School (ogi): learning about sustainable development (1/3)
On the one hand, there are the ultra-rigid boxes of our education system: subjects, grades out of 20, questions and rankings. On the other hand, there are the most immense, complex and multi-sectoral environmental challenges that humanity has ever faced, such as the fight against climate change and the protection of biodiversity. Between the two, there is a sense of inadequacy. A grotesque discrepancy. A gaping flaw. Are we completely missing the point? What are current students and students prepared for? What needs to change? Meet Najat Vallaud-Belkacem and François Taddei, two actors who are changing the world of education in their own way.
Name Vallaud-Belkacem: School in France mainly prepares students for the acquisition of knowledge and still places too much emphasis on individual and written work. The reforms implemented between 2012 and 2017 in schools and middle schools aimed at better valuing skills, collective work and speaking skills. The organization of the college and the redesign of the diploma had these objectives.
Francois Taddei: Today, we are selected on our memory and calculation skills, even though machines are better than humans at these two things. The education system must be rethought in order to move from a logic of competition to a logic of cooperation. From a disciplinary logic where we learn yesterday's knowledge to a logic of the ability to collaborate in an interdisciplinary way to co-build tomorrow's solutions. And you have to be able to do it in open and caring groups and not in systems where harassment is at least implicitly accepted, and where you don't work or Soft Skills, nor emotional or relational skills, the abilities to create, to communicate...
By definition, no one has the solution to the climate problem. The solution, if found, will be co-constructed and will involve billions of people. However, the current education system transmits the knowledge of previous generations, under the assumption that it will be enough for the following generations to get by. As long as the world was fairly predictable, and fairly constant, it could work. But today, business transformations are accelerating and crises are becoming more and more abundant. Our ability to respond to these challenges can be learned, but at the moment it cannot be taught. And we can see it clearly, because there is an entire generation that prefers to demonstrate rather than go to school that prepares them for a world that is just not the right one.
“An entire generation would rather demonstrate than go to school.”
NVB: The environment can hardly be treated as a discipline in education. In fact, the environment mobilizes knowledge from multiple disciplines such as life and earth sciences or geography. During the reform of the middle school in 2016, interdisciplinary practical courses were created, one of the themes of which was sustainable development. It seems to me that this is the best way to approach this field of study.
FT: There are plenty of educational actions that allow students to tackle these topics. But there is none systemic - at least, certainly not in France. A lot of devices are beginning to emerge at the initiative of associative actors, universities and youth movements who are mobilizing. But they are only individual actors and small groups who use their resources to do things that can be very interesting, but cannot scale up and be as systemic as necessary.
FT: Our scholar program is a great example of a change of scale. It started in a classroom and in a few years 30,000 teachers were trained. The project was implemented with very few resources: we have very little public funding, in particular because there is no recurrent public funding to support innovation. So we are dependent on funding from foundations. The program works year after year, but it's not normal that there aren't more resources for these types of projects.
More generally, the education system suffers from the lack of research and support for transformations. Our health system is evolving because it does research: at the Pasteur Institute, at the Curie Institute, at INSERM, in the public university. However, at National Education, we have not created any commons in terms of research, open source software, continuing education, the creation of tools... so we are very late on this part. As long as we don't invest in transforming the system, it won't change: it's as simple as that. The National Education budget is the largest in the State with 60 billion euros. Why not dedicate 1% of this budget to research?
FT: I think that we need to think about citizenship, education, and all of our actions in a fractal way. In mathematics, a fractal object is a figure that is the same regardless of the scale at which you look at it.
When talking about ecology, some people say “you have to think global and act local.” But I think you have to think fractal, that is, you have to think at all scales. Each solution must be documented and shared in order to be deployed in other environments: it is necessary to act in a way that can go viral. It is not a question of imposing your solutions on others but of offering them resources, so that they do not have to reinvent the wheel and so that they can adapt the solution to their local meteorological, economic, or technological data. I believe in solutions that are available locally.
In the same way, in pedagogy, it is necessary to establish main invariant principles that are applied differently locally. For example, the principle of reconnecting to yourself, to others and to nature will be experienced differently depending on whether you live in the Sahara or on the ice floe.
“Educational research is necessary to progress and it remains too little recognized in France.”
NVB: Many teachers or associations are innovating in pedagogy every day. It is not always relevant to replicate a successful initiative somewhere because the context and the students are not the same. But what would be nice would be for these innovations to be studied to understand why they are succeeding. Educational research is necessary to progress and it remains too little recognized in France. The reform of higher education and teaching schools was a step in this direction. These schools should also make it possible to strengthen the continuing training of teachers.
NVB: There is no trade-off between environmental education and pedagogical freedom. A teacher has a program that includes environmental issues. He then needs to be supported in his teaching practice, with training. Finally, he will build his course according to his students, and here it is his freedom of teaching that comes in.
FT: I am not in a logic of revolution but of support. I think that there are so few resources given to those who want to move that if we start by empowering these people, helping them, and showing with them that things are progressing, more and more of their neighbors will want to do the same thing.
I believe in democracy and educational freedom. I do not think that this is an antagonist to a proactive policy. Today, the allocation of the limited continuing education budget of National Education is decided vertically. I think that's not the right way to do it. Teachers and institutions must be allowed to define their priorities and offer them training on these subjects. Whereas by imposing subjects on everyone, we cause blockages and in the end nothing happens.
“If you find education expensive, try ignorance!”
FT: The scholar program works great in disadvantaged neighborhoods. It tends to reduce differences because it offers pedagogies of cooperation, the release of curiosity, and emancipation, which allow young people to discover entire worlds. It motivates them and makes them want to go very far.
These new pedagogies are therefore not at all incompatible with the fight for equal opportunities. But that presupposes a certain political organization and the allocation of resources. Initially, Maria Montessori developed her pedagogy for the most disadvantaged young people! Today, Montessori classes are said to be elite classes, because they are reserved for people who can afford to pay for them. But the State could very well decide to offer Montessori equipment to all kindergartens in France. Certainly, it is an investment. But if you find education expensive, try ignorance! In fact, we have tried - if not ignorance, at least methods that work poorly. And it's expensive because it has costly consequences such as dropping out of school, social inequalities...
NVB: New teaching methods (interdisciplinarity, collective work, valorization of speaking skills) make it possible to diversify the skills that will be useful for young people to succeed in the world of work. This diversity makes it possible to make young people more successful by promoting approaches that until now were little recognized. Our school has very well known how to value the acquisition of knowledge and the written word, which is suitable for some young people. But others have real oral and collaborative working skills, which are just as essential.
NVB: new knowledge appears regularly: computer science has become essential; the study of the environment as well. These developments require that lessons be oriented more towards mastering essential skills in order to adapt to changes. Knowledge is still important but it can no longer be enough on its own. Tomorrow, young people will be subject to multiple challenges and their ability to adapt and understand changes will be mobilized more than ever.
NVB: I will not necessarily talk about the place but about the learning method. To understand environmental problems, it is necessary to mobilize different disciplinary knowledge. For example, to measure the effects of greenhouse gases and global warming, it is necessary to mobilize physics-chemistry, SVTs and geography. However, this multidisciplinary approach is not natural in our teaching and it must be learned.
FT: Nature! Today, children know more company logos than species of plants or animals. There is a problem anyway! Being able to protect something that you don't know and that you haven't learned to love is not easy.
In addition, today, technology can make it possible to increase the educational experience of encountering nature. With a mobile phone, you can now geolocate the plants and animals you observe and contribute to research projects such as the one carried out by the Natural History Museum for example. These participatory projects make it possible to understand the specificities of the environment in which we are and therefore to learn about the seasons, the impacts of man on the environment... and possibly climate change.
Whether they are in the Vosges or in the Mediterranean, the students would not observe the same ecosystems but that's okay!
