In 2003, during the launch of Mélanie Chabot’s book Adult education in Quebec (1930-1980), I was sitting next to Claude Ryan. We were asked to talk about the situation of adult education in Quebec at the dawn of a new policy. So, hearing his deep voice unfolding ideas whose logical ordering was impeccable, brought back a host of memories of my work at the Study Commission on Adult Training (1980-1982). At the end of our presentations, he asked me to send him my text. Which I did and he did the same.
I found myself another time on the same platform as him and I was once again impressed by the quality, the logic and the depth of his words and also by his rather austere and monotonous beginning, but which was easy to listen to because of of the quality of the remarks made. Two years later, to prepare my contribution to the conference Rupture and continuity of Quebec society. Claude Ryan’s trajectory and correctly illuminate the genesis and evolution of his thinking on adult education, I returned to his life and his writings. Here I draw some extracts from this research entitled: Claude Ryan and adult education: a thought parked in the seal of continuity.
Remember that Claude Ryan grew up in the streets of Ville-Émard. One of his biographers, Aurélien Leclerc, wrote: “Claude was raised to fight in the street, but to think like a prince. » From 1944 to 1946, from the ages of 19 to 21, he took social service courses at the University of Montreal, but he abandoned his studies because, in his own words: “It was not serious enough and I didn’t really need it. » At the age of 20, he became national secretary of the French-language section of Canadian Catholic Action. It was therefore in his childhood and then in action and reflection on action that his ideas on adult education were formed.
Very young, he understood the importance of having a broad conception of adult education and he will always oppose education and qualifying training by constantly defending the idea that adult education must train a citizen, not only capable to earn a living, but also capable of getting involved and understanding the social and economic issues of his time. The working method of Catholic Action, based on “seeing, judging, acting”, will be a method of operation for him throughout his life.
In 1957, he published in The duty “Adult education in French-speaking Canada”. He mentions the dispersion of efforts, the fragmentation of energies, duplication and contradictory objectives. Some will say: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” »
From 1955 to 1961, he was president of the Canadian Institute of Adult Education. And in 1961, the Parent commission got involved. In an interview, he mentions: “We knew all the members of that commission, we had all known each other through different activities. Then, at a certain point, we made it clear to both Paul Gérin-Lajoie and the members of the Parent commission that they were missing out on adult education. So they gave me the mandate to prepare a special report on adult education for the Parent commission. » Thanks to its report, the authors of the Parent Report, taking up an idea already expressed by Claude Ryan, write: “the government has not, until now, coordinated its action and defined its policies of direct and indirect participation in the movement of adult education.
Based on its report, the Commission will formulate its recommendations and in 1966, in the new Ministry of Education, the General Directorate of Continuing Education will be created which will become the General Directorate of Adult Education in 1974.
Claude Ryan’s thoughts on adult education did not vary throughout his life. He wanted it to educate citizens in all its dimensions and, to do this, he wanted it to be equipped with supervision and pedagogy adapted to adults, open to all circles and through all possible distribution channels. He wanted it to be different from the schooling of young people and to have its own specificity.
As we come out of a strike during which we heard little about adult education, which still faces many problems, as Mélanie Hébert, president of the Autonomous Federation of teaching, we can wonder what its future will be. What place will it occupy in all the studies that will be pursued on our education system?