Is teaching a means of transforming contemporary society?

I teach chemistry in classes preparing for the University, in “special maths”, i.e. the year that prepares students to get into engineering school. I’m happy to see them arriving at the beginning of each school year. My first task is to learn their first names very quickly, so that they can all hear themselves addressed by name and so feel quickly at home in a class that can otherwise seem threatening. After getting to know them a little, and studying their faces, I can see who should be stimulated by a simple question, or who can be given a more probing one. In that way the course becomes quite interactive, ensuring that each one continues to participate fully in what goes on in the classroom.

There are also more silent times, during directed work, when they carry out individual tasks at their own pace; that’s a time when I can contemplate their faces, seeing their joy when they understand something; a time of compassion, too, for someone stumped by a difficulty, a time of personal dialogue, to look into the real problem, and map out the way forward. By practising in the teacher’s presence, young people gain courage to reason on their own. Together we set up roadsigns along the way: slow down and remember the method, keep straight ahead with coherent reasoning, don’t stray down that dead-end street…

Benjamin and Clément have undertaken a difficult experiment of selective synthesis with enzymes, and after 11 hours in the lab, the cursor of the polarimeter shows zero: no selectivity! What a disappointment! At first they wanted to throw it all in… but later they were ready to begin again from scratch, and spent hours checking stage by stage at what level they could modify the method to improve results… real budding researchers, who reflect carefully on all they do!

Rigour on the scientific plane cannot fail to give a taste for clarity, light, coherence, and perhaps inner unity. What a joy it is to see, as the months go by, the emergence of an ever clearer choice: Sandrine want to do pharmacology, Louise hopes to find out how to pierce a tunnel, Valérie would like to work in forensics, and Victoire in oceanography. When the future becomes clear, young people approach it with courage and confidence. Confidence is indeed an essential aspect of this difficult training: their class exercises are not supervised, and they quickly realise they are working towards their personal progress and success at the end of the year, not just for the current mark. That educates them to truth and honesty, qualities that are very precious for a young person getting ready for active life, for taking responsibilities in professional or family life… Greatly influenced by the confidence and personal attention shown to them, they will surely be capable of educating their children in the atmosphere that inspires truth and freedom, or of leading a team with the respect that encourages people to grow.

For me, that is very close to Madeleine Sophie Barat’s intuition of educating young people capable of transforming society; she founded schools for upper class girls who in their role of wives and mothers were to transmit the values they had absorbed, so that society would be gradually transformed. Pre-University classes, of course, are for an elite among young people today, future leaders, who will play an important part in the society of tomorrow. When talking to them one to one, I am often amazed at their desire to make a success of their lives, to commit themselves to a profession that has meaning for them. For the last two years, scientific exhibitions have been centred around the theme of lasting development, and this has aroused keen interest in students who want to build a future for everyone. Thomas has worked on the problems of desalinating sea-water, with special reference to Africa; now, before beginning his course, he is off to spend some time on a humanitarian journey to Togo…

Christine Rogier, rscj
Province of France