The phrase ‘reality is beyond fiction’ took on its full meaning this week with the release of audio recordings of teachers yelling at their students in the middle of class. If these teachers’ “tick-ups” recall a scene from the series Happiness, went viral last year, its author, François Avard, admits to having “shivered down the spine” when he heard them.
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Who has not already seen this memorable sequence which opens the first season of the Happiness?
The main character of the series – an exhausted teacher played by Michel Charette – has a monumental crisis there by pouring his gall on his students (high school students), before lying down in the middle of the class having convulsions. .
The scene, co-written by François Avard and Daniel Gagnon, caused a lot of reaction when it was broadcast on TVA in January 2022.
While he can see a connection to the audio snippets of teachers yelling at their students heard over the past few days, author Francois Avard makes some distinctions between his humorous scene and reality.
“The stories of verbal abuse from teachers reported this week are chilling, as our scene with Michel [Charette]she amuses”, he argues.
Empathy for teachers
Having himself already taught at the National School of Humor, François Avard says he has a lot of empathy for teachers who have to deal with overcrowded classes and a shortage of manpower.
“I continue to believe that it’s one of the finest jobs in the world when it goes well and is practiced in good conditions. Unfortunately, I think [les contraintes de la COVID et de l’enseignement en ligne] got into them, to them, but also to the young people. The working conditions are not very favorable for them at the moment,” he says.
Joel Lemay / QMI Agency
Francois Avard
Experts interviewed by The newspaper share his opinion and wonder if our teachers are not now on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Fed up with requirements
According to François Avard, there are several distinctions to be made between the cases that made headlines and the crisis in the series.
“Our character’s ptage is aimed at that generation, but the big difference is that it’s much less personalized than what we heard in the audio extracts broadcast this week. The teacher in our series is not aimed at specific individuals or students. It’s more a fed up with the demands of that generation.
François Avard also insists on the fact that the character of his series was appreciated by his students and that he had never had this kind of behavior before.
“If we watch the entire episode, we see when, in the next scene, he goes into the office of the school principal to tell him that he wants to drop everything, recalls the author. He considers that he is no longer in his place because he is no longer happy in this job, and that he has exceeded the limits. It’s very different from the stories of teachers we’ve heard this week who seem to break their mark repeatedly.
burnout
Happiness tells the story of a high school French teacher who decides to leave everything behind to buy a farmhouse in the countryside. The teaching environment is not the main subject of the series, says Avard.
“The original idea of the series was to stage a character who fell into burnout and who decided to go and settle in the countryside. And the job that seemed most likely to us [d’entraîner un] burn-out, it was that of a teacher, indicates the author who also signed the cult series The Bougons.
➤ Series Happiness is broadcast on TVA.
Two excerpts from the scene that went viral
“You think you’re superior because you were born with an iPad in your hands and you think my classes are so flat because I’m just a human talking in front of you. I would be so much more interesting with a filter that makes funny faces with a tongue and dog ears!”
“Shut up, stingray face ostie, I’m not done. As you are the most stupid generation that the Earth has known, we simplify your life by changing words that we have used for centuries. We are slowly but surely returning to the mode of communication of Neanderthals. But you shouldn’t tell that, tabarnak, because you’re such precious little treasures for your bloody parents who aren’t capable of raising you like the world and who aren’t any brighter than the rest of you. Ostie that I’m tired, ostie that I’m exhausted.