For decades, education was barely talked about in the media. Currently, an article, a column or a letter is published every day, at the very moment when you make the choice to become a teacher. So I’m doubly looking forward to meeting you. In the meantime, I want to reveal to you some things that have remained silent.
You may have already heard criticism about you. Female education students would be the “dunces” of the university, they would have “no culture”, they would do nothing “effective” at the end of their baccalaureate.
It’s wrong. This machine to undermine your confidence as well as that of the company towards your future function is well oiled and profitable for many. There are political games that work to your detriment. What we don’t tell you enough is that you are already worth more than that.
Teaching is difficult, especially in a damaged network. We know it and we are not going to deny it. We will even work on it.
In the course on the orthopedagogy of reading, we will therefore study the characteristics of written language and its challenges. We will find how to teach and evaluate it with a wide variety of students using research, case studies, theoretical models, sequences of activities, etc. All these hours spent together will then be invested with the students. Knowing how to teach knowledge that you have mastered, without distorting it, prevents many problems in ordinary class, as in special class. If we told you, we would recognize the expertise of the teachers and that would be very expensive. However, this expertise, you will possess it and no one will take it away from you.
You will also write to me in the not so distant future to tell me that you, a young beginner remedial teacher, are welcomed as an expert in your school. We will find that failing to have common sense, it gives wings. We are currently careful not to tell you that thanks to this new balance of power, you will be able to play your game well and, at the same time, that of the students.
We are not talking to you about this educational community which sticks together, which is fearless and which is waiting for you. She is there, but she has other things to do than promote herself. It gives access to knowledge to pupils who, in the past, would have been sent home from the second year of primary school.
We are keeping quiet about the fact that your future colleagues are already taking Quebec students to the top of international assessments in mathematics, science and language, PISA (Programme international pour le Suivi des acquis des pupils) or, more recently, PIRLS (Programme international research in school reading). Your detractors must also bite into a lemon before recognizing it, so much these data are annoying to them.
Nor is it said that most of you will pass the Written French Certification Test in two tries or less. That your knowledge will stand out from that of other adults. That the great modesty of teachers does not serve the right people. That you will change lives and trajectories. That in class, you will meet the gaze of the students and that you will recognize yourself, just as I recognize myself when I meet the gaze of my students, during long semesters, which nevertheless go by at lightning speed.
There’s a lot of work ahead of us, but I’m expecting you in September to get started. Know that I am already ready.