Translator: Olivier Bernard
Reviewer: Claire Ghyselen I am teaching math, an academic area
that often suffers from a poor reputation. We all have a personal
experience with math that is more or less happy. I have been working in the same
junior high school for 13 years. This school is located
in a "sensitive" area, that will be renamed "high priority
education area", next September. It did not take long for me, facing students with difficulties, to turn into being
a teacher in difficulty. Graduating in mathematics, did not prevent me from being
overwhelmed and helpless, hardly managing a group of students and hardly teaching maths either. I have often considered to stop teaching. I joined every training
about struggling students. I discovered "active listening"
at a lifelong education programme. Whatever your profession,
don't forget lifelong education. It helps you acquire skills ... survival methods
in a hostile environment. You never know what to expect, but you make sure
you are ready to deal with it! I've been blessed with becoming a mum. Twice. Everybody knows it,
when you become a mum, you definitely stop believing
education is easy. The kindergarten of my children
offers parenting skills workshops. We are told that there is no such thing
as a parent’s handbook, but some writings are really helpful. So, I went to Paris and participated
in the “Le Grand Atelier des Parents”, to share these skills. Ideas worth spreading need to be shared. These tools were useful to me
both personally and professionally, but they also were responsible
for the difficulties I've met, for the angry I felt more than often, whenever I was confronted
with education practices I knew were harmful
to knowledge acquisition, self-esteem, development of self-reliance,
motivation and creativity. During 13 years,
I've developed some tools, that I have tried, proved to be efficient.
I've improved them, and I will continue to make them evolve. These tools are really useful because thanks to them,
I could get rid of my anger. I wanted to so much to be compassionate. I used to tell myself I was compassionate. Compassion is a mindset, a pose
that makes sure that everone is fine. So, let me introduce you these 5 tools
that I use in my classroom and at school. The first tool is self-knowledge. It comes together with self-esteem
and self-confidence. If you want a closer hint,
you need to be able to relativize things. For instance, a kid crosses the street
without looking, and almost gets run over by a car. It's not unusual
that the panic of the parent turns into anger instantly. They shout at their kid,
while the kid is still panicked. When we get stressed and overwhelmed
by the rhythm of life, when we don’t take time to breathe, we may confuse our emotions,
and mix up causes and consequences. We lose any logical reasoning
or any coherence. It is important, however, to recognize
and understand our emotions. I teach the different learning profiles
to my students. I teach them to recognize their own. "Is my memory visual?" "Do I memorise better
when I listen to things?" "Do I need to move my body?" A self-analysis requires confidence. Kindness builds that confidence. When the teacher can give pupils
the benefit of a doubt, when she truly thinks that he is not lazy,
or just showing bad faith, when she truly thinks that a child
has difficulty processing a learning, only then, is the teacher able
to start the real work on the student's weaknesses and strengths. Take time to breathe,
to be present, to be able ... I spoke too fast and I didn't take time
to be present, to breathe. When you take the time to be truly present
to define what kind of learner you are, you can then open your mind
to the knowledge of the world. One of the objectives
of the junior high school consists of leading the students
to acquire a certain corpus of knowledge. Students often blame the school
to bore them deeply. One way to understand the world
is to experience it. That's the reason why we need
experiences in applied sciences, cultural visits, linguistic journeys. There is a tool that fits the bill,
and even makes learning more effective: Internet. If we ask either parents or teachers,
for their opinion about the internet, we hear many things,
especially a kind of panic. But denying Google the status of a friend,
is disconnected, if I may say, and totally obsolete. Students use Internet to find
every kind of tutorial. Because students can find
everything on their own, our role as educator includes to make sure
they understand what the Internet is, and how to protect themselves
when they use it. This student generation,
the Z generation, grew up with Internet. We can't ask them just to ignore it. In maths class, it was a logical step
to realize that from the classroom, you could precisely calculate the distance
between home and the school, or, more interestingly, around lunch time, the distance between the classroom
and the dinning hall. The Internet is like the world:
constantly changing. We need to analyse the situation
empirically, to adapt ourselves, and to bounce back
in front of new challenges. From this perspective,
it is possible to build a career from diverse jobs,
should they be successive or simultaneous. Atypical careers from all over the world
fusing together otherwise impossible paths are very inspiring. I've briefly talked about breathing. The Internet is one
of their sources of inspiration. The third tool makes sense
in a sensitive school where we often witness
a decline of the learning environment, a rise in incivilities, assaults
and violence in general. Conflicts often stem
from lack of understanding, from quick a-priori,
and from egocentric thoughts. One of my missions is to make it easy
for them to open their mind. That's precisely what I've been
teaching to my students, in the classroom and in communication
workshops for a few years. I teach them the tools
of non-violent communication. When we talk about
non violent communication, ignorance or hasty judgement, you may think about being too permissive. So let me clarify things with a tool
I often use with my students. It is inspired by the next generation
of mediators of Université de la Paix. Students can rather easily make
the distinction between the Turtle, an animal that is not looking
for any solution and shuts down, and the Lion, coming with its own solution
and imposing it upon others, hitting, threatening, blackmailing,
even snitching. Students usually think
that I'm asking them to be Chameleons: that prioritizes relationship
and the other at any cost, even if it means stepping aside. Obviously, that's not the point.
I ask them to speak Dolphin, this intelligent animal,
able to communicate, just like we are. Dolphin speaks in ME-ssages,
it describes what is going on, from what is its own perspective:
facts and its emotions. Once you identify the other's problem,
you are more willing to find solutions that are suitable for everyone. My school faces the same challenge:
to empower students with this very ability to be able to live and cope in society. By the way, when you ask students
about the usefulness of school, their first and very conservative answer
is "To learn things to get a job." Then, they go on, in a realistic
and spontaneous way, "I can see my friends!" John Lennon will make
a better transition than me. [When I went to school, they asked me
what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down happy. They told me I didn’t
understand the assignment, and I told them
they didn’t understand life.] He sings about happiness in life,
and in school. One major problem in our society,
and in the French Education System, is the burden of negative emotions
endured by all stakeholders. Students are stressed
by their exam's results, and worried by their teachers'
and parents' reaction. They are filled
with a feeling of incompetence, they lose their interest. I meet parents who are worried,
sad and filled with anger because they don't know
how to help their struggling child. I will not talk about my fellow teachers. Don't ask me to talk
about the teachers' lounge. There's no worse place to relax yourself. (Laughter) I've developed my own solution
to deal with my anger, because in my case,
fear and sadness turn into anger. I've found a way to "transform" my anger
into something else, by creating a cocoon full of happiness,
protecting me and reloading my batteries. Everyone needs to create something
based on his or her own true self. When you confine someone
to a just-sticking-to-the-rule position, you are killing his soul,
what makes him a human being. Students' minds are not an empty void
that needs to be filled. They are opportunities waiting to happen. The culture of encouraging children
can be learned and taught. Not so long ago, I had some tough times,
and I considered changing my profession. In fact, should I not have had my kids, I would have gone
on a humanitarian mission. A lot of support helped me not to quit. My life partner told me this, "You can't quit! You manage to turn
an awful and traumatic academic subject - I told you previously that everyone
has a personal relationship with math - you turn an awful and traumatic topic
into a joyful experience." My partner's words hit the mark,
but he was not alone. My students gave me their support too. Because I taught them how much important
it is to encourage people. Because they need
encouragement too, just like I do. Every end of school term,
we spend an important moment together, one hour actually, to write down
positive things and special memories. It's a wonderful gift to receive them,
and to meet students a few years later, grabbing out of his wallet
a worn-out piece of paper, telling that it is on his bedside table,
or hanging on the bedroom wall. It shows my choice was right to nurture happiness consciously,
to scale back school violence, and to nurture social cohesion,
because it's our future challenge nowadays, it is a real challenge for both students and teachers to come happy at school,
and to be happy there. Let's grow happiness
and share it around us. Picasso used to say this, "The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away." This year, we are focusing on that,
in a new civic workshop named Colibris. Every student who wishes to do so,
may get involved and work actively in the organization of events
that reinforce the esprit de corps among the whole school community. A concrete example
is our Day of Global Kindness. Everyone is appreciated individually
for his action within a collective event. It makes everyone feel empowered,
free to create and suggest ideas, and to have a strong feeling
of belonging to a community, to be able to contribute to its welfare. These are the activities
taking place inside the school. Thanks to the help of local associations,
we were able to contribute actively to the Christmas party
for the homeless in Saint-Joseph. We served dinner to the homeless people. Students could decide
what they wanted to do. This event is one of the strongest
and unforgettable memories that we share. This year, on Shrove Tuesday,
we organized a Carnival, for children under therapy,
at the hospital. Hopefully, I'm not alone in my school. There are other weird teachers like me. Together, we let the light flood out
into the outside world. In our school, we do organic gardening,
we compost our lunch waste - When I think about my co-workers,
I'm so happy I get gosse bumps! - so, we compost lunch waste,
we sing Maloya music, we've trail-crossed the island
during the Grand Raid trail, we dance for kindness,
we free-hug one another. With sharing in mind, I've engaged myself for a few years
in a teacher training group. The philosophy of the training is based
on our theoretical knowledge about cognitive pedagogy,
non-violent communication, diverse learning methods,
and children psychology. Through the training, everyone learns
to take the time to breathe, to get inspiration
from others' experience. It empowers us to create
and grow an environment suitable to our own school,
fitting our own classes precisely. We visit schools ready to take the step. Our advantage lies in the very fact
that we too, are active teachers. Our training courses are based
on our everyday experiences. As long as I am concerned,
discussing about our methods makes me a better teacher. The idea is to accept
to get away from your comfort zone, let the magic take place, and witness
that kindness is more comfortable: for students, educators,
teachers and parents. We start growing a genuine
relationship with the other, our boss, our colleagues or our friends. Suddenly, everything became crystal clear,
and I've found my life mission. I've learned who I really was,
how to get rid of my anger, which was something I needed to achieve. I've created connections around me
and through the Internet. I nurture genuine relations with people
dedicated to spread the word. Today, I am part of a global action
that promotes kindness and compassion. In a compassionate school,
in a caring world, we are specialized
in non-violent communication, and we have a toolbox. To show off the tools and expect you
to be able to use them is not the point. It is important to know that they exist
and what is available, and what to use when and how. So that they come in handy
when we need them, when we are ready. If nothing fits you,
you can build your own tools. At school, in a compassionate environment,
you learn that whatever you do, it is never useless. We learn that just one straw
can break the camel's back, that just one person
can make the difference, that one seed can wake up from hibernation
many years after it was sowed, and will grow
only when all conditions are met. I encourage you to do the same:
get up and sow kindness around you. When you raise children
with kindness and compassion, they will spread the good seeds
wherever they live: in business, politics,
non-profit or education. If you don't believe
the impossible is possible, I'm quite happy to tell you
that it's under way.
