This text is part of the special book Francization
“For two years, I have the impression of being back in class,” says Catherine Ethier, screenwriter and host of Bell ring, a podcast series produced by the Autonomous Federation of Education (FAE). “I learn with each episode. It puts terms on all the issues that concern me, such as the three-speed school or inequality of opportunity. »
It was the union that approached her with the idea of trying a new mode of union communication that would tackle serious issues through humor and an offbeat tone. “In my posts, I had sometimes approached teaching through what a teacher friend told me. The FAE didn’t need to convince me for very long. »
If the often perky tone of the series is a bit of the trademark of Catherine Ethier, this choice to press on it is also explained by the pandemic. “For the first episode, which appeared in June 2020, we wanted to instill a little hope at the end of a school year which ended in a fishtail”, she confides.
Having interviewed dozens of teachers, she says she was particularly touched by the challenges of francization in classes welcoming immigrants. “By judging newcomers on their ability to learn, sending them to learn French in disused schools and abandoned pharmacies, and teaching them how to write postcards or buy a sofa … »
For episodes 9 and 10, which will focus on sexual and gender diversity, she says she was upset by her encounter with a transgender person. “As a feminist, I am very aware that women must live with a level of vigilance that men do not know. But a transgender person is in a world of hypervigilance and intersectionality even drier than mine. Even at work, she can be attacked. This interview really marked me. »
A lack of collective ambition
Catherine Ethier describes herself as a pure product of private school, and since she has no children, she has never had to grapple with a public system that she describes as “unappealing”. “Each episode, I am surprised to see how much we lack ambition collectively. It is blatant and saddening. Our school is established to produce manpower. We come out of the functional illiterates, whom we release into the wild, and who will become “labour”. Then we forget them and we have the impression that everything is going well. »
As for the large research files that she has to go through, they do nothing to dull her capacity for indignation, quite the contrary. The president of the FAE, Sylvain Mallette — who led the brainstorming sessions during which the name of Catherine Ethier emerged as a possible facilitator — welcomes this choice. “She has a political reading of our issues, which we had already noticed in her tickets to the show Gravel in the morning. »
Guillaume Tellier, the director and co-designer of the podcast, and whom Catherine Ethier does not hesitate to describe as its co-screenwriter, was impressed from the start by her empathy and her talent as an interviewer. “For each interview, we prepare our questions, and I formulate others in reserve, but Catherine has a talent for putting people at ease and asking a question that is a little off topic, which takes the interviewee elsewhere. . »