Because what we really need today in our classrooms is not a fleur-de-lis flag to hide the decrepit wall behind the responsible adult…
At a time when our public schools are in a state of catastrophic disrepair, at a time when our teachers are running out of steam and deserting their profession, at a time when our education system, victim of the commodification of knowledge and the three-speed school proves more inequitable than ever, the member for Matane-Matapédia, the PQ Pascal Bérubé, suggests that we deploy a Quebec flag in each classroom.
Really ? I am a convinced sovereignist, but to suggest this type of measure in the current context is to miss the problem, and not just a little! Of course, to make a country, we need unifying symbols and vectors of a common identity… But we still need to build and maintain it, this identity.
As a teacher in an adult education center in Montreal, I see more and more young people arriving, in their twenties or younger, from recent immigration. These students were born in Quebec or did almost all of their schooling there, yet French unfortunately constitutes for them a language of an exclusively academic nature (that is to say that of the teacher in the classroom) and they are generally foreign to Quebec culture.
Hear me clearly, I do not reproach them for anything and I do not in any way condemn immigration (to which many evils are falsely attributed): these young Quebecers are the victims of the failure of a system of discriminatory education.
Many of my students arrive directly from a secondary school located right next to the center where I teach, at the junction of the Villeray and Parc-Extension districts. When we attend the end of classes at this establishment, we almost never hear French spoken. Do you know why ? Because, in secondary school, the vast majority of students with French mother tongue in the district attend one of the many surrounding private schools or a selective program at a more prestigious secondary school.
Do we really believe that displaying a flag in each of these young people’s classrooms will help develop their Quebec cultural identity and their sense of belonging to Quebec? Personally, I am convinced that love and respect for Quebec will rather be won by living together in French in inclusive schools free from any form of selection.
Do you want to build a country, Mr. Bérubé? Me too. So, let’s start by ending school segregation and make our schools the foundation on which it will be built. Apart from generating new expenses of several millions, hoisting fleur-de-lis flags in classrooms will have no effect: you don’t repair the walls with wallpaper, no matter how beautiful it is.