In a few days, our children and teenagers will go back to school. After courageously going through the last two years strewn with pitfalls, we are all excited at the idea of a new school year that promises to be “normal”.
The pandemic has allowed us to see the shortcomings of our education system. Several voices have been raised to call for changes, seeing it as an opportunity, as our Minister of Education would say, to “reinvent the school”.
We should have no illusions, the coming school year will have its share of failures and challenges. Will there be a shortage of teachers at the start of the school year? Certainly ! Will health measures be invited into our schools again? Possibly. Will students be back to the level of achievement we had pre-pandemic? Hard to predict.
Important questions
All these questions and so many more will be asked at the start of the school year. We absolutely must seize the opportunity to review our education system from top to bottom, rather than limiting ourselves to simple aesthetic changes.
This revolution will not come without effort. All will have to put their shoulder to the wheel and make compromises.
Unions will have to be open to reviewing certain paradigms in the working conditions of school staff. Service centers and school administrators must make their decisions with the aim of meeting the needs of students, and not with the aim of meeting accounting targets or protecting their image.
Teachers will have to find innovative ways to help students succeed and will have to accept certain new realities in their practice (digital and distance learning).
Parents will have to stop seeing the school as a consumable good where the customer is always right and support the school teams in their work. Finally, the students will also have to roll up their sleeves and redouble their efforts to make up for the academic delays accumulated over the past two years.
In the coming months, there will be several opportunities to promote ideas that could improve our education system (media, parents’ committees, citizen forums, etc.). All ideas should be put on the table and welcomed with an openness to change. The only proposal that should be refused from the outset will be that of the status quo.
A failure to avoid
According to the most recent polls, we will likely have a majority government for the next four years. If after eight years of majority government, we do not emerge with a completely revamped education system, it will be a sad acknowledgment of failure.
Like the major hydroelectric projects of the late 20th century, which were very expensive, but from which we all now benefit, we must see education as the next major collective project in Quebec.
In a highly competitive knowledge-based economy, Quebec will need educated youth to stand out. Education should no longer be seen as an expense, but as an investment that will pay off in the long term.
Quebec youth deserve that we invest in their education and their future. If we are really ready to “reinvent the school”, we will all come out winners.
So let’s all embark together on this great collective project with humility, openness and optimism for the future of our young people.
Photo archives Pierre-Paul Poulin
Simon Landry
Metropolitan area teacher