Twice a month, The duty challenges enthusiasts of philosophy and the history of ideas to decipher a topical issue based on the theses of a prominent thinker.
Many voices are calling for the holding of a Parent 2.0 commission in order to develop a vision of education and a framework for action that are in line with the new challenges that are emerging. In the Quebec imagination, the Parent commission (1961-1966) is a mythical event.
It is mainly Normand Baillargeon, philosopher of education, who proposed this project. He recalled in 2019 in The duty “I called this project the Parent 2.0 commission. A friend mischievously assured me that with the ambient technophilia, my name was already out of fashion and suggested renaming it the Parent 5G commission. The same year, Christiane Labrie, MP for Québec solidaire, took up this idea, but Premier Legault rejected it, claiming that Québec was at the action stage with the education proposals provided for in the CAQ electoral program. In January 2021, an open letter signed by 245 personalities – including Guy Rocher, member of the Parent 1.0 commission – revived the project. The second volume of the biography of Guy Rocher (Pierre Duchesne, The sociologist of QuebecQuébec Amérique) published recently allows a better understanding of the issues related to the original Parent commission.
The writings of the French philosopher and sociologist Edgar Morin, who makes the principle of complexity the vector of his scholarly work, suggest that he would be in favor of this broad reflection on the Quebec education system. He turned 100 on July 8, 2021 and he is still active in the public space.
Three major school issues
Among the issues on the agenda of such an exercise—issues in the sense of spaces of meaning where agreements and disputes between actors are actualized—three are structuring: the training program of the Quebec school , the training of teachers and the new school governance introduced in 2020. Each of these issues can be defined thanks to the dialogical principle, one of the vectors of Edgar Morin’s method for exercising his “sociology of the present”. Dialogic is the association of both complementary and antagonistic elements. It is a useful instrument for accounting for the complexity of social facts: what is complex is what is multiple and uncertain. The antagonistic positions must thus be located on a continuum which unfolds from one to the other of the two poles, with as many options as there are points on this axis.
The training program of the Quebec school is a structured set of elements that allows the realization of the educational project. Its components are rooted in the realities of contemporary Quebec. Its implementation is based on the development of skills, ie the acquisition and mobilization of resources, including knowledge. What should be the contents of this program for the Culture and Citizenship of Quebec course or for the sexuality education course? Should we teach computer coding and entrepreneurship? In literature, should we favor the corpus of founding works or choose recent works, likely to reach a young readership driven by the here and now? Should we insist on the development of skills or on the acquisition of knowledge? The points of view are contrasting.
For some, the training of teachers is adapted to the requirements of the profession. Obtaining the patent requires the successful completion of a four-year university program which also provides training in the field. For others, this training is incomplete: the admission requirements are insufficient and the exit profile is poor. Quebec is experiencing a shortage of teachers, so tolerances are legion: provisional authorizations granted to people whose initial training has not been completed, probationary permits issued to those who have taken training outside Canada, commitment tolerances allowing the hiring of non-legally qualified persons. In order to counter the shortage, there is this ministerial desire to offer new differentiated paths giving access to the profession for people from diverse backgrounds. A call for ministerial projects made it possible to financially support original projects relating to these new pathways. Qualifying master’s programs in secondary education have existed for a few years, but those in preschool education and primary education are rolling out from 2021, which is relevant for some, but heresy for others. Since 2020, the law imposes mandatory continuing education for teaching staff.
The new model of school governance aims to depoliticize the dynamic and bring decision-making closer to students through the establishment of boards of directors. The French school boards became school service centres, but the English school boards continued to operate according to the old model, with an elected council of commissioners, for reasons contested in court. This situation marks the dualistic nature of the model, which generates inequities. The Ministry of Education claims that the new model contributes to decentralization, while many actors see it as centralization. Its implementation is laborious, especially since the duties of reserve and loyalty imposed on members of boards of directors restrict their freedom of speech. The political dimension of their work is evacuated, but it is important in a context where education, a common good, is based on values.
What Edgar Morin wrote
Edgar Morin has all the ages of his life, as he likes to recall from the observatory of his 100 years. He is also linked to all the peoples of his Land-Fatherland. Quebec holds a special place in his heart. He was the husband (1963-1979) of Johanne Harrelle, Quebecer top Modelsinger and film actress All things Considered (1963) by Claude Jutra. He had the opportunity to associate with the intelligentsia of the Quiet Revolution, notably “the good” René Lévesque, as he calls him in his memoirs. “Through Johanne, I was able to meet some of the protagonists of the beautiful quiet revolution which, in a few years, decomposed and reduced to crumbs the carapace of conservative Catholicism which had safeguarded the French-speaking identity of Quebecers” (Memories come my way2019).
Edgar Morin interprets crises according to the dialogic principle: “Crises aggravate uncertainties, encourage questioning; they can stimulate the search for new solutions such as provoking pathological reactions” (How to live in times of crisis?, 2010). The end of the crisis is for him a relevant moment to learn lessons and change course (Let’s change lanes. The lessons of the coronavirus, 2020). The health crisis adds to the many other crises (ecological, values, politics, etc.) attributable to the globalization movement (The way, 2011). The end of the health crisis would therefore be a good time to rethink the Quebec school system and discuss its issues.
Edgar Morin’s educational project is presented in several works, notably in The seven knowledge necessary for the education of the future (2000), sponsored by UNESCO, but commissioned by the French Ministry of National Education, which rejected it, considering it revolutionary. His educational thought calls for a reform of the education system, but above all for its overcoming, “a term which means not only that what must be exceeded must also be preserved, but also that everything which must be preserved must be revitalized. It forces us to rethink not only the function, I would even say the teaching mission, but also what is taught” (Teach to live. Manifesto to change education2014).
If we interpret his writings, what would Edgar Morin’s position be regarding the three issues presented earlier? In connection with the training program of the Quebec school, it sets its desirable end: to teach to live well for oneself, for others and for the human species. As he campaigns for relevant knowledge, he would no doubt agree with the idea of instrumentalizing knowledge in the service of the common good. Its seven knowledge to be taught, including understanding, the human condition, earthly identity, can be translated into skills. Competency 1 of the teaching profession reference system, updated in 2020 – to act as a mediator or mediator of elements of culture – would please him. As for the training of teachers, its transdisciplinary posture suggests that it would adhere to the idea of new differentiated pathways giving access to the profession to people from diverse backgrounds. It would undoubtedly opt for a model of political governance of the deliberative type, oriented towards the promotion of values, far from the model chosen marked by a managerial drift where the modalities of the system are privileged in relation to the ends.
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