Truffaut & Truancy
How "The 400 Blows" relates to the Modern Chronic Absenteeism Crisis
One of the joys (or horrors) of revisiting old films is often realizing how little has changed at all, as was the case when I first saw Francois Truffaut’s The 400 Blows. The legendary French director’s most commercially successful film and one that holds its place in countless directors’ and critics’ personal canons, The 400 Blows follows a 14-year old Parisian boy named Antoine, portrayed by a young Jean-Pierre Léaud. Antoine is plagued with a number of problems in his young life - abusive, neglectful parents, negative interactions with discipline at school - and resorts to a pattern of truancy and juvenile crime as a result.
Teaching in the classroom with early teenagers at the time, I oddly saw many of my own students’ qualities in Antoine. Of course, this is not to say any were engaging in petty crime, without loving families, or suggesting any other harmful assumption about their lives, rather that The 400 Blows captures a certain teenage ambivalence and lack of connection that feels relevant today - not only in my personal relationships with students, but as it relates to one of the major conversations in our current education landscape: truancy and chronic absenteeism.
Traveling from Paris of the 1950s to the modern United States, here’s some of what we know:
Almost 30 percent of students nationwide were absent in the 2021-22 school year.
Nearly 70 percent of the highest poverty schools experienced widespread, chronic absenteeism in the 2021-22 school year, compared with 25 percent before the pandemic.
School districts have resorted to hiring private companies for a “reimagined version of the truant officer”
Despite the troubling numbers, we still don’t have an excellent understanding of why students are chronically absent - each student, like Antoine, has their own unique challenges in getting to and staying in school. Reasons vary, and there is some debate as to whether we should be primarily addressing logistical barriers to attendance (limited transportation, unstable housing, irregular work schedules for parents/guardians) or attempting to increase students’ desire to come to school. As Hedy Chang, founder of AttendanceWorks, puts it, “When you see these high levels of chronic absence, it’s a reflection that the positive conditions of learning that are essential for motivating kids to show up to school have been eroded. It’s a sign that kids aren’t feeling physically and emotionally healthy and safe. Belonging, connection, and support — in addition to the academic challenge and engagement and investments in student and adult well-being — are all so crucial to positive conditions for learning.”
I’ve seen chronic absenteeism described as a devilish “chicken-or-the-egg” problem, which is perfectly embodied by Antoine - he does not form meaningful relationships with adults at school, therefore he has little to no interest in going to school - which repeats throughout the course of the film. We see this parallel in real life, where a number of experts have argued meaningful relationships are a key aspect of the solution to chronic absenteeism.
Importantly, Truffaut does not portray Antoine as beyond saving or completely unwilling to engage - in fact, a pivotal inclusion in the film is in his relationship with the French novelist Honore de Balzac. This interest takes an upsetting turn, with Antoine directly plagiarizing Balzac for an assignment, but I think it still gives us a valuable perspective. As of 2017, only 54 percent of middle schoolers felt their studies felt their learning was relevant, and anyone who has led a middle school classroom knows that when a student expresses an academic interest, it’s usually best practice to lean into that as much as possible.
Ultimately, the ending of The 400 Blows is ambiguous and leaves a lot of room for viewers’ interpretation - I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by saying Truffaut doesn’t really grant us any resolution as it results in Antoine's life or future (though you should check it out for yourself). Despite technological changes and a general ease of access not available to educators in the 1950s, this still felt real, too, when I first saw the film - often the students we’ve taught go on to new schools, move, or disconnect from our community in some other way; in other words, there are those students we’ll still never find on a social media search when we have the random wondering of “what ever happen to that student?”
The 400 Blows (1959) is currently streaming on Max, The Criterion Channel, and Kanopy.
If you’re interested in supporting an organization doing great work to reduce student absenteeism, I’d highly recommend the aforementioned Attendance Works. If you enjoyed the piece, please share with a friend and/or leave us a tip.