that. I totally disagree, and I might rant about that at some point. But yesterday, I was a bit appalled—not for what they taught her, but because the being, who is no idiot and who, according to the teacher, is active and participates in class, didn’t understand half of it.

And by "understand," I don’t mean anything like understanding the deep reasons for the revolution, the political reasons for killing the king, or why the États Généraux had not convened in a century and a half. What I mean by "understand" is just that: simply and plainly understanding the words they were using. For example, she didn’t know what the feudal system is, what abolish exactly means, and wasn’t clear on the clergy. I’m pretty sure I knew all of that when I was her age. But I was obsessed with knowing things like where Hannibal lost an eye (Lake Trasimeno, by Cortona). The being speaks French, Spanish, and Russian, understands pretty much everything in English, is learning Chinese, and knows how to do amazing things on the ice (like turning a time and a half in the air).

In your normal life, when do you speak about the feudal system? In how many of the books you read in the last year did it come up as a term? Other than speaking about history, when do you use the word abolish? And, coming from a family where nobody is religious, and being taught in a school system where the Church is not even mentioned to describe the buildings by the village square, I find it fully unsurprising that when I asked her what the clergy was, all she came up with was "the Pope."

In reality, she was trying to learn by heart whatever she had to learn, without seeing any sense in it. As if she were trying to memorize a 200-digit number. I was appalled. I told her that she should read the pages about the revolution, not only what she was going to be tested on, and that she should ask me about any word she wasn’t clear about. I also told her that the teacher is definitely being paid to explain the meaning of words that are new to her, and that even if she had heard the word before but was unclear about the meaning, she should ask. Knowing her, I fully expect the poor teacher to be drowned, at least for a while, by a deluge of questions. At the very least, that was my fate yesterday.

Among other things, they learned something about the history of La Marseillaise. After chanting MARCHONS, MARCHONS,... at the top of her lungs--almost as if she had been a pupil at Maumee Valley--she asked me why the soldiers were singing La Marseillaise on their way to Paris. My answer, probably a bit ahistorical, was that if you sing 

Un kilomètre à pied, ça use, ça use,
Un kilomètre à pied, ça use les souliers.
Deux kilomètres à pied, ça use, ça use,
Deux kilomètres à pied, ça use les souliers…
all the way from Marseille, then when you arrive, you will be singing Un million-cent-dix-huit-mille-trois-cent-vingt-trois kilomètres à pied, and probably be psychologically damaged for life.

Anyways, once the motivation for the singing was clear, she started asking about the meaning of words from the text. For example, étendard or tyrannie. How was she supposed to know what tyrannie is? Think about how you would explain it yourself. Eventually, she asked what la patrie (fatherland) was. I kind of explained what it was, probably doing a pretty mediocre job, telling her that it is Spain if you are Spanish, France if you are French, and so on. What surprised me was that I felt pretty dismayed by having to explain la patrie to her. I tried to explain it in the context of La Marseillaise, the wars in defense of the revolution, and such, but I couldn’t find in me the enthusiasm I normally have when it comes to talking with the being about things.

For the Franco regime, under which I lived for a full 79 days, la patria was very important. Like God. Besides showing flags and putting the slogan Todo por la patria everywhere, it was illegal to denigrate the motherland. Or God. As late as 1967, Fernando Arrabal, a writer, signed for somebody a copy of one his books by writing Cago en Dios, la Patria, y todo lo demás. As a consequence, he landed in jail for a few months, and his books were banned. This collusion between regime and patria (and God) devalued the concept, and that this is one of the reasons why, consistently, Spaniards prefer to be associated with their individual region rather than with Spain itself.

Anyways, I can remember the seriousness with which my father instilled in me the sacrality of la patria, describing the Arrabal case, and then roaring with laughter while telling that Arrabal apparently based his defense on two claims: that by “Dios” he meant the Greek god Pan, and that he had not written “Patria” but “Patra,” claiming that this was the name of a cat.

Yesterday, after discussing with the being the lyrics of La Marseillaise, I told her that she should run away from anybody taking la patrie very seriously. That, in my opinion, these people tend to think that their shit smells better than that of others. I guess that, if she remembers this, I will not care if she forgets what le régime féodal is. Feudalism is easier to explain, and way less damaging, than a non-sensical idea like la patria.