Quote:
Originally Posted by bikegypsy
Charlebois, preceded by 7 years au Lycee Claudel. My brother actually attended Samuel Genest.
As you know, birds of a feather flock together, and the student body at Charlebois in the mid 80s was big enough to have large groups of all sorts including lots of Europeans. Lots also from French speaking north Africa and Lebanon, even Egypt. I would say that a large minority of people gave the double kiss cheeks when meeting after weekends for example. When I come across an old Charlebois school mate, I can tell she expects the double cheeks.
|
In the 1980s and into the first part of the 1990s, Samuel-Genest was sort of the poor-man's Lycée Claudel. (Not that the families were generally poor - but it was a cheaper alternative.) Many ambassadors' kids went there, as did Jean Chrétien's son as well (Chrétien was a Minister at the time.)
Charlebois does not exist anymore as you probably know, and the francophone schools that replaced it in that part of Ottawa are now more diverse than ever before.
Interestingly enough, the vast majority of the people I know who went to Samuel-Genest (and also De La Salle and some others) and who know live in central Ottawa inside the Greenbelt (ie those who have not settled in Orleans or the Quebec side) send their kids to Lycée Claudel today.
They say that Samuel-Genest, De La Salle, etc. aren't "like they used to be". Not sure if that is elitist double-speak or anything like that... Many of the people who say these things aren't of French Canadian origin themselves, and are of various origins like North African, Lebanese, Haitian, Asian, French, Belgian, Swiss, Portuguese, etc.
It's quite obvious that in my generation (late 30s to early 40s) there is a significant "flight" of élite francophone families from the public schools (including the Catholic schools here) in Ottawa-inside-the-Greenbelt towards Lycée Claudel.
You don't see this so much in Orléans where the vast majority of kids go to the publicly funded schools (public or Catholic).