The Minister of National Education, Gabriel Attal, draws inspiration from models present in countries like Denmark.
“The best way to fight is to raise awareness, to explain, to prevent.” Elisabeth Borne presented, Wednesday September 27, the interministerial plan to combat harassment. To successfully stem this devastating phenomenon in schools, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Education notably announced the establishment of empathy course, like what exists in other countries, such as Denmark.
They will be “generalized in schools from the start of the 2024 school year”promised Gabriel Attal, adding that there will be “a pilot school in each department” from January. These courses are based on learning about emotions and respect for others. For the Minister of Education, “what is at stake is clear, it is the right to happiness”. And that, “from early grades”. Franceinfo returns to this method in three questions.
1 What do these courses consist of?
Empathy classes aim to develop children’s psychosocial skills and create goodwill between them. This should help prevent any form of harassment. The objective is also to push witnesses to react. Gabriel Attal hopes that this learning will “part fundamental knowledge” at school. “No unhappy student learns well (…). When a student is harassed, his whole mind is invaded by the harassment. There is no more room for other learning”added the Minister of Education.
This Danish method of “Fri for Mobberi” (“freed from harassment” in French), is already deployed in France by the Paris Federation of the Education League. The courses are being tested in several educational cities in Ile-de-France. This is particularly the case for the 14 nursery schools in the 18th arrondissement of Paris. According to the Education League, “AThe impact study carried out by the Education Department of the Federation and the University of Paris 8 is underway and should be published before the end of 2024“.
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Concretely, each class has in its possession a case, in which there is a soft toy (used to console oneself or a classmate), illustrations with harassment situations (to learn how to detect them), or even activity booklets . A prevention method deemed effective by test schools to combat the scourge of harassment. The idea “is to read in a story or on a face the feelings of the other child, and then, perhaps, have the courage to say no, to stop the scene. And it can be worked on at a very young age.”explains to franceinfo Chahra Joubrel-Merahi, trainer in an 18th century school.
2 Where does this method come from?
The “Fri for Mobberi” method was launched in 2005 by two NGOs in Denmark, the Mary Foundation and Save the Children Denmark. In this country, empathy courses have been supported by university research for 15 years, reports the Teaching League. According to her, “40% of nurseries”, “60% of nursery schools” And “45% of elementary schools” adopted the method. A few days before the presentation of the anti-harassment plan, Gabriel Attal visited the Scandinavian kingdom to observe and be inspired by their empathy lessons. In addition to Denmark, the program has also been implemented in Greenland, Estonia, Romania, Iceland and Norway.
3 Does it work ?
The Minister of Education was very optimistic about the effectiveness of this method, ensuring that, among our neighbors who had adopted it, “school bullying has collapsed”. In Denmark, in fact, “70% of professionals find that children are more caring towards each other after starting to work with the program”, restores the Education League. Another telling figure: 98% of professionals believe that their work with this program is effective and “would recommend the method to other institutions”.
For child psychiatrist Marcel Rufo, empathy courses allow “create fraternity, bonds between children”. “Making your child empathetic means protecting them in their social future”, he adds. According to Erwan Balanant, MoDem deputy from Finistère and author of a law adopted in February 2022 which created an offense of school harassment, “this is something that was missing in our school”. “The school of empathy also means remembering what our social contract is, what our institutions are”, judges the vice-president of the Law Commission. And the same to see further: “When all these children have had these empathy lessons, I dare to hope that, perhaps, the lives of adults will get better too.”