It is said that poverty at school is “silent”, ” discreet “. That it is not always easy for teachers to spot it. If Antoine Combes, professor of history and geography in middle school, has the feeling that he has not been “trained for”he is also certain, after fourteen years in the business – seven in the Paris region, seven in Toulouse, all in priority education – that he cannot avoid it.
In the last days of the school year, he also had the impression that he could no longer keep her quiet: it was on the social network Twitter that this 39-year-old teacher, not unionized, “not very politicized” as he says himself, gave his testimony. In ten tweets, some “liked” or commented thousands of times.
This “thread” which has gone viral begins on June 30, the first of two days of tests for the national patent diploma (DNB). “Today it’s the DNB. At 7:50 this morning, one of my students calls me. She tells me that she doesn’t know what to do because she has no clothes (sic) to come to college. I answer her, a little flabbergasted, that she’s big and that she can manage. »
Second salvo: “I call her back for the sake of conscience at 8:30 a.m., the time at which the students are called for their first test. [il s’agit du français, qui commence à 9 heures]. She repeats to me that she can’t find any clothes and that her mother is sleeping. I ask him to wake up his mother so she can help him. »
From tweet to tweet, we understand that the mother works at night. That when she wakes up, she panics too; as the tone and emotion rise. That both live in the Reynerie district – and not in Bagatelle, that of the college –, a “another world on the other side of the ring road”.
“No summons. No identity card »
Fifth teacher post: “I suggest that he come and get her. It’s ten minutes away [en voiture]. I have my boss’s approval. » Next message: “The little one comes down, dressed as best she could, she goes up and I start. The first thing she asks me is if she can smoke. She has a pen, her phone and her cigarettes. No summons. No identity card. »
The last messages tell of the car journey, “without a word, with a smell of cold tobacco and badly dried clothes”. The teenager’s arrival at college and acceptance into the exam hall despite being late – it’s 11.25 a.m. – “under the half-surprised, half-sadden gaze of the adults in the school, who, without having the details, have understood the essentials”.
In the epilogue – his tenth post – Antoine Combes talks about himself and his “fear of coming back”. A first for this seasoned teacher. A way, too, he explains, of not being reproached for “making a buzz on the back of a student and her family”. “I asked myself the question of sharing this story; I hesitated… And then I said to myself that it was important enough, symbolic enough, to be shared. “This is my DNB storyhe writes, in conclusion. It’s a story of priority education, too. From REP+ [réseau d’éducation prioritaire renforcé] provincial. Misery is not more beautiful in the sun. »
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