If there is one thing that the story of the “boutte teacher” of Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac revealed by QUB radio has proven is that…
It’s all well and good, building magnificent lab-schools equipped with cafeterias high tech.
It’s all well and good, devising new ways of learning to read and write.
It’s all well and good, importing reforms from Switzerland.
It’s fine, installing giant screens and allowing students who have difficulty opening a dictionary to use artificial intelligence.
It’s all well and good, technology, pedagogy, philosophy.
But education is first and foremost a teacher in front of a class.
If the teacher is good, the students will get by even if their school looks like a nuclear reactor.
But if the teacher is bad, tired or at the end of his rope, nothing, not even the computer of 2001: A Space Odysseyonly going to help them.
EDUCATION IS NOT A SCIENCE!
A few years ago, the director of the environmental documentary of former US Vice-President Al Gore (An Inconvenience Truthwhich was critically acclaimed worldwide and won an Oscar) produced a feature-length documentary on education: Waiting for Superman.
He consulted dozens of specialists to find out what needed to be done to improve the education system in the United States.
His conclusion? School principals should have the power to fire incompetent teachers, those who may have had the flame when they started, but who have lost it.
Period.
No need to look for noon to two o’clock.
For what?
Because education is not concrete, it is not brick, it is not software, it is not a screen, it is not a program, it is not is not an organization chart, it is not a ministry and it is not a reform.
He’s a teacher in front of a class.
Unleash us with the “sciences of education”!
Education is not a science: it is an art.
And as with art, you either have it or you don’t.
The teacher from Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac obviously did not have it.
Or if she already had it, she lost it long ago.
Result: she should never have found herself in a class in front of students. Never.
ALONE ON THE BOARDS
Which brings us to the quiz question of the week: would we let an actor unable to remember his lines — or suffering from a mental illness causing him to swear at viewers — play the main role in a play?
No. We would replace him at the most sacred.
What was this teacher doing in a class then?
And don’t tell me the school principal or his colleagues didn’t know what she was doing!
It’s like telling me that the CAQ pulled the plogue on the third link because of telework!
The walls of the schools are thinner than those of the Motel Bon Repos!
Guy Nantel’s show rests on the shoulders of one and only person: Guy Nantel.
If his show is good, it’s thanks to him. If he is bad, it is because of him.
Ditto for education.