When I started studying sociology in 1963, at the University of Montreal, one of the most outstanding professors was called Guy Rocher. He taught us, with great ardor and conviction, the ABC of sociology while multiplying, with passion, the examples of all kinds, related to his participation in the famous Parent commission.
We were numerous in an amphitheater, and all listened. It was exciting, exceptional.
What emerged from the words and visions of Rocher was a gigantic dream, that of the significant improvement of the state of the Quebec people thanks to instruction, thanks to education, thanks to the democratization of the school system .
When we developed the university network, when we changed the entire school system, when we opened the CEGEPs, intended to replace the traditional course system and that of technical and trade schools, I think I know that my former teacher was delighted, overwhelmed, satisfied. The dream seemed to want to come true.
I started teaching sociology in 1966 at the classic externat in Longueuil, in the so-called Rhetoric class. It was still the classic course, a so-called elitist system (which I would qualify), and the students, for the most part, wrote well and were suitably prepared.
Then the college became Cégep Édouard-Montpetit in 1968. Having participated in the process of transition from the old system to the new one, I saw in almost everyone a vast hope for a school future that would sing and enchant the people of Quebec.
Disenchantment
During the years from 1968 to 1980, I found the transition to be satisfying, often wonderful. Then, over the years, gradually came a sad disenchantment. We were confronted with students who were less and less prepared in terms of reading and understanding texts, in terms of writing and written expression.
I taught sociology until 2003. I loved my work passionately, and I say this with total sincerity. However, I had had enough after 37 years. Asking for work, often asking for quite long written texts, and correcting them with all the necessary attention, it became more and more painful. The quality of the language left more and more to be desired, as did the ability to fully grasp the meaning of a text. Thought and language had to be corrected.
It’s 2023, after a tragic pandemic, and I keep hearing the grumblings of many people involved in the education sector.
The word that comes up regularly, a word often associated with the sociologist Max Weber, is the word “disenchantment”.
Recently, I listened with interest to the formidable Suzanne-Geneviève Chartrand, linked to the Parlons éducation forums, and I saw and heard grievances related to the observation of an almost global decline in the entire school system, 75 years after the manifesto Global denial55 years after the establishment of the new college system, after the creation of the University of Quebec.
I will never understand, that being said without misplaced elitism, how it is that in Quebec and in many so-called Western countries, we can make such dismal observations with regard to school.
It seems that ignorance and mediocrity have the wind in the sails of so-called postmodern history. It’s discouraging, confusing.
Liberation through school, many of us believed in it. Can we consider solutions? François Legault and Bernard Drainville will have to be convincing and efficient.