Avril Lavigne, Supporter of Core French Currculum Reform

As I was reading through an article on Avril Lavigne’s new multilingual single “Girlfriend” and I couldn’t help but laugh. Apparently the folks in marketing thought it would be a brilliant move for her to record the chorus in 7 different languages in an attempt to further break through overseas. Not a bad idea. But that’s not the thing that made me laugh.

Y’see, one of the languages chosen for the song’s reworked chorus is French and, despite her VERY French name, Avril doesn’t speak a word of it. This led the journalist (Karen Bliss) into a line of questions that prompted Lavigne to lament the fact that her parents never put her in French immersion classes when she was younger. Considering she’s a high school dropout, I’m not really sure how much good any immersion program would have done for her.

Bliss then takes a timeout during the article to indict the current core French program, saying,

“Considering how Canadian students are required to take French classes from public to high school, it's ridiculous that one doesn't graduate with at least an ability to have a conversation en francais. The curriculum needs to be changed.”

Naturally, this was accompanied by an appropriately supportive quote from Napanee’s former pop punk princess:

“It's so bad," Lavigne agrees. “No one knows (it). Yeah, we had French class every grade, but we didn't do anything. It's not very good at all.”

I don’t disagree with the content of what she said; I just find it funny that anyone would try to use Avril as a means of promoting French language education. It brought to mind the words of the late, great comedian, Bill Hicks, who said,

“When did we start listening to prepubescent white girls? I must have missed that meeting.”

Let’s not hold Avril up as a role model for today’s youth, okay? If anything, she should be used as a warning to anyone thinking of dropping out of school. Yes, she made it. Good for her. But statistically speaking, you won’t make it, so stay in school so you can make something of yourself. But that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong. Til next time…