Alain Jean-Mary leads a double life.
His most famous life is that of the weekend. He presents the weather report to the Newscast Radio-Canada on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. If his face is familiar in Quebec, his voice is even more so: Alain Jean-Mary hosted on the radio for nearly 30 years. Sky, Relaxing Rock, Rhythm, Red, CKOI…
His second life, less known, also more recent, takes place away from the spotlight. On weekdays, Alain Jean-Mary trades in his weather maps… for the digital board in a classroom. He teaches French to secondary three students. In a public school. In an ordinary class, in the “regular” class.
On Facebook, this month, Alain Jean-Mary spoke about this new passion that drives him. Doing substitute work is for him a civic action, a response to the “call of the nation”. The Press went to meet him last Wednesday at his school in the northern suburbs of Montreal, between his morning and afternoon classes.
Contribute, in your own way
Alain Jean-Mary started doing substitute teaching in October, a few months after starting an online certificate in teaching support at the University of Quebec in Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT). But the idea of teaching had been working on him for a long time. He wants to contribute, in his own way, to inspiring the new generation.
Giving a French course is to help people understand the nuance and subtlety of the French language, to understand real business, and not to interpret it.
Alain Jean-Mary
Her father boasts a 35-year career in teaching. His sister is also a teacher. Alain Jean-Mary, 51, is therefore well placed to know that at the moment, in the public network, he is short of arms.
“There’s a shortage of teachers every day,” he says, showing us his cell phone screen. In his inbox, notifications showing a need for replacement follow one another. 9:55 a.m., 9:17 a.m., 8:43 a.m., 8:31 a.m. “And often it’s the same schools, the same classes. I deduce that, since the beginning of the school year, these children have not had a regular teacher,” says the father of four grown children.
Alain Jean-Mary draws a parallel with the people who came to lend a hand in the health system during the pandemic. His strengths are his knowledge acquired as an interviewer, his university education, his talent as a communicator. No need to talk to him for a long time to realize it: Alain Jean-Mary is a speaker, a real one.
The decades of animation he has behind the tie serve him well in the classroom, he says. He likes to walk around the room, playing with the tone of his voice. “At the moment, we are presenting the wonderful tale to the students, and I will change my voice to present the characters”, he illustrates. His students did not take long to discover his first profession. They are curious, ask him questions.
Stability for students
Alain Jean-Mary has chosen a part-time task (two classes, 16 hours per week) and he has agreed to stay until the end of the school year, to offer stability to the students. Before this mission, he did a replacement for a month and a half in a sixth-grade class, in a disadvantaged area. It did not discourage him, on the contrary. “I said to myself: I’m going to redouble my ardor so as not to escape,” he said. On Facebook, he described this first cohort with great love.
PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, THE PRESS
Alain Jean-Mary
Fired, anxious, curious, restless, talented, rambunctious, gifted, my students were all of this and more.
Alain Jean-Mary
He likes it, teaching?
“Many, many, many. Really,” said Alain Jean-Mary, getting up. Standing next to the interactive digital board, it looks like he is in full presentation of the weather. “I feel like I’m giving to society in a different way. When I give the weather report, I give explanations that I have refined to make it as concise as possible, the most interesting. But there, it is the citizen Alain Jean-Mary who is there, in front of a class. It’s concrete, ”he illustrates, tapping his fingertips on the desk.
Aspects of his new work surprise him. Pleasantly. The openness of young people to diversity. Mutual assistance between staff, too. When a colleague is absent, the others mobilize to replace him (Alain Jean-Mary even replaced the physical education teacher in his first school!).
Will he lead this double life until he retires? For now, he is focusing on his two classes. “I absolutely want it to work for them,” he says. And then we’ll see. »
Alain Jean-Mary reaches out to other professionals, those in business, science, the media and others who have the time and interest to do occasional teaching. While waiting for the shortage of teaching staff to fade, why not come and lend a hand? “Doing substitute teaching once in a while recalibrates things! “, he concludes.