I would like to tell you about the public primary school where I work, located in the heart of the Saint-Laurent district. Let me describe to you how life is without light. An unsanitary establishment due to staff shortages, the school seems to be decaying. The walls, the floors, the lockers, the schoolyard. Everything needs to be reviewed. And I would like someone to explain to me how the architects could imagine flanking a wall a few meters from the windows of my classroom.
Please also explain to me how it is that on the same street there is another school enjoying an idyllic environment. Wall art inside and outside, synthetic soccer field, climbing wall, two-story installation of a sculptural work by Michel Goulet, skylights, lush flowerbeds.
Is there a limit to this deception? What is this clever division of alienating school territory which means that a less fortunate student finds himself cut off from the horizon, from beauty, from the hope of getting out of his misery?
But these are not the reasons that motivate my cry, my unfathomable howl at the hypocrisy of this school service center which prides itself on being a model employer and, like a peacock, boasts of having the highest success rate of its students in Quebec.
How could we have been so blinded by this desire for prestige to the point of sweeping under the rug the children with open wounds who wander in these sad corridors with peeling paint?
I’m talking about the little attention we pay to these children for whom academic success is the least of their worries.
These brave students who leave the house grimacing in pain because of the blows with a metal spoon or slipper their parents preemptively gave them, telling them to have a “good” day.
There are my first graders who I ask every day to ask how they feel (am I the only one who cares?) and who tell me about the anger, sadness or fear that is causing them. lives when starting their day.
Not surprising, however, since, in my group, some students for whom I had to report to the Youth Protection Department (DPJ) rush to the four corners of the class kicking to the stomach of comrades in bursts, like a serial killer. Sometimes you have to call things what they are.
What do the parents of classmates whose safety and mental health are weakened do? Nothing. They do not know the levers, do not speak to the management or the student’s protector.
During these unfortunately recurring incidents, despite the calls made, the workers, special education technicians, psychoeducators, members of management, are slow to respond to me since they are already busy putting out other fires elsewhere in the school. Obviously, there aren’t enough people on the floor there either.
Once they are there, their interventions, despite the best coordination of efforts, are blatantly ineffective. We pass the hot potato around, blinded by the desire to rehabilitate what is perhaps broken forever. At some point, we must accept that these issues go beyond the scope of a so-called normal school.
And what can we say about all the students, five to ten a day, who reappear in class after recess with a sticker on their torso reading: “Injured in the head” because they were thrown onto the cement by other students who choose to play violent games.
The young victims then become visible to everyone in case the fall causes complications. No one is available to observe the signs of a concussion, so these students come to be under the protection of every adult in the school. Curious approach! But do we have other options?
Now that I have described, in broad terms, the drama that plays out in this too large school (more than 600 students), where each transition within the school is a source of shouting, running and conflicts. potential, I am very keen to explain why this school is ultimately and despite everything sunny.
I cannot ignore the admirable commitment of the staff of this sad school. Colleagues stand together. Warmth, laughter, even happiness, emanate from everywhere despite the gloom of the place.
A fairly stable team of experienced teachers works in pitiful conditions, let’s face it, but they don’t give up.
Very close to the end of my career and bordering on professional burnout, given the heaviness of the task and the lack of consideration and awareness for the conditions of teachers in our government, I will probably never set foot in a school again . However, I welcome the next generation, it is the most beautiful job in the world, if not the most important.