Is civic education nothing more than perlimpinpin powder? A magic wand brandished by Emmanuel Macron? Or THE miracle solution to transform students into future model and engaged citizens? At the time of his major press conference on Tuesday evening, the President of the Republic confirmed that he wanted to double the hours of teaching “moral and civic education” (that’s how we say today ) in schools. That is to say, going from one hour to two hours. With the obligation to deal in particular with “the great founding texts of the nation”.
“Our students still need to be able to read them. In 6th and 5th grade classes, 60 to 70% of them do not understand what they read,” underlines Olivier, 55, “deeply doubtful.” He teaches history and geography in a college in Vonnas (Ain). And insists: “I see an announcement made by someone completely disconnected from reality. »
In search of the “lost ark”
Same feeling with Pierre, history-geography and EMC teacher at Lucie Aubrac college in Givors (Rhône). “In itself, it’s very good to want to double these teaching hours, I say well done but it’s not a magic wand,” he confirms. I am afraid that Emmanuel Macron’s vision is not that of the field, that it does not meet the needs of students and society. What are we putting behind this project? » “Singing the Marseillaise” or “proclaiming one’s love of the flag” does not constitute “enlightened training” and will in no way allow “developing autonomous civic thought”, he argues, even if he puts “ a point of honor” to teach civics. But not in Macron style: “The uniform, the national anthem, the SNU… The intellectual structure behind all that is not revolutionary. She is rather conservative, not to say reactionary.”
From there to thinking that the program desired by the President of the Republic has overtones of mothballs? “We are nostalgic for sepia France. Emmanuel Macron relies on things that have worked in the past. It’s as if he was looking for the lost ark,” comments political scientist Sebastian Roché, author of the book The unfinished nation. Youth facing school and the police.
A “curtain of smoke”
“It’s all well and good to want to make students work on values but we should already benefit from the support of the Institution,” complains this time Olivier who supervises defense classes in his establishment. “When we planned to organize a trip to Normandy to work on the landing, we didn’t have a single thing. We have to figure it out on our own. »
“It’s a curtain of smoke”, agrees, for his part, Frédéric Volle, FO/Snudi delegate in the Rhône. “Of course, civic and moral education is part of students’ learning in the same way as maths or French. But adding another hour or ten hours will not solve the current problems,” he denounces. The evil is deeper. Overcrowded classes and the failure to replace absent teachers are, according to him, responsible for the malaise of National Education and the general level of middle school students.
“In itself, Emmanuel Macron did not invent anything,” summarize the teachers interviewed on this subject in unison. Yes, civic education was introduced in 1882 by a certain Jules Ferry who wanted, at the time, to replace “moral and religious instruction”. “France is one of the countries in which the teaching of civic education is the oldest and longest, meaning that it spans a student’s entire schooling,” observes Sebastian Roché. It has been constantly increased in terms of schedules and over the course of crises. »
“The lecture approach does not work”
In 1985, Jean-Pierre Chevènement reintroduced it as a subject in its own right. In 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy wanted to make it “the second pillar of primary school”, behind mastery of the French language. In 2015, following the Paris attacks, François Hollande also wanted to put citizenship back at the heart of the school.
You will have understood, nothing very new under the sun. However, the observation is implacable, according to Sebastian Roché: “The approach to civic education through lectures does not work. It does not allow the transmission of republican values. The courses develop cold knowledge, namely dates, places, but do not develop subjective competence among students to allow them to take part in debates, to have political discussions and an attachment to the nation. » Only “engagement in activities” (through school or outside) proves effective, he analyzes.
Success does not “depend on the uniform or the national anthem to be sung,” argues the political scientist, but it “depends on the concrete relationship with school” and the “experience” that each person will have of it. “School is not a mold. It must be the basis on which we build ideas, the basis of daily life. It is a small society in the large society of the nation, he continues. But when you find yourself in ghetto schools, it can’t work. And if we don’t solve the problem of having teachers in all classes, if we don’t properly provide establishments with resources, it won’t work. »