is theater the key to orality?

Clément Viktorovitch returns every week to the debates and political issues. Sunday January 21: the introduction, announced by the Head of State, of compulsory theater classes in college from the next school year.

Making theater a shared practice: this was indeed one of the surprises of the press conference given on Tuesday January 16 by Emmanuel Macron. “As with music or the visual arts, I hope that theater will become an obligatory part of middle school from the next school yearsaid the President of the Republic. Because it gives confidence, it teaches orality, contact with great texts.”

Teaching theater in the same way as visual arts or music: if we succeed, it is indeed exciting. But there are some reasons for skepticism: firstly, training. To date, few teachers are trained in theatrical practice, even fewer in transmitting the dramatic art themselves. It will therefore be necessary to call on actresses to provide training, in pairs with teachers, as is already often done in theater workshops. Only, recruit thousands of actresses and actors by September: with what budget? And what human resources? The question arises – especially since theater is difficult to teach other than in small groups.

Furthermore, let us not forget that, in the same press conference, the president also announced the doubling of the hours of civic education, a strengthening of the history of art, more sport, more time for orientation… How are they going to fit all this into the middle school students’ timetable? Even though the former Minister of Education, a certain Gabriel Attal, announced that he wanted to refocus on fundamental knowledge? This all sounds like a complicated equation…

Beware of the “fossilization of heritage”

Encouraging an artistic practice is obviously exciting. A fortiori theater, an art from which, today, many people feel excluded – the president pointed out this, and in this he is right. What questions me more is the form that this teaching would take. Emmanuel Macron specifically insists on “contact with the great texts”. This is obviously a beautiful thing, but it would be a shame to limit ourselves to it. The researcher Marie Bernanoce, one of the great specialists in contemporary theater for young people, warns for example against what she calls “the fossilization of a past heritage theater”. What would be exciting would be to also work, in parallel, to bring out, through theater, the voice of middle school students themselves, to give them the opportunity to take part in the public debate, like the young citizens who ‘they and they are. But, of course, the risk would then be that they would tell us something other than what we would have liked to hear. Is the government ready for it?

It is true that theatrical practice allows you to acquire the foundations of oratorical art. Today, a large part of the speaking training is provided by actresses. And let’s be clear: this teaching has, today, become essential. One of the innovations of the Blanquer baccalaureate was to introduce the “Grand oral”, which students in the general and technological sectors are confronted with.

However, to date, high school students are faced with a triple inequality. Natural inequality, between shy students and those who are comfortable. Academic inequality, between students whose teachers take up their lesson time to prepare them for the Grand Oral – at the risk of never finishing the program, and those who are left to their own devices. Inequality of birth, between students who are born into a family of lawyers, professors, researchers, actors, journalists… and all the others. It is indeed essential that a form of oral learning be institutionalized as quickly as possible, in an attempt to erase these inequalities.

Teaching theater… and rhetoric

Theater can, in fact, help in the fight against these inequalities. Particularly in middle school, where it is undoubtedly a good way to understand orality. But we could go much further: learning to speak, defending one’s thoughts, structuring one’s argument, deciphering the speeches we fall prey to… This is also the heart of a completely different discipline: rhetoric. A discipline which I have allowed myself to suggest, for a long time now, that it be included in the high school program.

For example in first grade: a year of rhetoric for all students, before doing a year of philosophy in final year. This would help to forge critical, noisy, demanding citizens. In short, to paraphrase Condorcet’s ideal, “indocile citizens who are difficult to govern.” But is this, precisely, the ideal that the president has in mind? This remains to be demonstrated.