From dream to nightmare… “Since I was a little girl, I have loved French. Already, from sixth grade, I noted on the presentation sheets opposite my future profession: French teacher,” recalls Noélie*.
So she worked to achieve her dream. “After my master’s degree in letters, I had my competition as a free candidate”, explains the young woman of 25 years. The Capes** in her pocket, Noélie was appointed to a college in Haute-Vienne. “Very quickly, maybe even from day one, I thought maybe I wasn’t cut out for this”she acknowledges.
“I never felt kindness”
“From the training center where I was told that if the students did not listen to me, it was ‘that I was not interesting’, to my tutor who did not want to show me anything about her practice, ” because I had to learn on my own”, I never felt kindness. On the contrary, it is a permanent baptism of fire, extreme loneliness, I had to fend for myself. I was not trained for this. I plunged into a depression. I had a lump in my stomach and was vomiting before going to class. It is a very closed system, very childish. No one really knows what’s going on inside…”, she says.
In between too many and dissipated students, intrusive parents, lack of training and lack of support from the institutionNoélie quickly became disillusioned.
“For one hour of lessons, you have to work twice as much. You have to make something tailor-made for students with dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysorthography… I went to bed every night at 2 am, I spent my holidays and my weekends there. I worked about 50 hours a week for 1,400 euros net despite a Bac +5 and a category A competitionyou find that normal, ”she says, disgusted.
“The only thing that holds teachers back are the students,” notes the young woman. But I’ve made my decision, I’m going to resign in the coming months because a conventional break will never be accepted. Without RSA or unemployment, I will resume my studies to become a psychologist for children and adolescents. I have already been accepted into a course. I am so relieved to leave National Education. I do not hesitate to tell those who want to do this job to run away…”
« I understand the vertigo felt by young colleagues who arrive in overcrowded classes, who have difficulty implementing programs by not being sufficiently trained, add to that the salary conditions and it’s a shock,” admits Marianne Corrèze, academic co-secretary of Snes-FSU.
« More and more trainee teachers stop on the way. It is extremely worrying. They are young, it’s the next generation! But for them, it is a big disappointment and it is immediate, supports Maud Duveuf, academic secretary of SE-Unsa Limoges. In addition, the five years of Jean-Michel Blanquer at the head of the ministry have not helped. »
But it’s not just young people who are leaving and not just teachers. « After twenty years of good and loyal service as Principal Education Advisor (CPE), Valérie* is also going to leave the National Education. “I have just signed my conventional breakup”, she assures relieved. A “recent” way of leaving the institution. It has existed for two or three years and it is on trial until 2025, ”specifies the CPE.
More and more contractual ruptures
Valérie is not an isolated case. “More and more, we are called upon to support colleagues in contractual terminations”, supports Maud Duveuf.
If she made this decision, it was because she “saw [son] profession to change. The CPE is transformed, becoming more of a “cop” and providing less support. I saw more and more rigidity, verticality, infantilization, permanent suspicion and suffering that sets in. I told myself that I couldn’t do this for twenty more years. As I was no longer in the mould, I had to leave, ”she summarizes.
Too compartmentalized
Before the fall, she will be officially removed from the executives of the Public Service. “A difficult decision to make,” she says. But I’m relieved… I loved my job for ten years, then I started to look at what else I could do: what opportunities were available to me? Nothing, apart from becoming a headteacher. I did not find a bridge to other civil service professions, nor found an open door to the training of future CPEs, so I went to look outside the institution. »
Thanks to the contractual termination indemnity, she will be able to continue the training she has already started by “self-financing it”. In her new professional life, she will step aside to continue to help young people and their parents. “by fighting against school bullying, improving their management of relationships, emotions and their self-confidence”.
Difficult mutations
Sonia* will also change her life very quickly. This mathematics teacher in a college in Haute-Vienne, who was also a school teacher, also signed a conventional break.
“Mistreated, despised, badly considered” by the institution, she said stop. “After nine years of teaching, I will finally be able to get closer to my family, to leave Limousin,” she breathes. She no longer wanted “to be a number on a file among millions of others”. “I was a substitute teacher for six years, as I saw no prospect and wanted to keep this desire to teach intact, I decided to become a mathematics teacher. I hoped for better working conditions in secondary school, more consideration… It may be a little better and even more, ”she notes.
« I was left alone, without a tutor, with overloaded sixth and third grades, then in three different establishments. Far from each other, I spent my time on the road or in my classrooms so that everything was ready before changing schools. I was refused training. So I cracked, she rewinds. I did a burnout. »
“We need better salary conditions, better conditions for exercising the profession and better training conditions before and during the career, otherwise we are going to face great difficulties for public schools”
Marianne Correze (Academic co-secretary of SNES-FSU)
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Burn-out, depression, resignation… What solutions to deal with this malaise of teachers and to stem a crisis of vocations? “We need better salary conditions, better conditions for exercising the profession and better training conditions before and during the career, otherwise we are going to face great difficulties for public schools because the missions are not properly carried out. “, answers Marianne Corrèze.
“If things don’t change, it will be a disaster,” also warns Maud Duveuf.
It does not only happen in colleges and high schools in the Paris region. ” We already know that there will not be enough teachers in front of the students at the start of the next school year. If some academies will be more affected than others, our academy will not be spared. In technology, for sure, in mathematics, there are big risks, laments Marianne Corrèze and if the solution involves the recruitment of contract workers who are not trained, it is absolute nonsense. »
All first names have been changed.
The certificate of aptitude for teaching secondary education
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In the first degree, it is not better…
From Creus, Émilie* passed her school teacher competition in the Créteil academy. She wanted to be in class in front of the students. “By going to teach in a priority education zone (ZEP), I thought I would find committed teams with the means. But no. I arrived and found colleagues resigned, tired and not so resourceful,” she reports. “As for pedagogical questions, here there is no time or energy to think about them. But I held on because my work was appreciated by the children, by the colleagues, by the municipal staff. So I continued, but I couldn’t take it anymore…”, recalls Émilie.
“It is rather hypocrisy and injustice that should be written on the pediments rather than freedom, equality and fraternity… Let’s take the example of benevolence or inclusion, we talk about it all the time, but without human means, this not possible. I had a student who had special needs that you have to accommodate – that’s normal – ie he can’t stay calm, he climbs on furniture, he smears ink everywhere … He’s a student that needs to be watched like milk on fire, but what can I do when I’m the only adult in the class? » The tug of war was permanent between “what must be done and what can be done”. “There is a gap between quality training, innovative pedagogy and this dinosaur school without means”, she insists again. “I resigned on a whim, I didn’t have clear ideas, I just wanted it to stop but I didn’t understand that I was burnt out, it’s my doctor from family who made me realize it. “If you’re not yourself inside the institution, you don’t know what’s going on there, it’s exactly like for the nursing staff. »
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