My colleague Jean-François Lisée has just launched a small bomb in the world of education. On January 18, under the title “The boomers, these racists! », he indeed reported the remarks, recorded without his knowledge, of a teacher who gives the course of ethics and religious culture in 5e secondary.
The comments made by her on racism in Quebec, and in particular among the boomers, caused a lot of reaction, to the point where the Parti Québécois is asking for an investigation into the “contempt for the nation” in our schools.
It is a complex and very controversial subject. But I think that the philosophy of education sheds important light on all this, and which everyone should take into account in order to pronounce themselves lucidly and in an informed manner.
The school as an institution
This happened in a school, this reality is fundamental and it has consequences that should be remembered.
The school is neither the private place of the family nor the civic place of the future citizen. It is a singular, median institution, over which parents and citizens certainly have a certain right of scrutiny, but not absolute or decisive, most of the time.
It is also intended for children or young people who are not yet adults, which imposes limits on what can be done and said.
Finally, it is addressed to them to transmit knowledge to them and thereby contribute, in a preponderant, even decisive way, to making them autonomous people capable of thinking for themselves.
This institution is for all these reasons singular and protected, both from some of the convictions of the family and from some of the debates or subjects discussed by the citizens.
We refuse, for example, and with good reason, that we approach young children with subjects that risk disturbing them. Above all, there is a fear, again with good reason, that students are being indoctrinated. A word is needed on this.
The school educates by transmitting, through a program agreed by society, knowledge that helps to build the autonomy of the subjects, to make them free, ideally capable of choosing a model of good life. But to indoctrinate is exactly the opposite: it is, when one has succeeded in doing so, locking the mind on a doctrine, a debatable and debated position, to which the subject will adhere unconditionally. How do we seek to achieve this goal? We talk about a doctrine by hiding that it is debatable, by hiding facts, by presenting only one point of view, by playing on emotions, etc. You got it, I think…
Back to our subject. What follows? Are the comments made acceptable? I see three crucial things to consider in order to properly think through all of this.
What follows
In my opinion, given the nature of the institution concerned, one cannot here, strictly speaking, invoke freedom of education (which must reign at the university) or freedom of expression (which governs the world of adults). A teacher is indeed required to respect a program and to take into account the age of the recipients of his remarks.
But he or she certainly has leeway to adapt his teaching. In this case, the program for the Ethics and Religious Culture course, for both secondary cycles, uses the word “racism” only once, in the context of the subject of tolerance that the course must address. But no one, I think, will reproach a teacher for devoting an entire lesson to racism in 5e secondary.
But it is the danger of indoctrination that must then be taken into account. What do you say, armed with the definition advanced above? The remarks reported by Mr. Lisée, if they accurately reflect what was said, are they indoctrination? In my opinion, yes. It would be serious. I specify that I am among those who fought the ECR course and wanted its replacement (which will be done shortly), in particular because I was worried about the uncritical way in which religion was discussed there.
There remains a question that concerns me and makes me uneasy. This lesson was recorded without the knowledge of the teacher.
First of all, it’s serious. What’s more, we live in a time when the boundaries between public and private are being redrawn, not always for the better. Our navigations in the virtual world are followed, watched; our movements in the real world too, in particular by our telephones. We are often, and without knowing it, filmed in public space, and at any time someone can film us with their phone.
What about school? Think of students filming a teacher without their knowledge, then putting it on the Web, without context, perhaps with modifications that technology allows. There is cause for concern. But let us return to the case at hand.
I am not a lawyer, but I can imagine situations where it would seem justified to record a teacher without his knowledge in order to bring something unacceptable to the public’s attention. The public interest would justify this way of doing things, say, to take an obviously fictitious and extreme example, if a teacher were promoting pedophilia in the classroom.
Can we argue that the public interest justifies this recording reported by Mr. Lisée, who preserved the anonymity of the persons concerned? According to you?