“Teo [un élève du primaire] wanted to add these few words, dedicated to all children suffering from Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (SGT): “Don’t try to hold yourself back, it’s too tiring”, reads under the keyboard of Funny feather. A cry from the heart, which can also be read as a plea for a happier management of “differences” in our school network.
Quebec’s proven diversity inevitably has repercussions in the field of education. Are the criteria established at the formation of the class group now effective? The age, origin, first language, religion, family unit and existential experience of each postulate that today’s class is no longer made up only of students, but of individuals.
The group of students forming the class automatically has only the crossroads of the experiences of each, the very energy of its historicity. The obvious heterogeneity of student needs adds a sizeable challenge to the management of learning. Do all its learners find their place there? What about so-called “at risk” students, including young people with Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (SGT)? Those for whom the parents’ cry of hope, out of breath, finds little or no echo.
The school reform initiated in the early 2000s marks a turning point in the way of educating by explicitly recalling the mission of instructing, socializing and qualifying our education system.
Diversity and inclusion qualify the current of thought of this school reform, the foundations of which support social learning: we learn together by comparing our ideas.
Isn’t the classroom the space where already children, all children, “undertake the construction of a vision of the world”?
A personalized approach
TS is a complex disorder characterized primarily by tics. It appears around the age of six and can be accompanied by other disorders such as attention deficit disorder with or without hyperactivity, obsessive compulsive disorder as well as behavioral disorder, which can thus lead to difficulties in learning or adaptation. In Quebec, it is estimated that approximately 1 in 200 children has TS, according to data from the CHU Sainte-Justine.
The supervision of pupils therefore depends on both the severity of the tics and the associated disorders. The privileged educational approach must, rightly, be personalized. In fact, while some students show mild or discreet manifestations of tics, such as blinking or coughing that are completely socially acceptable, other students may show more apparent tics, such as skipping, slapping, dog, profanity or insults, reminds us of the Center for Neuropsychological Assessment and Pedagogical Orientation (CENOP). Unfortunately, these clues, often misunderstood and related to behavioral problems in the student, will harm him throughout his academic and professional progress.
Consequently, a humanist vision of education, based on the idea of openness of experience, on the needs and on the interests of the pupils, would it not reinforce “the confidence that adult in the ability of each child to develop their full potential? is suggested in ÉDUCatout.com, the online family and early childhood magazine.
While several professionals, such as psychologists, pediatricians, psychiatrists or neurologists, may be involved in the diagnosis and treatment of TS, behavioral therapy for tics remains highly recommended and can be done from the age of nine. It would therefore be a priority to train or raise the awareness of school psychologists and other stakeholders in this approach.
As it must be admitted that a child can wait until the end of his 5e year of elementary school before receiving a diagnosis of TS, he will have lived six years during which the reprimand will have served in vain to impose on him a way of acting, for him, impossible: stop moving, stop making noise, raising your hand before speaking are just a few examples illustrating the cause.
We isolate him, when he needs to learn to recognize social codes, and we change schools when his school workers are overwhelmed, when their primary needs are simply poorly established. However, isn’t the environment of a child at this age decisive for his full development? Consequently, the support necessary for its success takes a poorly traced trajectory, the obstacles of which tarnish merit and amplify the avoidable risks of academic failure.
Students held hostage
We even see these “out-of-school” children, because the school does not have the “resources” to manage learning, even if these children generally have abilities that are comparable to the average of children of their age. A reflective approach inviting professionals, adults and all students, with regard to the school injustices that hold these students hostage, is essential.
Nobody here is trying to blame teachers or school staff, who care about helping their students. However, there are very few teachers whose training allows them to properly supervise the SGT child.
The SGT is little addressed or absent from the initial training of teachers, because it is not explicitly part of the codes that can be attributed to these learners by the Ministry of Education. It should be understood that the “curriculum” cannot explore all of the diagnoses, the relevance of which does not meet the professional skills to be developed in students.
In research in the sciences of education, the importance of giving more space to the voice of students, like Téo, is increasingly recognized.
This article joins the clash of ideas of fellow researchers Marie-Ève Boisvert, Mélanie Paré and Nathalie Trépanier. It benefited from the collaboration of D.r Yves Dion, retired psychiatrist and resource person in the causes of the SGT, and the Association québécoise du syndrome Gilles de la Tourette (AQST). All call for change.
Ultimately, “if there is anything stable in education, it is change”! to quote Towards an educational management of the classroom by Jean Archambault and Roch Chouinard.