Years that these two have known and talked to each other, united by their common passions for school, and for Latin America. One, rather classified on the right, has long sought the advice of the other, conscience of the left. The Minister of National Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, and the philosopher and sociologist Edgar Morin publish this Thursday a small book of interviews around a central question for each of them: "What school do we want?" "(Editions Odile Jacob - Sciences Humaines, 109 p., 9.90 euros).
The intellectual, a thinker of complexity, has devoted three books to the school question. While the teaching world has shown deep discomfort for several months, including in the current movement against pension reform (with a new call to strike this Thursday precisely), he strongly calls for a "pedagogical revolution" who would send waltzing school subjects to understand the world in a more global way. A plea to which he still devotes himself tirelessly. At 98, Edgar Morin admits that he has "never worked so hard".
Share with Jean-Michel Blanquer the same vision of education?
EDGAR MORIN. No, we obviously have differences. For my part, I believe very deeply in the need for an educational revolution. There are huge gaps in our education system. Nowhere do we learn what human identity is. It's extraordinary ! Human beings are capable of the best and the worst. It is very important to know human complexity, our versatility between reason and passion, even delirium.
You write that the school must "teach to live". What do you mean ?
It is to teach the understanding of the other, and to teach what is knowledge: a translation of the outside world through our mind, our language, our ideas ... We always risk being wrong. When it's in class, it doesn't matter. But in choosing a career, in choosing a spouse, a president, it is very serious. We all need to design the sources of errors and illusions. I am not saying it is an automatic way to avoid them, but it is essential vigilance.
How could these themes find their place in school?
First of all, it is a question of introducing the major subjects into the programs, such as knowledge of knowledge, understanding of others, human complexity, scientific ecology, globalization, which all require linking knowledge today. 'separated today. These are huge gaps to fill.
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Teachers demonstrate against pension reform, but also against the deterioration of their profession. Do you think this anger is beneficial?
I understand it very well, because I know that, everywhere, given the competitiveness and profitability demanded, including from public services, these suffer, like private companies, from a deterioration in working conditions. An overload, psychic and material. The fed up comes from the historical evolution of our societies where neoliberalism took control.
If it was you, the minister ...
If I were Minister of National Education, I would explain why a pedagogical revolution is essential. I would favor teaching ardor everywhere. I would also train teachers to deal with the big problems I told you about. I would try to fully restore the fundamental mission of the teacher: to promote the development of the best in human beings.
Why do you think the teaching function has lost its prestige?
Because the teachers are overwhelmed by the bureaucracy, by the parents who accuse them of not giving good marks, by the students who go elsewhere to seek sources of knowledge. A teacher must be a guide of minds who shows how to organize and prioritize information and not just a distributor of knowledge.
Which student have you been?
I developed both through school and through self-study. When classes bored me, I had a Balzac novel under my desk… In addition, the period in which I grew up, the tormented period of the Spanish War, Nazism, Stalinism, forced me to To ask questions.
What did the school teach you?
As far as literature is concerned, I managed on my own. But, as an immigrant child, it was the history of France taught at school that made me incorporate the French identity. Only son, I was, at the age of 10, orphan of mother. I also found in my school a cocoon, where I felt good with my comrades. When I drove my daughter to high school, I told her that the most important thing to find there was not so much knowledge, but friends for life.
Does the school you have known as a child deserve to be missed?
The question is not there. The generations were at the time less rash, less agitated. Today, more than before, the world of teachers and that of students live together, but do not know each other. We should push for them to understand each other. If I were a minister, I would make efforts to that end.