“Personally, I cried.” When she learned of the death of Dominique Bernard, a teacher who was the victim of a terrorist attack on Friday in Arras, Anne-Lise “felt a lot of sadness”, before voluntarily “cutting off” the news throughout the weekend. On the eve of her return to school, this young teacher confesses to being more “disappointed” than angry. “As I have CP classes and the students are small, I don’t know if we will talk to them about it, unlike middle and high school teachers.”
Throughout France, this Monday morning, secondary school teachers will benefit from two hours of “ordinary time”, between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m., to discuss events and how to talk about them with students. “What happened is unfair and dramatic in relation to the functioning of our education system and our society,” comments Leïla, who teaches at the Lucie Aubrac college in Givors, near Lyon. In his establishment, the reflection was initiated on Friday evening. Nearly 300 messages were exchanged in the dedicated WhatsApp group. “Some colleagues needed to express themselves, others to suggest ways of working to establish a protocol with the head of the establishment,” she explains.
“It’s not always easy to find the right words”
In the corridors of Lucie Aubrac, classes from 10 a.m. to noon will also be “normalized”. Several teachers, who will be dressed in black or will wear an armband of the same color, will intervene in each class to get the teenagers to “think and express themselves” through reading because “Dominique Bernard was a lover of literature”, poetry writing or workshops on Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, freedom of expression and democracy.
“It’s not always easy to find the right words,” confesses Elodie, who teaches history and geography as well as civic education in a high school in Lyon. And continued: “But I will take half an hour at the start of class to raise the subject, talk about republican principles and the objective of the school. “. “You never know how the students will react,” she continues, specifying however that in her establishment, the high school students are “rather receptive”. “We found ourselves faced with the same situation after the death of Samuel Paty. At the end, a student came to thank me, which is rather rare. He was Muslim and appreciated hearing that Muslims should not be stigmatized. »
“We have a right of reserve, we cannot say everything we think”
If Emilie “very much wants to talk about it”, this young teacher who works in a high school in Essonne, however, wonders about the way of approaching the subject and the “limits” of the exercise. “After the death of Samuel Paty, the recovery was terrible because no one had been prepared. We had no instructions, she testifies. It was chaos. » And to admit to being “afraid that certain colleagues would not rally to the cause” out of spite.
“We have a right of reserve, we cannot say everything we think so as not to make waves. It will still be mere talk, she denounces. I talked about it all weekend with my family but on Monday, I know very well that I will have to censor myself. I won’t be able to say the same thing to the students, even if I want to express my anger. Especially since it hurts my heart to know that some of them might not care. »
“We didn’t sign to die”
Delphine Geisler, who works at the Edgar Quinet high school in Bourg-en-Bresse, also wants to “scream her anger” and “send everything away”. “All schools risk becoming potential targets. We can’t continue like this. Today, we risk our lives. We didn’t sign to die,” she denounces. And added: “We have borderline students. We feel very clearly, as soon as we make remarks to certain people, that it is no longer the same as before. Now we feel hatred in their eyes. It has become extremely delicate, we risk having the parents on our backs. We are afraid of reprisals in class or outside. »
“I love my job but if it means risking my life, I will not be able to continue,” she continues, admitting to not knowing if she will be able to go to high school this Monday: “I continue to have rage. Are we all going to go back to class like sheep until the next one? »
But for Leïla, there is no question of missing the recovery. “For me, it is an act of resistance against barbarism and obscurantism,” she concludes.