Madame Julie leaves, happy

That’s it, Julie Déziel is no longer a teacher. After 34 years, she decided to retire. She plunges into another life, another life where she is no longer “Madame Julie”.

I am taking advantage of the first days after the end of classes to introduce you to a teacher who is happy to have been one and who would still choose to be a primary school teacher. There are thousands of them, like Madame Julie, despite the failures of the education system and its excesses, who loved teaching. We must not forget it, we must not forget them.

Teaching is an enriching, rewarding human experience. It’s about making a difference in the lives of children, hundreds of children who will grow up one day.

We talked just before his retirement recently. She leaves serenely, by choice, but she will miss a thousand things from the Rinfret school in Sainte-Ursule, in Mauricie…

The drawings and scribbles filled with I love you and of You are the best teacher in the world…

The sound of the old bell in the playground.

The smell of wet desks in June.

The apples placed on the corner of his desk, at apple time, autumn.

All the colors of the children’s snowsuits contrasting with the immaculate white of the snow in January.

Millions of Halloween and theme day disguises.

Introduce children’s literature to students, give them the reading bug.

Sleeping at school with the comrades, the day before a teaching session.

All the little names, in fact, that she gave to the students: my heart, my wolf, my darling, my treasure, my coco, my casserole, my big one, my big one…

Madame Julie taught in this small Rinfret school, the school she had attended as a child in the 1970s.

Teaching, “profitude”, as Julie Déziel says, was in her DNA: her grandmother, her mother, her goddaughter, her aunts, her cousins ​​and even her two daughters were or are in teaching.

She talks about a job that fulfilled her, about a strong bond with children. Madame Julie measures her luck: teacher in a small school, small groups generally, even if some were more rock and roll than others. She is proud to have, as she says, “sown grains of happiness” in her class.

Julie Déziel began her career teaching Bruno and Marie-France. She ends it with Florence and Noah. And at the last parents’ meeting, there were many of his former students among them…

She mentored young teachers and she always had the same message for them: “Create it, this meaningful connection with the students, that’s the key”, and this was, she says, her trademark .

“Every morning, I greeted my students by greeting them individually. Just three weeks ago, I was sleeping at school with my friends: I imprinted lifelong memories in their heads: playing hide and seek in the school, eating pancakes the next morning. Beyond learning, there is the relationship: a child who feels good, learns well…”

Madame Julie, in fact, only has one editorial message, it is for parents: please keep your children away from screens.

“For ten years, I have seen a major change in the portrait of young people and it is, in my opinion, quite alarming. What I taught young people ten years ago, today’s children are (generally) no longer capable of learning (the names of the planets, the provinces, the capitals, the rule of agreement of the past participle with avoir). The system has no choice but to lower expectations in order to promote the success of today’s young people…”

Julie Déziel describes children who are less attentive than before, who master a more limited vocabulary and who have more and more difficulty managing their emotions and accepting the word “no”…

Without knowing it, without references to scientific studies, Madame Julie describes exactly what concerns scientists when they study children born “in” the digital world.

“There are exceptions,” she hastens to add. My group this year was particularly “wow”. Yes, there are curious, valiant, motivated, empathetic little wolves capable of managing their emotions and organizing themselves over time, but alas, these are exceptional cases…”

Madame Julie still insists: she is retiring by choice, not by nauseating. She will miss a thousand little things that have woven her happiness, but, all the same, there are certain things she will not miss…

She will be able to read a sentence without saying “comma” and “period” out loud (!), speaking even to those who do not have their hands raised. No more corrections and report cards, no more committees, no more oversight. Julie Déziel can also wear sandals without a strap at the back…

“And find my first name, without “Madame” in front of “Julie”…”

So I say it one last time for Julie Déziel, but I also say it for all the teachers who retired this year, almost everywhere in Quebec schools…

Thank you, Madame Julie.