Véronique turned to a class blog. Marie juggled between Whatsapp for her high school students and Discord for her middle school students. Mamadou has created a site combining math and cooking which has been very successful. Like them, thousands of teachers had to urgently acquire digital tools to organize educational continuity from the first days of confinement. The “System D” webdocu gives voice to them.
At the origin of this excellent series in 11 episodes published from this Wednesday on social networks, we find Portemire, the content agency co-founded by Mathieu Michal. "I was training at School W when the confinement was decreed," explains the journalist. In forty-eight hours, I had to rethink all the training to be able to deliver it remotely. We succeeded with the means at hand and it was this experience that made me want to see how the other teachers were doing… ”
A few sleepless nights later, the project is born. A web series "of public utility", not thought to "be sold, but simply to feed the reflection on distance education". Eleven testimonies, collected in this "webcam" format which will forever be associated with our days of confinement.
Splints on the digital divide
Michelle, a teacher of French and Latin in a college in Limay (Yvelines), was among the witnesses. “We read a lot about the work of teachers during confinement. Lots of nonsense… So when we are given the floor, we have to take it, ”she explains today. Manon, French teacher in a college in Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), confirms. "I was shocked by the reductive vision that we gave of our work in the media," she explains. People had trouble realizing what was going on for each teacher in this situation. So when I was told about this call for testimony, I wanted to participate. "
To keep in touch with her students, the teacher relied on the services they use on a daily basis. Instagram, first. “Many of my students don't have a computer, but they do have a smartphone. Instagram was designed for mobile, it was the perfect tool to reach my 3rd. I created an Instagram page of my classroom and I got them all. "
“Listening to journalists, everyone would have a computer and a smartphone. But that's not true, nuance Michelle. Not everyone has a smartphone. Not everyone has access to the Internet. To ensure pedagogical continuity, she relied on the good old manual. His college also provides families with photocopy packs for lessons, to be picked up before 8 a.m. on Monday.
"The digital divide is the point that came up in each discussion," says Mathieu Michal. “In recent years, we have been gradually trying to bring digital tablets into school. There, we realized that there was a real deficit compared to that. In all the classes, there were children who did not have easy access to the Internet. "
Food for thought
If the series is called System D, it is because faced with these equipment constraints, the lack of computer knowledge of students or teachers, the teachers who testify have rivaled in ingenuity. Listening to Manon present his Netflix playlists, recommendations for docus or films adapted to his schoolchildren's program, or Michelle to explain how simple MMS allow her to verify that the work has been done, we can measure the proliferation of initiatives that have emerged in a few weeks and the potential they represent for years to come.
Mathieu Michal does not intend to stop there. He will perhaps continue the interviews in the months to come, will return to the initiatives that have worked best. "I really want this series to be visible to everyone," he says. To thank the teachers for the exemplary work they do on a daily basis and to make a difference ”by sharing the best ideas.
"The scenario of this confinement was a huge opportunity for us teachers," says Michelle at the start of her video. If we had known it two weeks before, we would have had to answer lots of controversies and we would have been drowned under the prohibitions. While there, finally we dared everything. Today she adds: "A class is a laboratory. We constantly try a lot of things, especially things that don't work. All the more reason to take the time to discover, for the duration of a video, those that work…
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