The analysis of numerous articles published at the beginning of the school is a good way to identify, in the monotony of judgments proffered a hundred times and "debates" ever reactivated, one of the preferred forms of media discourse, consisting not report but to settle accounts, it through a moral indignation skillfully distilled. But what it is to settle his account here, through the promotion of an ideology while imbued with pessimism elite, it is the very idea of democratization school. It will not seek here to refute the interpretation of facts that would otherwise be well-founded (there would have much to say on this point), but to describe the principles of production and dissemination of the dominant ideology in school subject.
The hatred of democracy
When, in his daily column on France-Culture and its editorial of Figaro-Magazine (01/09/2007), Alain-Gerard Slama announcement, tremolos in the voice and after many others, that "100 000 quasi-illiterate fall in the 6th "[2], when other players in the field media repeat ad nauseam that" 150 000 children leaving school without qualifications, or when a weekly newspaper known leftist title on the "scandal of illiteracy "The lamento mingles dispute and the pathos to produce an effect of intimidation on intellectual urge without penalty productivity policy.
What strikes in the machinal and repeated use of such "data", beyond the fact that their production is never questioned as such is the nature of the grounds that they are: a pretext for outrage well course (register in which the excellent cabotins waves and weeklies), but mostly a pretext for this "hatred of democracy" to which the philosopher Jacques Rancière [3].
Indeed, if we both gloss on figures who, in their extreme generality, do not say much about the education system and do themselves no interpretation (whatsoever), c ' is that they allow the imposition of a problem as old as the conservative thought, not only that "everything is going to vau-l'eau", but above all that decadence whole drift of a kind of hybris democratic. Because, as we will see, which is loath to our glorious thinkers is less that the school policy has not kept all its promises of democratization [4], but it has given such an end, cleanly senseless for which equates to a culture through which all value is its rarity.
Give meaning to the above figures, interpret them properly, would enter the workings of the education system, a task long and somewhat gratifying for the awards which claims almost instant order media, as we will see, 'Important for these "honest men" (as is awarded to the passage and sub-hand lonely Alain-Gerard Slama [5]) is not to describe and analyze this or that phenomenon, to discover the causes and / or to disentangle the effects, but to be indignant righteousness "defects" and "nonsense" of the system, for better claim - implicitly or explicitly - the "necessary reforms".
Glorieux precursors and illustrious heirs
In January 1989, sociologists Christian Baudelot and Roger Establet started a small book jouissif (The level rises) by these words: "With the shade of chestnut trees in the courtyard, the smell of chalk, agitation anxious to re - The declining level is one of the elements that make up the timeless landscape of the school on a beautiful discover each year with the same horror as an unprecedented scandal, we regret today in the same terms yesterday. " And the villains specialists cite a few glorious heralds of this "old idea of old:" The bachelor has become ridiculous. Our elite is not known reason, she does not know expose "(René Soudée, 1936)," Secondary education is primaries… Students have no spelling or vocabulary accurate and varied, or grammar or analysis Logically, neither method of exposure written or oral "(Paul Laumonnier, 1929)," I believe that three-quarters of school-leavers do not know the spelling "(Victor Berard, 1899)," The spelling of students in letters has become so defective that the Sorbonne has been reduced to request the creation of a new control conferences, who allegedly principal occupation is correct duties of french students from the Faculty of Letters "(Albert Duruy, 1886 ), "The copies fourmillaient yet misconduct language and spelling, it would seem that in our high schools and colleges, n'apprenne more on the French language" (Girardin, 1864), "Where does that part Students who have completed their studies, far from being skilled in their mother tongue, can not even write correctly spelling "(Lacombe, 1835).
These glorious precursors have illustrious descendants. Among them, very serious and very prolific Claude Allegre [6] and Alain Finkielkraut [7]. Their incursions institutionalized in the media microcosm, dressed for the title of a philosopher, the other draped in a tunic advantageous former Minister of Education, are for editorial chiefdoms as many references "inevitable". For the critical media as well.
Thanks to such scouts, we can fully enter in the media workshops dedicated to the manufacture of consensus, which circulates a circle, by way of "investigations" and "debates", bits of information and collections of ready-to - thinking.
Where we learn, thanks to Point, the existence of a "national disaster", a "taboo" that the Novel Observatory proposes to break
In June 2007, the weekly Le Point published an "investigation" conducted by economist Sarcoxie Jacques Marseille, whose obvious problem is delicately summarized under the title: "Education: survey of a national disaster." What then could be regarded as a cliché is necessarily conservative, when spread across the media, a kind of figure imposed media, with its attendant invisible censorship and problems impensés [10]. Thus, in September 2007, the large weekly "left" Le Novel Observatory, in a fit of rage own the converted, publishes a number appropriately titled "The scandal of illiteracy."
There are thoughtful judgments length ( "It's a pandemic which affects primary school. That of illiteracy, which affects to varying degrees 40% of children arriving in the 6th"), the findings carefully documented ( "Sidérant : 300 000 new college students can not read, write and calculate ") and interpretations finely chiseled (" they suffer from too low an IQ or a severe dyslexia, or they have suffered the consequences of a divorce or violence that have shaken their learning "). But the real scandal is probably not there, the scandal is obviously not be invited to such a feast Claude Allegre and Alain Finkielkraut.
Since we have clarified that "Le Novel Observatory investigated," review the various articles: "Jules Ferry, wake up," Fault bulk… the fac! "Stages spelling in enterprises", "The reasons for the disaster," Dyslexia, really? "When teachers turn a blind eye", "Course in rock'n'roll CE1," and - highlight of the show - a debate soberly titled "Back to school once." In fact surveys, we are facing a common bawdy places that lend to smile if the cause was the sharp edge of a conservative revolution in motion.
If we seepage tedious of the census of rodomontade's said Finkielkraut, who began his sermon by a very delicate "school agonise," we can bring this debate to a few themes which the reader appreciate the highly subversive:
Hay of historical analysis of school segregation, hay sociological analysis of the reproduction of inequalities in school, "there is no longer in effect heirs. The bourgeoisie cultivated leaves room for empty vertiginous the jet-set and people "(AF). Or how, by proclaiming the revocation of privileged and the end of privileges, appear as a useful idiot bourgeoisie still present in the most selective branches of the education system, still preferred .
Achevons on the original proposal of François Bayrou, a great opponent if it is to Nicolas Sarkozy: "Do should arrive at college, then in high school, that students properly trained. It is for this reason that I proposed during the presidential campaign to establish control of reading and writing before the entry into the sixth. " In addition to this type of control already exists, through tests scores in math and french awarded annually since 1989 by students from 6th, we would like to know what distinguishes these words from those of another original thinker education, the above-named Nicolas Sarkozy, who stated in his letter to educators "that" no one (should) come into the 6th if it has not demonstrated that he was able to follow education college, "and that" no one (should) come into second if it has not demonstrated that "he was able to follow the teaching of high school." |
