What should we think of a society which, while trembling for its language and its identity, is ready to sell out its culture at the first opportunity? This is the sad spectacle that unionized teachers are offering us these days with their work-to-rule strike, which is taking cultural outings hostage. A spectacle not only worn out, but sterile and lacking in imagination.
We must believe that shaking the cultural rattle pays off. Too easy too. This type of boycott has the merit of simplicity in a time of chaos and fury. No effort required for an immediate shock effect. Parents and children are unhappy, the cultural community is protesting? The public is adding to it? Easy ! Send your complaints to the employing state. In any case, he is already on the grill in this fall of feverish negotiations. How else to explain the fact that unions are still coming back?
Because it really has become a habit. “Shoot the pianist”, headlined Bernard Descôteaux, in 2005, in this same column, and for identical reasons, which were repeated, he wrote, for “the third time in six years”. “ [L]“Educational outings are neither a luxury nor a distraction,” argued Robert Dutrisac in 2018, in the wake of the class action on additional fees for parents. “Free art!” », urged our director, Brian Myles, again in 2022, on behalf of an environment unfairly kept under cover longer than others during the pandemic.
It’s like we’re preaching in the desert! Let us agree, the teachers’ demands are legitimate. We have written it here in all letters and in all tones: the profession deserves better. Salaries, working conditions, recognition, everything must be increased; support improved substantially. The fact remains that the end, no, does not justify all the means.
Yes, the school is overwhelmed. But culture is not a sweetness that we are content to sprinkle in times of felicity. It is an essential framework for the training of young minds.The Legault government has made culture at school a structuring element of its cultural policy. What all of Quebec applauded, it seems essential to remember. Its Youth Action Plan is in the same direction.
School environments have never been so equipped in this area, envelopes reserved for the key. Quebec offers, among other things, transportation, reimbursement of tickets or entry costs, and even covers replacement costs to allow teaching and educational staff to participate in the different phases of the selected projects. It also funds cultural workshops and visits or even artist residencies at school.
The Ministers of Education and Culture have a duty to defend these achievements. Since 2005, the law requires that student activities be an integral part of the teacher’s task. If, collectively, we have chosen to tighten all these bolts, it is because we know that the strength of our language depends on it. Beyond their lack of solidarity towards cultural workers who will once again pay the high price, the teachers are targeting an essential citizen mediation tool.
There is no other way to cultivate a taste for what you don’t know than to set out to discover it. A generation that grows up deprived of the enlightenment of its own culture will fill the void by throwing itself into the one that resonates everywhere in its ears and is everywhere before its eyes: American culture. We already have enough difficulty attracting audiences among adults, who massively fall into the trap of this culture of ease. If we also have to attack the audiences of tomorrow, we might as well withdraw now!
We too easily ignore the fact that the generation which is bearing the brunt of this new work-to-rule strike is already particularly weakened, culturally speaking. Several of these schoolchildren saw their cultural outings put on ice in 2018 only to lose them again in 2020, for the very long months of pandemic freeze. Depriving them of these breaths of fresh air again is cruel.
The message we send to these same young people is also irresponsible. They are told, in short, that art is incidental when nothing could be further from the truth. Studies have shown that cultural activities constitute an essential lever of motivation and perseverance for many students, in addition to contributing to their well-being, recalled in The duty professors Olivier Dezutter and Martin Lépine. Above all, it is a formidable driver of academic success. And a vector of commitment and integration.
In his column at Montreal Journal, Réjean Parent did not hesitate on Tuesday to disavow a “losing strategy” which has borne no fruit over the years. Not only does the end not justify the means, but it is reasonable to believe that the means, here, will never reach their end. Let’s free ourselves from the art of negotiation!