Last June, the department of indicators and statistics of the Ministry of Education published a study on the exits of secondary school students. In 2019-2020, there were 10,050 students considered to have left without a diploma or qualification and absent from the school system the following year. In 2018-2019, they were 9897; in 2017-2018, there were 9,510.
In front of these people of shadows, scratched and dented by school failure, in front of these lives wasted before having been lived, which remind us year after year, in front of these staggering figures, we remain speechless, flabbergasted. For the most part coming from schools in underprivileged areas, these shadow people show school failure, which leads irremediably to the abandonment of studies.
And the dereliction that affects these students is not feigned. Nay!
Social worker in schools in Montreal, I worked in schools in privileged and disadvantaged areas at the primary and secondary levels. By considering known and recognized scientific works in sociology, I was able to observe the effects of school mechanisms producing failure.
In favored environments, students’ marks in work and exams are very high. The traditional pedagogy used in these schools is perfectly appropriate and gives excellent results, especially because the school clientele is particularly homogeneous culturally. This is particularly noticeable when listening to the students. Their vocabulary is rich, nuanced and extensive. They frequent libraries and like to write. This cultural heritage, they owe it to their extended family and their social environment.
In disadvantaged schools, students’ grades oscillate between high results and, at the other extreme, many failures. Obviously, the traditional pedagogy used in these schools gives differentiated results. The main reason for this situation is linked to the fact that the school clientele is heterogeneous. Parents of students are in school, but others have not finished high school. As a result, students’ cultural heritage is diverse. Traditional pedagogy imposes on all students the same pace of learning, which does not affect them all. Some succeed on schedule; many others fail. It is in the order of things of this pedagogy and school routine.
In addition, the suffering experienced from childhood, social inequalities, school failures, failures that lead to exclusion are the result of a complex alchemy in which failure plays a decisive and primordial role in the social trajectory of people. This complex alchemy adds up social inequalities and ruptures, especially with school. Leaving the education system without a diploma and the very low educational level of people in distress largely explain their difficulty in integrating into the workplace.
From one year to another
School failures in schools in underprivileged areas, these dramas for pupils and their families, dramas which are repeated from one year to another, it is indeed the school which is at the origin of them through its pedagogy and its unique learning pace, as if the students were identical and all learned, all at the same time, at the same pace and were, at the same times, always present and available!
Deaf and blind to the reality it engenders, the school in underprivileged areas always posts astonishing results that it transmits in the report cards of the pupils to the parents. However, this ritual, this attribution of failure to the student and his family, does not hide the fact that it is the school in a disadvantaged environment that is failing. She thereby shows her inability to transmit knowledge to all students as it should be. The ideals of the democratization of education and equality of opportunity are flouted and set aside.
In secondary school, in some schools, the individualized pedagogy which respects the pace of learning of each pupil has been adopted by the teachers in particular to fight against the school failure of pupils in difficulty and to show that these pupils too could succeed. The student works in disciplinary modules, consults his teacher when necessary and takes the exams when he is ready. The teachers who told me about it will not return to traditional pedagogy. There are no more failing students. School results and the relationship with each student are essential values for them that they no longer want to set aside in their teaching profession. We must never lose sight of the fact that what most motivates students is not congratulations, but their success.
The possibility of implementing an individualized pedagogy with pupils aged 5-6 years, as has been done successfully elsewhere for decades for learning to read, using didactics developed on the basis of numerous researches, is a serious avenue that absolutely must be studied for preschool and all primary school. For secondary school, teaching materials exist and can be used immediately in schools in underprivileged areas.
It is imperative that a ministerial action plan to fight against failure and abandonment in schools in disadvantaged areas be promulgated by putting forward an individualized pedagogy. We must overcome school failure and exclusion which affect the most humble.
They too have the right to succeed in school.