It was going well though. At the age of 5, he was selected for the International School of the district, a selective and public primary school which sorts its “elements” based on aptitude tests. Some parents were already preparing their kids with exams and tutors in order to be accepted into kindergarten.
It got worse in the third year. The teacher told us that our son had a “dropout profile”. The reason ? No, not drugs or delinquency. In third grade, you’re 8 or 9 years old… No, his low marks in reading were “the” harbinger of a worrying future that breeds anarchists. We were flabbergasted. In any case, from the fourth year, students integrate the notion of competition, performance, evaluations, exams and grades. The secondary school entrance exams are approaching; you have to qualify.
We still say “strong” students and “weak” students, even in advanced schools where pedagogy is a mixture of collaboration, benevolent psychology that has proven itself with dolphins and constructive mentoring. Weak…it’s imprinted in your brain for life. Afterwards, you have to go rebuild yourself at the gym every day by pushing iron. To become “strong”.
But I digress. In the third year, we were already desperate. What ? ! Our son, worthy heir to meritocracy (I’m ironic), one of whose grandfathers was Minister of Education, was already stigmatized? “Our” school career was a long ulcerative colitis from which we are barely recovering. I’ll spare you the details. I didn’t dwell too much on the education system all along; I was waiting for him to come out.
Our education system reflects these social classes. It’s a failure — I would even call it a betrayal — of what we wanted.
He dropped out of CEGEP, tired, worn out, anxious, demotivated, deprived of a vital impulse: curiosity. And with the firm certainty that it was not worth a nail, the famous self-esteem. Thanks school. They are about 30% like him, who do not finish their CEGEP. My son’s friends pick up one after the other.
Ah! I forgot ! As the teachers are stretched and overworked (have you heard the screaming teacher at the Grands-Vents school recently?), we are strongly advised to medicate our children; the teachers already are, that’s not enough. About 40% of students in class 5e my son batted their eyelashes under special effects (the teacher spilled the beans in front of us). And we were encouraged to do the same. To get better grades, of course. Or to put him in a chemical tank top, I never really knew.
In high school, it’s worse
The secondary only drove the point home. Our son had already stalled in his head. Basketball helped him. We had chosen the school for that, sport option, send the expense, we could. We hoped that would save him. Not the private, the ball. He was good, one of the “hopes” of the team. Coaches saw him in college sports. They pushed. My son liked the ball, but not the pressure. He broke down: anxiety attacks. Finished basketball at 14. So much for the NBA…
The school had once again subjected him to its law of performance. Steps from the game — the best way to learn — no, points. To be a winner so that you can crush the others afterwards.
I pass over – without accusing the teachers who are very powerless – a teaching based on brainwashing, as useless as it is stupid. Learning the parts of the eye in science, what does it mean? In the XXIe century, with Google at your fingertips? And make them read The count of Monte Cristo ? Good luck… And after that we are surprised that 75% of young people who drop out say they are bored at school… (bit.ly/3LQ6uyp).
I chatted about performance with the director of the recent and excellent documentary The school differently (Tele-Quebec). Érik Cimon has worked three and a half years on the subject, interviewed 80 people in the system and offers real solutions put forward by the community, not by civil servants who send their children to the private sector. Four teachers — for dozens of refusals — courageously agreed to speak on camera.
As a student, I consider that school stole my adolescence. I was top of the class, huh? I got bored there. I was not happy.
The reform of the minister who cries over the third link instead of bawling over our education system? The director does not believe it: “It will not prevent young people from dropping out. Neither do the teachers, moreover, of whom nearly half drop out of the baccalaureate and of those who finish, 50% will not last in class for five years.
In the film, we question the evaluations: “You have to have a good grade, otherwise you won’t be able to go to the right school, and you won’t get the right job, Érik Cimon points out to me. From the fourth year, the children have integrated it. In sport-studies, it’s the same, if you’re good, you’ll do cash. School is a reflection of the capitalist system and it makes people unhappy. Teachers drop out for the same reasons as young people. The cursed performance.
The extinguisher school, a principle of excellence
Professor Sylvain Larose (I already told you about it here: bit.ly/3NW03fU) is part of the documentary The school differently. He emphasizes to me that school has become a machine for graduating, not for learning to think. “For 10-20 years, everything has been geared towards success, not learning. I’m not surprised that brilliant students drop out. We are not there for the student, we are there to serve the State. We want good students who will make good workers who will enrich people who are already rich. It is the anarchist who speaks…”
In addition to teaching history in high school and being an anarchist, Sylvain teaches didactics in the social universe at the University of Montreal. He tells me that only 25% of his students have what it takes to become a teacher. Teaching is a plan B or C for the most part. Because of wages and conditions. But the most depressing is coming: “There are studies that show that creativity among young people is enormous in kindergarten and the more it advances, the more it drops, Sylvain tells me. We normalize the young. He comes in with mind-blowing creativity, he comes out extinguished. We drop out of school because it’s boring. It is not significant. It is a school that feeds the student, instead of a place that feeds his natural curiosity. »
It is not the most creative who complete this obstacle course. This is the tragedy of our education system. And of our whole society.