June 2025 is the date on which the mandate of the Lab-School will officially end; a mandate that will have lasted eight years rather than five as originally planned.
These are six Scandinavian-inspired schools that will have been built during these eight years and they will unfortunately be the last.
At a conference on this subject, the Minister of Education, Bernard Drainvillementioned that the end of the project was a decision made by the project founders: Pierre Thibault, Pierre Lavoie et Ricardo Larrivée. That this choice was not made by a government that wanted to cut into the construction or renovation of schools. Québec.
Furthermore, in a press release published on the organization’s website Lab-School as well as on their account Instagramit is mentioned this:
“In the last year, the board of directors made the decision to terminate the activities of the Lab-School considering that the mandate is fully fulfilled and more.”
Despite this decision, the founders do not hide their disappointment at not having been able to successfully complete a project Lab-School has Montréal where the number of dilapidated schools is the highest in the province. It would seem that it would not have been easy to obtain land on the territory of the CSSDMmore than Griffintown would have been a perfect neighborhood for such a project.
The architect Pierre Thibault mentions that the goal of this innovative project was to inspire and give a boost of creativity to the construction of educational places. Now, what he would like is to see this creativity continue to be expressed through new school buildings, but if it is not a question of Lab-School.
Certainly, when one understands the mission of these schools, it is difficult not to be disappointed to learn that there will ultimately be very few of them.
The objective of the Lab-School is not only to innovate on the architectural level, but to simply review the role of the school. It is no longer the traditional school as we know it, but a place where support is put forward; a socio-affective approach rather than coercive. Positive reinforcement, rather than punishments. It is a public school, not a selection one. A neighborhood school for everyone. It is a place that aims to be engaging, where we move away from formal teaching to go much more into practice, but without losing the transmission of knowledge.
According to Pierre Lavoie: “Education is not yet a priority in Québec. No matter the government, we must rebuild. The schools of the Québec are 60 years old,” reported Radio-Canada.
Pierre Thibaultfor his part, deplores that: “In large ministries, we see that deputy ministers change often, that teams change often. It is difficult to maintain the course of innovation when all the teams change.”
What to Ricardo Arrival added that: “As soon as governments feel that there is economic pressure, that there are elections, they are all the same: they are afraid. So, they react with caution rather than with vision. It is the role of citizens to remind them: no, on the contrary, we want a vision.”
This is therefore the end of this project which has demonstrated that it is possible to rethink the school and take it out of its traditional framework where students do not always manage to find their place.
