Last of the European class: but who really weighed down national education in France (in maths as in other subjects)? The culprits have a name

Atlantico.fr : According to the latest Timms study unveiled this Tuesday, French students in CM1 and 4e have levels in mathematics that continue to decline compared to previous assessments. France ranks among the last European countries. Whether in maths or for other subjects, what part of the responsibilities of teaching methods – we often speak of “pedagogy” – in these repeated failures? Are the successive experts who put it in place to blame?

Jean-Paul Brighelli: They are to be hanged. The Jospin law (1989), which followed their instructions, decided to let the pupils “build their knowledge on their own”. In maths, it was to suppose that we would have to deal with entire generations of little Blaise Pascal, capable at ten years of finding again, head-on, the first twelve principles of Euclid. Add to that the “work in autonomy”, or in “islands”, where the pupils “build skills” without being inflicted on the learning of an imposed knowledge (horror), and the picture will be complete. If, anyway, I forgot: the four basic operations, which were once learned between the Grande Section and the CP, are now spread over four years – and I am not telling you the twisted process, by successive subtractions, by which we learn the division.

Pierre Duriot: This aptitude for mathematics is a complex construction which starts very early in children. You don’t get good at math in middle school or high school, but in kindergarten and before. Thanks to games, solicitation, observation, comparison, confrontation with logical-mathematical problems, the child forges a perception of numbers, quantities, geometries of space, this, from before entering kindergarten, where he continues to build his abilities. So we are all somewhat responsible. Parents of not playing enough and asking their very young children, not spending enough time with them. Because they are in front of their parents’ screens, which is a growing phenomenon. And because they leave their children in front of their children’s screens, or left to fend for themselves, with trivial things. These math skills are not lost on everyone and families still manage to give these predispositions to their children, to provide potential very good students, which can be found in excellence courses. It is the average that is falling, but in practice, it is the differences that are widening.

The school does not help matters, with teaching tackled, without method. There has been the fashion for math files, filled in intuitively, without the prior exercises, yet explained in the “teacher’s books”. It is a little less, but it still is. In general, we don’t handle much, we count things, we color in quantities, but all this is often done on sheets, with small drawings. We also learn operating mechanics, do we understand them? Nothing is less sure. It is akin to non-computer copy / paste, a kind of conformism of execution and result. Understand only good students. But above all, there is often no real pedagogy, only the plating of concepts. Again, not for everyone, we are in the same system of averages.

Society such as it is also does not encourage. The cashiers tell the cashiers what change to return, when there are cashiers left. And everywhere the machine says and no one has to do. And when we don’t, we forget how to do it. From start to finish, the spirit of math is not built and when by chance, it is built, reality means that we have less and less need to use it in everyday life.

Atlantico.fr : Is there a defect in the training of teachers, which could explain shortcomings in mathematics among teachers, which could have repercussions on their students?

Jean-Paul Brighelli: There are very few “school teachers” who leave a scientific course. In the past, to pass the teacher examination, you had to have worked in one of the disciplines taught at the Primary School. Even before, the Normal Schools supplemented, after the Third, all the fundamental lessons. From now on, it is enough to have a Master in any discipline – hence the influx of “literary”, and especially “sociologists” https://www.atlantico.fr/ “psychologists” – not to speak of those who have in hand a Master of pure pedagogy, the MEEF, where we have been careful not to teach you that 2 + 2 = 4 or that the verb agrees with the subject.

The result is that you learn at school all kinds of beautiful things about the environment, the duty to assist migrants, the joy of ethnic diversity, but very little math – like very little spelling. / grammar, all disciplines where you have to learn by heart, a method absolutely prohibited today.

Pierre Duriot: Clearly yes. These skills are forged in the first degree. A lack of training for school teachers, which focuses on form and not on substance. Student teachers learn scores, learn to transmit scores, but do not learn to compose scores. And nobody knows how to write the score, neither the teachers, nor their students. They do not learn the pedagogy, the words, the postures, the processes, the interaction between the personality of the teacher and that of the pupil, the dynamics of the groups and the effects of training. They do not learn enough either the stages and the alchemy of the psychic and intellectual development of the young child, which makes it possible to play on the springs of the learning. Old, experienced teachers are retiring without having passed on these techniques, the mastery of which is closely linked to years of experience. Continuing education does not take into account the specificities of the land, it is standardized, for the whole nation. Emphasis was placed on the diploma. College then Normal School and vocational baccalaureate in the 1950s, then recruitment for baccalaureate and vocational training, then Deug, then license, then master’s degree, with this false idea of ​​believing that at bac plus 5, one would be better educator than a bachelor of ‘Normal school. The system has abandoned quality vocational training for its teachers. And for the students, we evaluate, again and again. And we tick boxes: acquired, not acquired, in the process of being acquired. And it all goes back up and people, in offices, get out of it we know what and instructions come down and in the end, the tumble is accentuated.

But still, the hours of fundamental subjects decrease, in French, in maths. The requirement is diminishing. The emphasis has definitely been put on language, which in reality becomes gossip. The important thing is “well-being” at school. To the point that maintaining discipline has become the major problem of the system and the fight against bullying at school a priority. Politics, ideology… nutrition, waste sorting, gender, non-native cultures have been replaced. The school fights against homophobia, translates words to parents into the original language and practices living together, around breakfast, during bike rides, or garbage collection, with veiled guides … loses, in social and animation missions, which are not of its competence.

Atlantico.fr : Is part of the problem due to the fact that a large part of the agents of National Education devote themselves to administrative missions which do not directly concern education and its improvement? Does the administration weigh too heavily in National Education and in the lives of teachers?

Jean-Paul Brighelli: No, this is a false problem. The reality is that the basics of work, effort and discipline have evaporated. The root of the problem lies in the recruitment of teachers, and the salary the state pays them – the lowest in Europe: our Luxembourg neighbors receive two and a half times the salary of a French teacher for the same amount of time.

Pierre Duriot: Yes and no. There are certainly office missions, office teachers, a bunch of people who never see the students. But not that much, even if this ratio remains largely perfectible, cuts have been made. What weighs heavily are the standards, the procedures, the paperwork. For the slightest educational project, the outing, the discovery class, you have to fill out bundles, transmit, wait, authorizations, approvals, stamps, signatures. Everything is standardized, formatted, “exelised” and deters a number of initiatives of all kinds. As for “improvement”, it is the word that annoys: what does it mean? The level may inexorably go down, each of the ministers, of each of the governments, if you ask him the question, will inevitably answer you that under his mandate, he worked for improvement and that it bore fruit. Except that the results are there …

Atlantico.fr : Have the teachers’ unions not played their role in raising the level of education?

Jean-Paul Brighelli: By constantly asking for jobs – quantitative – to the detriment of qualitative, no doubt. By asking for a “catching up” of the “index point” (which has not changed for years, which has led to a 20% drop in real wages) instead of demanding, as I ask myself – even for ten years, 50% increase in starting salaries, certainly. They are calling for the tenure of those who failed CAPES 2020 – who, like in previous years, did not fill all the positions offered by the Ministry, for lack of candidates of an acceptable level. Integrating the failures is to lower the level further.

It is imperative (Blanquer has started to do so) to bring teachers up to standard – in schools as well as in colleges. It is imperative to put work back in the spotlight, in class AND at home (currently banned), stop giving good grades by offering primitive exercises, and questioning yourself.

We are far from it. Public opinion suddenly awakens from time to time, following the TIMMS, PISA, CEDRE surveys, etc. We must realize one thing: it is a collapsing civilization, with the active complicity of those who were to transmit the Enlightenment, and who today, as Jean-Claude Michéa says very well, teach ignorance.

No need to yell at “teacher bashing”, as they say in French Akamura – the new standard. As long as we tolerate the burns, we will have catastrophic results. As long as we do not encourage the students to excellence (the most worrying in the results of the TIMMS survey, it is the virtual disappearance of “good” students, stigmatized for years by the pedagos, who of their mediocrity the new quality criterion), we will have the same results in decline, because only good students “pull” their comrades to the top – whereas today, in the great educational upheaval, it is exactly the opposite is happening.

Pierre Duriot: Quite frankly, the role of unions at the school level, currently, does not seem significant to me. There was a time, under Mitterrand, when I knew some trade unionists jointly showing their PS card and that of their union. They were embarrassed to lead fights against their friends, of course. Today, the unions focus more on the number of teachers, the number of students per class, job cuts, remuneration, recognition of invisible work. If officially, the unions do not play politics, their position seems more clearly in the opposition.

–