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We are not sure what a Centre d'Apprentissage is. The term means Teaching Center, but how that is different from a regular school if any we do not know. The commune (town) of Thaon is located in the Vosges area. It appears to be aki resort area. The Vosges Mountains are located in northern France close to the German border. We have two images from the school a decade apart. One was taken in 1950 of the younger boys at the school. The other was taken in 1960 of the older boys. The school looks to be a boys' school. Many of the boys wear smocks of different styles in 1950. We also see a few boys wearing smocks in 1960, but all wore the front buttoning style. Short pants were common in both photographs. Many of the boys in 1960 wear sandals. The weather looks warmer than in the 1950 photograph. Thus seasonality along with age and chronology are factors in the different outfits the boys are wearing. We note many boys wear knee socks with short pants in 1950, but not in 1960.
We are not sure what a Centre d'Apprentissage is. The term means Teaching Center, but how that is different from a regular school if any we do not know. A reader thinks that a better translation is Apprenticeship Center. As it is primary school (there is even aaternelle attached), the children are cleaely not apprentices or training to be apprentices. So the apprentices presumably are some of the teachers. The school was run by the Ministeré d'Education Nationale, Direcion de l'Enseigmemebt Technique. We think that means the Munistry of Educations's Directorate of Teaaching Techniques/Methods. The images seem to us indistimgushable from a ordinaryprimary school. The school looks to be a boys' school. Our take on this is that the school was a functioning primary school which was used to train new teachers just out of school or perhaps still in school. In America, university students studying to be teachers do practice teaching in their final year, but they do that in regular schools, not special schools. It could also be schools where new methods were tried out, but our take on French schools in the 1950s is that there was not a lot of experimenting with new methods. Hopefully some of our French readers will know more.
The commune (town) of Thaon is located in the Vosges area. It appears to be aki resort area. The Vosges Mountains are located in northern France close to the German border.
We have two images from the school a decade apart. One was taken in 1950 of the younger boys at the school. The other was taken in 1960 of the older boys. The school looks to be a boys' school. Many of the boys wear smocks of different styles in 1950. We also see a few boys wearing smocks in 1960, but all wore the front buttoning style. Short pants were common in both photographs. Many of the boys in 1960 wear sandals. The weather looks warmer than in the 1950 photograph. Thus seasonality along with age and chronology are factors in the different outfits the boys are wearing. We note many boys wear knee socks with short pants in 1950, but not in 1960.
One portrait was taken in October 1950 of the younger boys at the school. Many of the boys wear smocks of different styles in 1950. Here is a CM class at the Centre d'Apprentissage de Thaon in 1950. They would be the younger boys at the school. Notice the Maternelle boys in the background. Many of the boys wear smocks and short pants, many with knee socks. Some of the boys have rolled down their knee socks, or in one case they have fallen down. We notice both white and colored knee socks. The colored knee socks are probably grey. We notice various styles of smocks, both front and side-buttoning styles done in different colors. We do not noticeany back-buttoning smocks, a style that was common befire World War II. One boy wears ski-pants style long knickers, rather like Tin-Tin. Several of the boys wear sweaters. One boy has a scarf to keep war. The mountanous Vosges area in northern France has cooler weather than the rest of France, especially southern France.
Another class portait was taken in 1960 of the older boys at the school. They look to be about 10-11 years old. It was taken during the 1959-60 school year, but as the boys seem dressed for warmer weather we suspect it was taken during the late-spring 1960. A few boys wear light sleeveless sweaters and short-sleeved shirts. We also see a few boys wearing smocks in 1960, but fewer than earlier. All seem to be the front-buttoning labcoat style. It is unusual for there to be such similarity when the smocks were not required. Perhaps they were the only styles for boys available in the shops. We believecthat girls at the time still wore back-buttoning smocks. The teacher wears a similar smock. Short pants were common in both photographs. Many of the boys in 1960 wear sandals. The weather looks warmer than in the 1950 photograph. Thus seasonality along with age and chronology are factors in the different outfits the boys are wearing. We note many boys wear knee socks with short pants in 1950, but not in 1960. The shorter cut shorts or fairly standard. British boys at the time still wore longer shorts. Only one of the boys in 1960 wears knee socks. This could be the seasonality, but knee socks were declining in poularity with boys by 1960. Only one boy wears long pants. He may be an Algerian boy. We begin to see more French boys wearing long pants at school during the 1960s. None of the boys wear ties, but a few boys have buttoned their collars.
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