Myriam, Danielle, Martin, Nancy, Valérie and so many others. In less than a year, I will have one thing in common with them: I will hold a teaching certificate. This text is intended as a tribute, as a trainee, to the teachers who have come my way. When talking about the strike last November, you all told me, without exception: “We are doing this for you, the young teachers.” Today, I return the favor: this word, very humbly, is for you.
First of all, thank you to you who agree to advise the rookie that I am in a doorway between two trips to the photocopier. Each discussion we have is either a little velvet on my doubting heart, or a flame that motivates me to be a better substitute. Very often, you do it even if you probably have little time, but these little bits of advice, I swear, have a big effect. As teachers observe their trainees, I observe you too. My observation: you are octopuses who fight with one arm and teach with the other.
Then, thank you to the teachers who took me on as an intern or who hosted interns. Thank you for doing so while knowing that you will have additional human and administrative responsibilities due to our status, my colleagues and I, as “teachers in progress”, as I like to call it. The time you take to discuss, rehearse and listen is more than generous for a future teacher who is a stranger to you. To a certain extent, although an adult, an intern is an additional person to consider in the organization of your days already full of meetings and follow-ups to be carried out.
Finally, although there are many reasons why a person might leave their workplace, I can’t help but think of you who have left the boat because you are tired of the system. The one with a capital “S”. I can’t say that I understand you, because I have only been exposed to it through my internships and my substitutes, this system. Never by having a class in my charge for 180 days. One thing is certain: every day that I spend teaching, I will do so thinking of my friends in the current network and my predecessors, so that your struggles do not gather dust on government shelves.