“The teachers who mark you are those who, passionate and educators, open up a cultural world to you, or those who do more than their mission.” They are the ones that Fatiha Agag-Boudjahlat met, winner of the 2019 secularism prize.
“No teacher can save or totally ruin a child’s life. Their role in humanity should not be overstated.” This is the conviction of Fatiha Agag-Boudjahlat, professor of history and geography at the Maurice-Bécanne college in Toulouse. On the other hand, some can be the author of comfort, of a helping hand, or of a humiliation which will mark a student durably. When Fatiha Agag-Boudjahlat, looks in the retro, impossible to remember the name of a single teacher, “it is rather a piece of humanity of each which forms a puzzle.” In “the class” of teachers who changed her life, there is first Ms. Sony, teacher of CM2, at the Petite Hollande school in Montbeliard. It is here that Fatiha Agag-Boudjahlat, the only girl of eight siblings, grew up in a neighborhood nicknamed “the Court of Miracles”. “My mother was in Algeria. I had a serious infection on my face and my father wanted to take me to the dentist. Ms. Sony convinced him to take me to the hospital and checked me in regularly. , she sent me a postcard. ” Still in Montbéliard, another age, another establishment, other memories. First that of Mme Carré, 1st year French teacher, at the Grand Chénois high school: “A real ball of energy. When she found out that I was admitted to prep, she came to the foot of my building to bring me the hundred books to read on the school list … “Then that of Mme Vigneron, math teacher. “I was in final L, maths option. I suck but she is incredibly warm. It was the wife of the judicial officer who had announced several seizures at my home because of my brother’s nonsense … She offered to take me by car to all of the Sciences Po entrance exams in France. ” Several years later, the two women reconnected. Fatiha Agag-Boudjahlat then also became an author. “Mme Vigneron has a reading circle, she invited and introduced me with pride.”
Fatiha Agag-Boudjahlat also remembers this pre-school teacher who is hostile to her. “One day I asked him if we were going to study foreign poetry. He replied that he did not know anything about Arabic poetry.” By dint of humiliation, he disgusts the student of the profession of French teacher. “The passion for history came, I became a teacher naturally.” Today, the one who says she owes everything “to school, to the Republic and to a few human teachers who have made it more than their mission” considers that she is not doing “a job like any other”. Despite “the wave to the soul engendered by the bashing teacher”, she continues to want the best for her students. “You have to be able to take a distance, but sometimes, when you feel in the student a roughness, a hook, we can go very far. I often say to my students: I do not ask you to be good everywhere , I ask you to be good people… “
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