Dear companions,
May I allow myself to call you “companions”? “friends” shall come soon I hope, but we have only just met, and “colleagues” is not appropriate, for I feel that we are linked with something more ethical, leading a common, collective effort. As accepted during our last council, I will share here some thoughts coming after our two days of work together. I do it a bit late, I am sorry for that. This letter is long: don’t worry, it will not be always like that, but I am now back to France, and above all, I think that, have really shared the first moment of cooperation, it was very important to be very careful to the signs our group produced: ignoring them would ruin our effort for a serious cooperative training. And as your dear Pythagoras used to say: “Beginning is the half of all”! If you want to read my propositions, go directly at the last point.
1.
Workshops
First, I would like to come back on the workshops. They seemed too short to all of us – including me. Too “frustrating”. Well, that was done on purpose. It is not possible to have a complete, full overview of the complexity of cooperative techniques in three or six hours; and it would be a false reassurance to think that we can do it step by step, from one technique to another. It was necessary, as a first encountering, to get drowned into it, left with some frustration. For without frustration, no desire can stem – as all 1
psychoanalyst will recall us! Fernand Oury, founder of “institutional pedagogy” (the kind of pedagogy Patrici Baccou and I are practicing, and that is a branch of Freinet pedagogy), used to compare the complexity of the class with the Atomium in Brussels: several spheres all linked to all the others, with the impossibility to choosing only one single way to walk from one to another; and at the centre of this Atomium, one empty space: the space of the subject (the student, the teacher, ourselves: each member of the group), a space free for each one’s free way of conceiving, interpreting and acting this complex reality. Now, we can go back to those workshops, and do a deeper, longer work around one technique; I think that those that were presented last time are good entrances: moments for organization: council, jobs and belts; moments for common and personal speech: ti nea; techniques for introducing the free process of creation (free text or any other form of creation) until the achievement of social objects (newspapers, albums, etc.). This work has to be done in small groups, because we will remain aware of the uncompletedness of what we will do: other techniques exist, we know that. No one can allow to pretend he or she has the complete mastery of the Freinet techniques (our very last moment around the council will remain a clear “memento!” of it…). That is why I propose that from now on, workshops on several techniques last longer (between 45mn and 1h), in different frames maybe (workshops, general presentation in bigger groups but with practicing, etc.). It will be up to us to decide and test which form is the most adequate to our group: such kind of decisions cannot exist before the group, as a subject, has 2
experimented its own capacity and abilities. Regarding workshops, I think that groups must be of 5, or 8-10 persons maximum. Then, between you, from the Epal (or other schools), can display your results between yourselves: such is the simplest way for cooperation to get born. It is also the way you can master your cooperative, collective mastery of your practices and acquirements. And from month to month, each one is free to come back to a new workshop or to come back to a previous one, depending on the questions that stems as a priority for him or her, according to what he or she has started to practice with the students.
2.
Giorgos’ places
Linked to that essential, crucial aspect of practicing, I allow myself to thank again Giorgos for his welcoming during the session, and for his proposition in the forthcoming moment: his personal commitment into the process of using those techniques seems to me the ONLY way to enter pedagogy: without daring put a technique into facts, and to keep experiencing it for a long time (albeit all the problems that may naturally rise at the start), “Freinet pedagogy” will remain a topics for more or less interesting or boring training – but it will never be pedagogy, that is a tool that can make your job (and the students’, above all) more full of sense. I think that we did not properly offer Giorgos’ workshop a discussion about what could be done about the introduction of Freinet techniques into its concrete process of producing knowledge, skills and artefacts. In a way, it is normal: there is something artificial in putting ourselves in such a situation; 3
and yet, it forces us to get interested in the place and specificity of one of our colleagues. Of course, one may “know” our colleague, but rarely one thinks in a specifically pedagogical way, and that’s precisely what is necessary if your team wants to establish a real pedagogical cooperation. Seeing Giorgos’ two workshops, I saw once again how much the ethics of cooperative work is already there, potentially at least, in your team. Giorgos talked about the cooperation between students in order to create tools for the design studio, which led some of them, expected to be “not good at school”, to overpass by far the supposed limits of their efforts and patience. He also explained to Patrici and I how many projects by the students are linked with the rest of the life of Epal. Besides, I saw how every competence and task have to be progressively acquired before reaching the next step, and how it is clearly understood by the apprentice (in particular the danger of not handling some processes in wood work if one directly works with electric machines). Last, Giorgos explained to us the socialization of the products made by the apprentices, and how it could be accompanied outside of the mere workshop, into the life of Epal, for fairs or even to outside projects. These four aspects lead me to the conviction that Freinet techniques could be very easily and efficiently integrated as adjuvants to this whole way of working. In particular, I think of the “jobs” and the “belts”. No need to insist on the various jobs that can exist in the everyday life of the group: a collective work could be the recapitulation of such tasks and the writing of what it takes, in terms of competence, confidence and skills; such a “file” for each job could be done by the two most skilled students, and then checked 4
by another pair or by the teacher; then, if such jobs can be under the responsibility of those skilled students, other students can become apprentices-responsible, under the formers’ responsibility. What for? In order to acquire the competences that help them to grow in mastery: that is: the acquire a higher belt -> which means that it takes to establish the belts for each workshop. All this would help, then, to create the teams when it comes to realise a project, such as the one Giorgos evoked when he showed us his place. My last question is about the decision of such projects: he evoked several decisions to create objects linked with the life of Epal, which is of course a good thing; but who can propose such a project in general, and what is the process of deciding it, organizing its fulfilment, etc.? Can any student be the spring of such a proposition? How does the group accept it or not? Does every project have to be a global one, or can there exist personal, or smallgroup projects? There, of course, I think of the council, and its dialectic, highly intricated relation with jobs and belts: is there such a council, in all its dimension of a absolutely egalitarian way of considering the members of the group’s opinion? You see: all these questions are to be discussed, “brainstormed” together, around and for those specific places of work and its practitioners. But maybe Giorgos has tried to experiment other techniques: let him tell us!
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3.
Cooperation, decision and organization: to transmit cooperation cooperatively: the least of our duty… but not the easiest thing to accept and integrate!
Now, this leads me to make some more consideration about what is really cooperation in our own group. When I wrote the proposition of this training as a cooperative organization, in December, I meant exactly what has been discussed during the last council: to make the whole group, each of us, able to decide about the content, form and organization of our sessions. Such a proposition seemed to disturb some persons, so I would like to put my idea even clearer. “El pueblo manda y el gobierno obedece”: the people (that is: the council) orders and the government (that is: the group of the some responsible persons that officially organizes the training) obeys. This is the famous Zapatist moto. And even if I don’t oblige anyone to share the Mexican revolutionary group ideology, of course!, what this moto expresses remains the only way to conceive what is real direct democracy. And I esteem that our training will be faithful to Freinet’s conception of democracy only at this very condition: of course the organizing team (among which I think I am, or at least I am listened to) makes propositions (timetable, topics, responsibles of workshops, etc.), because they took the responsibility of it; but it does not implicates that this group took the power to decide alone: it proposes some ways of organizing to the others, but the automatic expression and vote of the whole council remains ALWAYS the rule, where each one of us has the right to express his or her opinion. There can be a group responsible, making 6
propositions; but there is always the possibility to change some of their decisions, if the majority wants so; and what if the majority is wrong? Well, no problem, the next council will be able to become aware of it, and change it: no tragedy, only the slow, uneasy path to learning the imperfection of our condition… No education without problems and the possibility to be wrong and to experiment the bitterness of having to check it… That point leads me to another precision. A question was raised by someone: are there several status among the participants? Are there people that would not be allowed to vote during the council? To my view, this cannot happen, without ruining the core of what is democracy in the group, and then ruining the confidence and trust each of us is to have in our common law. There cannot be “two scales of citizenship”: each vote has the same value in the council. Suh is universality of law: everywhere, every subject of this law is equal to any other member of the group. But this universality implies another point: the limits of such universality, that is: the limits of the laws of the council. Our council cannot decide things that don’t depend on the existence of our small group. In particular, our decisions cannot have a direct effect on the life of Epal and of the colleagues that don’t work in our group; besides, there are administrative aspects that don’t depend on us but on other social relationships: such things may not be discussable by us – but we can always talk together about the way to face them and to organize our collective way to deal with them. For instance, in another training program, people from Skasiarxheio had to ask the participants to write a brief text at the end of the two-year course: such was 7
an imposed condition by the official institutions that helped the program to exist; but what remains the free decision of the council and the people attending the training is the form and ethics this writing can have – for Freinet pedagogy is the reign of free expression… If a comparable situation occurred for us, I do think that our council, and not the “organization group”, would be the final decisional place where the common will should find the legitim authority of its expression. The group is to accept some external, “macrosocial” facts; but that doesn’t imply that it should surrender its will to such “higher issues”, when it comes to the content, the internal organization, the orientation and the possible use outside of its common effort and productions. In other terms, or the group is subjected to an external law (even if under the shape of the ploutocracy of the few decidors), or the group is a subject; and only the second case is real democracy. Another example: my own position. Of course, as one of the responsible, I make propositions and I do think they are the most relevant on a pedagogical point of view. But I always accept them to be discussed, questioned and potentially rejected. The authority of my speech and action stem not from my status, but from their relevance (hence: the belts, that have to be created and discussed, and not “taken for granted” because of a presupposed “mastery” in Freinet pedagogy). Only then pedagogy, and not scholar hierarchy, may rise. From this point on, consumers of a training become co-producers of this training; hierarchically “under” and “upper” positions among ourselves cease, 8
and we all become subjects of equal status in the process of building of a common law. Creating confidence in the Law requires the right to question such a law in all its aspects. By “law”, I mean the symbolic law, the one of ethics and politics: the one that anthropologists teach us it is the one that makes us human, a “zoon politikon”. Such a law is the property of no one, not even the property a little group of people that would “know better than the others” what is good for the whole group. At least, this is what people from Freinet pedagogy or Institutional pedagogy, during the last 80 years, have called and practice as real cooperation, all over the world. Cooperation, both with the young and the adults. Generally, when resistances to such a real sharing of power rises, it is often said to be a “cultural habit” – which would excuse some people from a country or a continent for not being able to share such a power: the famous “cultural gap”… The other reason often proposed is that it is not possible “for political reasons” or for “reasons of efficiency”: some people know better than others, because of the hierarchical status and their conscience of the “macrosocial” game: hence, the necessity of giving the power of all to a small group that would represent us and take decision instead of us. Such a perspective may exist, the one of representative democracy, but it works… at the macrosocial level! Pedagogical praxis exists at the restricted scale of small groups where direct democracy is not only possible, but unavoidable – at least if one wants to proclaims being practicing a cooperative praxis. I can understand that such a way of working can surprise people; and I do respect such a reaction, as a point for starting the way towards cooperation. 9
Doxa and the way society goes in its dominant structures lead us to being surprised. And mainly when we work in an educational field where the hierarchical habits flow through our least habits, not only to behave with our hierarchy, but to teach with the students. How many classes “in rows”, where the teacher is the one that knows, delivers the ridiculously huge amount of items from the official curriculum (decided by higher authorities no one can actually critic), through magistral lectures that leaves the students the only possibility of applying then with more or less time to try-and-train. Where is the place for the freedom of speech, decision and acts in it? Nowhere. It is normal that, when to such people as us, is given the possibility to try something else, such a new field opened seems the reign or of chaos, or of irresponsibility – and in both case, the place for a certain anxiety. Experimental fields never ensure that the adventure and the daring of new things may reach to success. That is why the only way to support ourselves in this risky adventure is to give our group as a whole and as an egalitarian agora, the real means and occasion to organize its paths and its legitim local essays and experiences.
In conclusion, I would like to remind you of one crucial thing: this training program is the very first, to my knowledge, that takes the risk to be done with such a council: it would be much, much easier not to have one, and leave the problems “under the carpet”. But this would not deserve to be called a cooperative training. We decided to propose to you not to pretend. That’s why we have to take very seriously into account the cloudy/stormy 10
feelings expressed at the end of the last Friday session, and still never to forget that this is our first real step towards a real experimentation of what cooperative democracy at school can be.
4.
The two councils
That’s why I have to talk now about the councils. My opinion about what happened is not good, as I already said. I will try to develop why, and for which reasons. There are two key points about the council. The first one is that the council is a reunion not to “debate”, but to take concrete decisions. The second key point is: we have to found the trust of each of us in our common law. And our first two councils proved we didn’t manage to do so. These two points explain the following considerations.
First, there is the first council, that starts the first day of training. In this council, only matters of organization are discussed (not general topics, not propositions for the whole training, etc.: this is for the ending council). a.
The timetable is recalled, and it is asked if someone has remarks to make. That’s why it is important to have this timetable transmitted some days before. That is: only detail and marginal reorganizations should be decided. Of course, some exceptional events can lead to major changes, but such a situation has to remain… exceptional!
b.
This is the moment to announce especially who may not attend the whole session, who might leave earlier, or miss the second day, who 11
may have to leave his or her mobile phone opened for urgent reasons (professional, familial, etc.) It is a matter of respect for the whole group, and it also expresses that we have a frame also in time: no one enters or leaves as if in a cafĂŠ. There, begins the existence of our common law. And once again, if some people have to leave unexpectedly, this is not a crime, but it can be said as an excuse/selfcritic in the ending council. c.
This is also the moment for the organizers to communicates the messages of excuse from those who have announced they couldn’t come.
Second, the ending council. I think that the last time, the council was definitely a moment of failure, which was clearly expressed by the majority of us (me included). It is of the highest importance to re-establish the condition for the confidence in such a moment. I would propose a couple of suggestions, inspired by the original French text which Haris translated in Greek and left for everyone to take it. a.
First, to my opinion, there are topics which had no place in the council. For instance: discussion about the difficulty of using such a pedagogy in the actual Greek system, or when isolated, of the legitimacy of this pedagogy, etc. The council is not a debate, and even less a debate about the meaning of what we are here for, but the place for actual decisions or analysis of the real life of the group: informations, demands, propositions, critics, thanks, congratulations. 12
Of course, the questions I quote are absolutely relevant, but they have to be treated apart, in a proper moment. Initially, I think that such topics would be discussed during the first part of the second day session. If they rose during the council, it means that our colleagues that talked about these actually needed to share them, and this must be heard; that’s why I make a proposition (cf. under). But their importance, and the fact that a lot of people spoke without asking for it caused the loss of the rules of functionning, the general excitement and exasperation, and eventually the disintegration of its whole frame – we finished almost one hour later than expected! b.
The time and its trespassing: i.
When an hour of ending has been decided, we must respect it. If we can’t trust the frame, then what can we be confident with? It dissolves the credibility of the law.
ii.
Only exceptionally, if some matter of importance requires it, this frame can be slightly changed: the president proposes to vote if we take 5, maximum 15 minutes, can be added to treat a major point (and if some people cannot stay, this is the moment when they announce it). An alternative solution is to write, as a decision, that a point that could not be treated should be discussed in priority during the next session council.
iii. c.
See under, my propositions.
The distribution of speech: the excitement provoked something that can be very often observed, and that ruins all respect of the other: 13
i.
Some words were said that shouldn’t have been pronounced (roughly, and as far as I can have understood it: some judgments about the relevance or not of some opinions, etc.).
ii.
Very quickly, everyone began talking in the same time, no one was listening to the one that had asked to speak. It was the very negation of what the council is for. It is our collective responsibility to accept that we behaved exactly the opposite way of what we are asking the pupils or students to do.
d.
Let us never forget that, at the beginning of a new council, the decisions from the last one are read again by the secretary: it is the best way to check if they have been applied; if some problems rise, no need to talk immediately about it, just inscribing them in one of the categories (critics or propositions – see bellow). If decisions are not followed in real effects, it gives a good sign of the “bad health” of the group…
e.
To my personal opinion, the topics discussed during the council cannot be ruled by “chance”, even by choosing at random small papers put into a box: Council is not a free-debate moment where we can discuss about topics: do you imagine an organization reunion on a ship that would consider matters at random? The ship would quickly sink… Besides, where would be the right to speak equally about important topics? That’s why I personally insist (see under) on the necessity of an order of speech where every person is inscribed in advance – which by the way lead us to learn how to prepare, think before, foresee, instead 14
of just reacting or “having an idea” on the spot: there is also the spring of relevance of each one’s speech, and the simplest sense of respect: the priority is always to those who think or work.
-> That’s why I propose a way of re-organizing the frame of the council, inspired from the Memento de pédagogie Institutionnelle, one of the text Haris translated and distributed last Thursday. a.
People inscribe themselves at the start in the several categories (information, demands, propositions, critics, thanks, congratulations); the president says these names and the secretary inscribes them. This gives the order of speech for the whole reunion. Those that forget at that moment may indicate it, but they will only speak if there is enough time: if not, they will have priority during the next council. The president will be very careful to the time of speech, maybe not more than 1 or 2 minutes per person, and may decide to interrupt the discussion if time passes too much. This is not easy, or to do, or to accept, but even adults have to learn frustration…
b.
For reasons of time, I cannot develop them fully here. I had a conversation about it with some of my friends of Skasiarxheio, responsible of the workshops on belts and council, and if you accept these changes (in the beginning council), they can put it in practice (maybe the workshop about the council would be the place to present it). Knowing the practical experience of these persons, I propose that one of these persons be president this time, in order to lead us back in 15
a confident ambiance, and counterbalancing the ill-at-ease impression of last week.
5.
What I would have inscribed myself for during our last council if there had been the possibility (I develop them much more than I would have done “live”: I explain and analyse them too):
a.
My informations: i.
I am absent for the March session and I am sorry for that.
ii.
My address, if anyone wants to write to me: pjlaffitte@almageste.net. Nota bene: I can’t understand Greek, only French, English, Spanish and Italian (Catalan and Occitan also, but rare may be speakers concerned!)
iii.
Evi translated various speeches I made in the “Maraslio Saturdays” of Skasiarxheio: for those who are interested, you can have access to their audio or written version. They may be a starting point for a discussion about what is council.
b.
My propositions: i.
I write commentaries about our first session, and to share them with the whole group. These commentaries are only my responsibility, and they express my conception, analyse or opinion. They have no other authority than this one, and asked to be shared and discussed with you if you want so. This decision has been accepted: here is my text.
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ii.
To make the workshops or concrete moments more important, and last longer.
iii.
During workshops or other moments in whole group: to give priority of speech and presentation to the people that are actually practicing techniques. This, in order to avoid general discussions (that always lead nowhere) or speeches of (understandable) fears from people that did not already “threw themselves in the water”.
iv.
A way of practicing our moments of common discussion in whole group: at the beginning of such moments, the president inscribes the name of the persons that want to raise a topic or a question, and the matter. If, at the end of the moment, not all of them could be discussed, they will be priority for the next session.
v.
A “job”: an inter-sessions secretary should be designed by the council; to the address of this person, anyone of us could write in order to say what topics/question/technique he or she wants to inscribe in our timetable. Of course, such points have to be proposed in priority during the ending council of the precedent session, but this inter-session secretary can be a way to “recuperate” all the thoughts and wonderings that often stem in the “in-between”. If no one writes, then the organization doesn’t change.
c.
My critics: 17
i.
To the organization group (including me) for: i.
The beginning
council that was not a council but just announcement without space for you all to react and adjust; ii.
The second day
organization: we didn’t have time to leave Giorgos express himself (and I DO apologize for this), and the presence of Patrici Baccou, though it was very interesting in itself, was too “passive” for the majority. I thought that the second day could be the moment to “brainstorm” all together, but the heaviness of the group prevented us from doing so. (I think 30 people is too much for a proper pedagogical training). iii.
The ending council
that, such as it happened, may have created a very strong feeling of insecurity in the whole group. This will lead us to think about what is the presidential function (not the person, such or such: what happened is beyond the persons, it concerned all of us, and complaining at the end may be justified, it is far from being sufficient to create a cooperative awareness of what happened). ii.
To the whole group for:
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i.
Not being able to
listen to the person that speaks. How can we ask students to do so if we, adults, are not even able to do it? White belt… It is not a definitive failure, just a bare statement of facts… ii.
To have repeated
over and over that the workshops had been too short… without proposing during the council to make them last longer. It is not surprising: being given the power to decide is often surprising, for anyone, adult of teenager. It takes time to acquire the reflex to organize ourselves instead of quarrelling… iii.
Not having
decided even the class where our next session would take place. Our colleague in mathematics’ class was proposed the day before, but maybe the organisational decision was thought as having to be left to… “those who decide”. Once again, nothing but very normal attitude. Cooperation means the sharing of power, it implies also the decision to share responsibilities. d.
My thanks: i.
To the students and teachers that showed me around their workshop on Thursday afternoon, and to have offered me some of their quality, organic, products for beauty and skin. 19
ii.
To the team that organized our two days, and first Evi and Yannis, who invited me last June to participate to the construction of this program.
iii.
To the members of Skasiarxehio for the rich exchanges that continued, especially during the workshops.
iv.
To Yannis and the persons that organized the coffee and eating moments: very appreciated!
v.
To Giorgos for his welcoming us, and accepting to open “his” class to so many people, for the very first time. Also for letting Patrici Baccou and I see these places and take pictures of them.
vi.
To Haris, for all the translation work he has directed since we have met, and that created the “manuals” or “enchiridions” you have been distributed during the workshops.
vii. To Patrici Baccou and Olivier Francomme for joining us on Friday session. viii. e.
My congratulations: i.
To Giorgos for being almost the only one to have proposed something concrete: the start of practicing cooperative.
ii.
To Yannis, for initiating this training being head of Epal but accepting – at least in my own speech – to see his status questioned seriously.
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iii.
To the whole group that accepts this adventure – as much as this acceptance is not an obligation, but a movement intimately desired, even if difficult, uneasy and self-questioning.
Well… as we say, “that’s all, folks!” I am looking forward to meeting you in April.
With all my friendship and cooperative consideration, Pierre
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