With their unique pen and their own sensitivity, artists present to us, in turn, their vision of the world around us. This week, we are giving carte blanche to Émilie Bibeau.
Posted at 9:00 a.m.
Sometimes, all of a sudden, life changes.
He was close to this change, two blocks away, but we hadn’t seen him coming.
” Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear “, it seems.
A few years ago, in the expression of the greatest cliché, that is to say “when I least expected it”, I became a mother-in-law. A magnificent role, both rewarding and ungrateful, intriguing and rich… I don’t want to paraphrase the heroes of Marvel badly or especially take myself for one of them, but we have to admit that with this role come with great responsibilities, and that even if we are not the biological parent, even if it is not necessarily our duty, in spite of ourselves, over time, we take part in the education of children. It’s not trivial, what we choose to bequeath to little humans who share our daily lives, build themselves and seek their place in the world.
From the outset, I must say that the education they receive at school is excellent. And their teachers, extremely dedicated, do more than what their task requires. But over time, I quickly came to wonder why the initiation to philosophy was not done in primary school, in the same way as music and physical education. Perhaps there would be a way to integrate it into an already existing course without increasing the workload of teachers?
Because even if we learn to listen, wait for our turn to speak, respect others, etc., teachers cannot take in hand the entirety of what learning to “live together” represents. And if, as Tire le coyote says, “childhood is a colonized territory”, obviously not everyone has the same chances at home.
On the other hand, everyone, without exception, at school or at home, wonders about the world around them.
In the comic book Alice and Simon ask each other a lot of questions by Pastorini, Grisseaux and Ohazar, we discuss with the children sensitive subjects such as: “Why do we exist? Can we decide to be free? What does i love you mean? Do we all need love? Do you think that disagreements are obstacles to discussion or a wealth? »
Also, the pandemic will certainly have confirmed to us that wanting to get out of a big or a small crisis alone is doomed to failure, that we are built to collectively get out of it and that living together, living in society with the obligatory limits that this implies can be learned.
On the airwaves of France Inter, Boris Cyrulnik said: “How to live in society if we do not forbid things? Society is the renunciation of a part of self-fulfilment, to let others flourish. In society, one must amputate oneself, restrict oneself, prevent oneself. »
What if we learned all this more fully from primary school?
We often complain that the society in which we live is sorely lacking in nuance, but what if nuance was already learned from a very young age?
Children are very encouraged to discover themselves and this is essential, but it seems to me that less emphasis is placed on how to live with others, how to nuance one’s thought and be able to meets that of others…
Especially at a time when thought is somewhat dislocated, scattered and often radical. A time when social networks take an important and sometimes worrying place in the expression of this often impulsive thought. A time when we grant others a great power of validation over our own lives.
Quoted in The duty last year, psychologist Nicolas Lévesque said: “Before, we had invented the idea that God watched us live. Today, it has been replaced by the eye of social networks. Someone looks at us and says: “I like, I validate what you are going through.” I wish us more independence in this regard. And children could now be made aware of this at a younger age.
Frédéric Lenoir, a popular French philosopher, brought this topical subject to France a few years ago and I think it’s an idea that shouldn’t be ignored. Because, more than ever, having tools that allow you to have a step back, a perspective on the world to come, especially at a time when children are bombarded with information and opinions in front of screens where we compare , where we find that everything is better elsewhere, where they are faced with all sorts of issues, including extremely serious environmental ones, this support seems essential to me.
As Nicolas Lévesque said again at the To have to “I think the future lies in humility. The essential remains in the shadows and I hope that we will learn to value a less spectacular commitment, sometimes invisible, but which makes a real difference and contributes to the common good. »
To be philosophically initiated into the common good from childhood seems to me a noble and necessary objective which should be concretely anchored in school reality. That and, of course, being vigilant about what we embody as role models.