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There are a lot of things you can do at home. Giving birth, for example, a very trendy subject. Educate your children, too, as told in a very nice film called “Being and Becoming” which will be released in theaters next May. Directed by Clara Bellar, actress, singer, this documentary relates the experience of French, American, English or German families who have all chosen not to send their children to school. These parents practice family education, not homeschooling. The difference ? They do not follow any official program, do not force their children to specific lesson times, do not turn into teachers. No outside learning is imposed on the child. It was he who decided to learn to read, to have a passion for mathematics, to deepen his knowledge of history and geography. Each day-to-day situation is seen as an opportunity to learn.
Freedom from force-feeding
The enemy is force-feeding, pressure, grades. The key words that punctuate the film are: freedom, autonomy, desire, motivation, fulfillment. Of course, reference is made several times to the flagship book of alternative pedagogies of the 70s, “Free Children of Summerhill”. The director quotes a British researcher in the sciences of education, Roland Meighan: “We will have to put an end to domination and its endless flow of unsolicited teaching. It will be necessary to recognize that, in a democracy, learning by constraint means indoctrination, and that education can only be learning by invitation and by choice. »
Not all families are conducive to learning
This educational model arouses, and this is quite normal, astonishment, mistrust and even strong criticism. Home schooling is the subject of sustained public attention because it can facilitate sectarian control. We also know that the first source of danger for a child is unfortunately, too often, his family, even if there is no reason why mistreatment is more frequent among “unschoolers” than among children. others. It just might go unnoticed. We also find in the background in the discourse of the pro “family education” the idea that the school is a tool of enslavement of the people who would have no other objective than to make docile citizens. This theory of a confiscatory school which seeks to dispossess parents of their role as educators is currently enjoying great success, relayed by the Manif pour Tous and the initiator of the “Day of withdrawal from school”, Farida Belghoul ( who practices home school herself). However, for thousands of children, even hundreds of thousands of children, whose family environment is not particularly conducive to learning, school remains the only way of salvation, even though this school would be oppressive and castrating. .
Can love be enough?
The parents interviewed by Clara Bellar, deliver an intelligent, deep speech, of a beautiful humanity. The director describes them as free-thinkers. In any case, they think, that’s for sure. They are intellectually armed to support their children, to answer their questions, to arouse their curiosity, to allow it to flourish. We imagine these families in a permanent dialogue, with a word that circulates constantly, which nourishes the siblings, from the two-month-old baby to the 15-year-old teenager. One can imagine this atmosphere conducive to the excitement of discovery. These activists are convinced of it, it is enough to be confident, patient and benevolent for the child to grow harmoniously, to have confidence in him and to know how to learn by himself, which will make him a fulfilled, autonomous and free adult. “It just takes a lot of love, it’s within the reach of any parent.” If it were so simple … Once again, many children, brought up in a world that is not very stimulating intellectually, will see their capacities wasted not having been encouraged outside the family unit and will be adults anything but free.
Escape from school pressure
Clara Bellar’s film nevertheless remains fascinating because the questions it raises are fundamental and it forces a paradigm shift. At the heart of this documentary is a philosophical reflection on happiness. What is a happy child? And what is success? At a time when the choice of middle school and then high school has become a matter of life and death, where orientation in 1st S then entry into preparatory class are the only possible options for a good student, where academic pressure is reaching summits, the refusal of these parents to impose on their children this exhausting race for the most profitable diploma suddenly seems very refreshing, not to say salutary. It echoes a passage from the book * that I devoted to the Lycée Bergson, a Parisian establishment, two years ago. Book in which I deciphered the bad reputation of this establishment and the feeling of downgrading of the students who were assigned to it. Sorry for this fit of narcissism, but I conclude this note by self-quoting. Here is an excerpt from one of the last chapters.
Want the best for your child or wish him happiness
“When do we fall into excess pressure? This is a recurring question for me, especially with my eldest son, aged 7. I want my children to be successful. I want for them a good job, rewarding, fulfilling, well paid, an advantageous social position. I also want, above all, that they be happy, that they be fulfilled, that they give meaning to their life. I want them to be open to others, caring, empathetic. I want to make them citizens attentive to their neighbor, respectful of the values to which I hold, humanists, tolerant, reflective.
I have a pretty strong idea of what a student should be. I am very attached to consistency, will, perseverance, I can be inflexible in respecting the rule, adults, and especially teachers, I consider a priority to master the fundamentals, grammar, spelling, arithmetic, history. I intend to transmit to my children that their academic commitment, their culture, the extent of their knowledge will guarantee their future freedom. But at the same time I am aware of the potentially exaggerated nature of my demands, I am afraid of crushing them, of forgetting to communicate to them the pleasure of learning, the enjoyment of knowledge. I wonder about the appropriate way to support and stimulate them while preserving their personality, their aspirations, their essence.
I want them to be carefree as long as possible and at the same time prepared for the reality of the world. I would like them to be able to meet the expectations of the system because it is up to them to adapt to it and not the other way around, that they do not go too far beyond the framework, that they become these autonomous, regular, diligent students. that make life easy for teachers and parents. And at the same time, I am constantly afraid of upsetting the human being they are becoming, just as left-handed people were once upset by forcing them to write with their right hands. I would like my eldest, my dreamy little boy, always out of touch with the group, to take what school has best to offer him: free, disinterested, almost vain, universalist knowledge, the discovery of otherness and its limits. More than anything maybe I dream that he learns for fun and not to become a senior manager, not to avoid unemployment, because then he will learn anywhere, so I will not be afraid for him, then, to Bergson or to Henry IV he will give the best of himself. The best yet. “
* Never in this high school, François Bourin editions, 2011