Complexity of the health protocol, distance courses, non-replacement of staff… Primary and secondary teachers testify to their daily lives and the reasons for the strike movement which promises to be very popular.
Ten days after the start of the school year, the teachers are under tension. All the representative unions called for a strike in National Education on Thursday, denouncing “an indescribable mess” in schools due to the Covid-19 protocol put in place and “a strong feeling of abandonment and anger among the staff”.
Faced with the increase in Covid-19 cases in classes and the successive changes to the health protocol at school, the teachers interviewed deplore the difficulty of teaching in correct conditions..
The pedagogical continuity of lessons becomes impossible to implement under these conditions.
Gilles, CE2 teacher in Seine-Saint-Denis
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“It is extremely difficult to set up something continuous in the work because the absent pupils change from week to week. It depends on the results of the last tests carried out. As soon as a positive case is detected, we have to stop everything. class functioning and call the parents”, explains Gilles, CE2 teacher in Seine-Saint-Denis, member of Snuipp-FSU, the first primary union.
“It’s a triple sanction”, continues the teacher, first for the students who cannot follow the course, then for the parents who thought they had a quiet day and who must come and pick up their children urgently and finally, for us teachers trying to get through our programs and getting cut off in the middle of a day.”
François Bouyer, associate professor of history-geography in a high school in Vanves in the Hauts-de-Seine, recognizes that some have difficulties with regard to the acquisition of methodologies. “In fact, it goes through training.“, he explains. “However, there is a difference between doing an assignment at home and doing it in class with a correction behind. There are many inequalities between members of the same class. For the most autonomous, the distance does not pose a problem. But for those who are in difficulty, monitoring learning remains complicated“, observes the teacher.
“Tomorrow I will be on strike. I think that in the establishment there will be a majority of striking teachers as well as a large part of the staff of school life“, says Jonathan professor of history-geo in an establishment of Pantin (Seine-Saint-Denis). “In my college, I find that the working conditions are deteriorating and that behind all the official announcements we must, as usual, manage with the means at hand.“, laments the teacher.
Behind all the official announcements we must, as usual, manage with the means at hand
Jonathan, middle school teacher in Pantin
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He insists on the lack of human resources and on the untenable situations which do not allow pupils to learn in good conditions. For example, right now, he says “for the past two weeks, an English teacher from our establishment has been replacing the deputy principal“. “The deputy principal has taken a position in another college and while this replacement has been planned for at least a month, our colleague, an English teacher, has still not been replaced. Which means that for 15 days, four or five classes have not had English lessons., he despairs.
Other teachers who wished to remain anonymous, point to contempt for their supervision, emphasizing the ministerial instructions arriving the same evening to be applied the next day. They demand real social dialogue. All denounce the calamitous management of the health crisis: “why not keep the school open, but not at any price!“
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