YOUR LIFE EXPERIENCES
Ysé, 17, has just finished his first L and his second year in the self-managed lycée of Paris, in the 15th arrondissement. For this student, the pedagogy of this school, based on self-management and freedom of learning, provides more than the traditional system and allows to flourish better with different profiles. She recounts her alternative educational experience at Olivier Delacroix's microphone on Wednesday.
"The self-managed high school in Paris operates on two main principles: the first is self-management: there is a division of tasks, teachers and students perform administrative tasks, housework, etc., as well as decisions for high school, with teachers and students whose voices count in the same way.
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The second main principle is free attendance, that is to say that we can adapt our curriculum to our project. For example, I did not do math during my 2nd year because I knew that I wanted to go to a literary stream and that I did not need to do it. And this year, I went to English class with Terminales because it was a level that was more like mine.
We have school activities with traditional courses, French, science, etc., and management activities. There is a class called the 'core group': every Tuesday afternoon, for two hours, we discuss the high school, we make decisions together. It can be details, such as whether or not to receive a person outside the institution, observation. But it can also relate to whether or not to change a high school rule. We also have a committee beach on Thursday morning for two hours. There, everyone chooses to go to eat for lunch, to go for administration, maintenance. In short, we invest in high school. "
Ysé comes from classical education, which she chose to leave at the end of college.
"During my third year, I felt like I was extremely passive in my schooling, I did not really have any weight on what was going on in my schooling, and that's something that ended up making a lot of difference. I had the impression of coming in the morning, to sit for eight hours in class, listening to teachers who seemed to be as bored as I was.
I went to learn about the different high schools that existed. I came across the self-managed high school, which I had already heard a bit from acquaintances but without any further information. When I went to inquire in more detail, I thought it was a place that I could enjoy, where I could feel good, and it is.
" Often, people who come here are people who have not found themselves in traditional education "We prepare the baccalaureate with the three general streams, and with the reform that comes, we will prepare the three specialties. We do not have exactly the same amount of time on certain subjects, since management activities take us a lot of time, but we prepare the complete program. This year, I passed the French and science tests.
We are a high school where we have many different people, a real variety of profiles. Often people who come here are people who have not found themselves in traditional education. They are people who bring a lot of things. This year, the oldest was in his twenties. They are people with paths that are not necessarily linear.
We have always been taught that we do primary, middle school, high school, baccalaureate and graduate studies. Here, we learn that there is not a single good course, that we can always fall back on our feet and find bridges, start over, try again ... This is something that we apply within our various activities . It is always done in kindness, with much less pressure. It allows a much richer and more fulfilling learning. "
The opinion of the specialist: "There is a form of school consumerism"
Laurent Lescouarch, Senior Lecturer in Education Sciences and Specialist in New Education
"The principle of these schools is to challenge the traditional pedagogies of the school, that we are much to know as boring, centered on the will to educate at any price ... These pedagogies are more to educate in a global way by trying to change the methods, to make live experiences, projects, by putting more on the creativity of the child.The school, it could also be pleasure.
The traditional school takes the student subject and does not care too much about the child behind it. All these pedagogies take the child as a person. Adults transmit 'doing with', organizing situations to force learning by creating and experimenting.
There are several registers of reasons for enrolling one's child in these schools: there are people who totally contest the traditional school, in the continuity of their own family education. There is a form of school consumerism: one chooses one's school as one chooses one's nanny. There are also people who have bad experiences with traditional school. There are many different currents, but often, the frames are extremely regulated. I do not see them as overprotected. In these currents, there is an exposure to constraint and frustration.
The price depends on the schools policy. As they are self-financed, it is at least 2,000 to 3,000 euros, and it can go up to 10,000 euros. There is a political project for some, which have cost policies depending on the means of the families. But it must also be said that all alternative pedagogies are not out of contract ".