why some teachers have entered into “pedagogical resistance” against national assessments

Since this year, all elementary school levels must be subject to a national assessment. A measure against which some teachers are protesting.

Friday, September 20 is the last day for teachers to administer the national assessments to students in all elementary grades. This is a first: for a long time, it was only for CP and CE1. They were added last year for CM1 students and this year, they therefore concern all levels.

But these assessments are strongly criticized by a part of the teaching world. Several unions, including the Snuipp, have called for them not to be carried out and organized a day of strike on this subject at the beginning of September. In fact, some teachers oppose the ministerial instructions and are boycotting them.

These national assessments touch on values ​​that are important to these teachers. “They are a little out of touch”comments a CM1 teacher. A red line according to him: “Even in CE1, there are many students who have not yet fully entered into reading. So putting them in front of a reading task from the beginning of the year is setting them up for failure right away.”

These assessments involve requirements by class level while the school is organized by cycles which group together several levels: CP/CE1/CE2 for cycle 2, CM1/CM2/6th grade for cycle 3, which precisely allows learning over the long term.

Not all students progress at the same pace, remind these teachers who also criticize the scope of the questions. Example with reading where speed is measured, more than comprehension: “It’s not interesting. There are children who will read quickly and who will not understand at all what they are reading. It’s giving them bad habits. Everything is timed, they have 10 seconds to do this, a minute to do that, etc…”denounces this CM1 teacher.

Some parents even end up making their children cram so that they do better on these tests, which distorts the results. These assessments are therefore a source of stress, they take up time that could be devoted to learning, they denounce teachers, and go against their pedagogical freedom.

But refusing a ministerial instruction is not without consequences for these public agents, says this director of a large school in the Paris region: “This year, there is a little more pressure with threats: ‘We will refer it to the hierarchy, it will appear in your file’. The notion of resistance is also in the teachers’ council and in the collective. It is a form of pedagogical resistance.” It is for these reasons that in some schools the decision was taken collectively.