Tradition!

Each season brings its rituals and traditions. One such, in the pre-schools and, sometimes, the elementary schools of France, is the celebration of Carnaval. On the appointed day, the whole school dresses up and parades through the streets of their neighborhood with music, confetti and noisemakers. In the real world, Carnaval takes place sometime between the end of Christmas and the beginning of Lent.
But the Education National’s version combines practicality with ritual and takes place later in the school year – when the weather is more likely to be sunny. A popular time for it is the day before Spring Break
Tne characteristic of a tradition is that sometimes the why of it is lost in the mists of time. I asked several teachers how long Carnaval – linked, after all to a Catholic religious observance -- had been going on in the adamantly secular French schools. No one seemed to know. But each year, when the time comes, it happens.

Carnaval requires a lot of organization. Teachers decide on the costumes for their class and help little hands cut; color and glue the parts together. The school’s principal coordinates with one or more neighboring schools that will participate on the same day, finds the musical group that will lead the parade (or this year the car with loudspeaker)

and informs the city so that police can be detailed to the route and traffic stopped for an hour or two.

Parents are recruited to help the principal and the police with traffic control

or walk in the parade with the children to keep everybody together.

The fun of a tradition has to be learned --- as all parents who have ever pulled a distraught toddler off Santa’s lap know. The three year olds I read to on Friday afternoons have already learned a lot this year. By now, when their beloved teacher tells them it’s time for a story, they go sit in the “story circle.” When she tells them it’s time to string beads, they go to their group tables and string them. During the last few weeks, though they have obligingly made Carnaval costumes and learned a Carnaval song, they still had no real idea of what they were preparing for. But when Christine said that it was time to dress up in their costumes, get their faces made-up and walk in the street singing their song, they obligingly got ready.

Some seemed to understand more about the fun of this than others.

But all understood about holding your buddy’s hand.

About 300 children and 100 adults took to the streets on a sunny spring morning.

There were spurts of joy – when the little ones saw a neighbor watching at the window, for example.

And it’s always fun to blow a whistle! (Though there is some learning involved here, too. One of the little girls put the whistle in her mouth and squealed instead of blowing. “Shanone, blow out the candles on your birthday cake,” I suggested. It worked!)

Mostly, this year, it was just a very long walk.

We grown-ups know, though, that next year will be different. Just look at last year’s little ones.

And siblings are waiting in the wings. In a year or two it will be their turn to discover the joys of Carnaval.