Closing speech

Axis 1 New education and socially marked school failure

Socially marked failure at school is often still seen as inevitable. We feel so powerless or unconcerned.  
But our discussions have shown that we see it as something to be recognised and fought for. Some see it as a scandal. 
For us, it must be eradicated. To do this, we need to be able to recognise it and know what it is so that we can combat it more effectively. 
Whose failure is the essential question? 
Do the responsibilities change if we see it as the failure of the child and his family? For the educational institution ? The teachers, educators and teaching methods in place ? 
Who is to blame for this blurring of the origins of school failure? 
The usual school structure: pupils divided into age groups, timetables, subject organisation, etc? 
We're getting out! Little by little. 
So we are against failure at school. But sometimes words about school failure show that the problem is still there.  That the legacy of a selective school contract,of which we are the distant heirs, continues to resist. 
 We strongly affirm that we are working to eliminate it. 
But without artificies 
By remaining the guarantor of learning, because at every level, we have an impact on the child's progress.
Favouring teamwork. 
By calling for training in New Education, with teachers and educators trained in critical thinking.      
By keeping a watchful eye on the opacity of assessment or hidden assessment (in the first cycle, in primary school, we don't think we're concerned: we don't select).
By demanding clearer positions from the state and our hierarchies. 
By working with our colleagues who are resisting a real battle of lucidity. 
By applying rigorous standards to learning situations, systems, etc.

    Questions : 
Should we act with strategies that go in the direction of rating detoxification? Should the rating be discredited?  Should these strategies be seen as useful first steps? 
Or do we need to go further?
By attempting to break with the twofold institutional mission, that schools are most often asked to fulfil: educate and select. By daring to fight openly, loudly and clearly against an implicit school contract that prevents the best pedagogical intentions.  
By setting up debates with families, but also with all citizens. 
Involving the press Creating real resistance
To dare: to branch off! To change a thousand-year-old order... (Raymond Millot. Tribute to him.)

 

Area 2 Global education, popular education, new education

What we say: 
The new education must move beyond the school to meet the emancipatory ambitions of popular education. This cross-fertilisation raises the importance and necessity of third educational spaces, when they are designed to complement each other: adventure playgrounds, street workshops, outdoor schools, literacy and integration centres, etc. In this way, the social question is mixed with the educational question to anchor the fields of new education in a societal and political dimension. This is where the contribution of popular and global education can be seen: reaching out to others, including those who are invisible, by breaking down barriers between practices, audiences and professions. Let's remember the words of Christine Mahy, who invites us to decentre ourselves and not to think in the place of those we support. Let's think of these third spaces between new education and popular education as levers in the fight against social relations of domination. This requires us to be clear about the political significance of our educational practices. During the biennial event, a number of experiences provided us with food for thought. These included social pedagogy, support for people who are illiterate, school support workshops run by alpha groups and inclusion schemes for pupils with disabilities, particularly in Italy.
We have many questions:
    • How can we give a greater role to those involved in popular education and social work in Convergences pour l'éducation nouvelle?
    • How can we build alliances through joint actions and struggles?
    • In the face of institutional violence, how can we establish frameworks that protect us and keep us going?

Social work?
Animation?  

Axis 3 New education in the face of totalitarianism and populism

At a time when many countries are experiencing or seeing the rise to power of far-right populist movements that are totalitarian, authoritarian, genocidal and fascist,
Let's not forget that these powers defend the established order, confining categories rather than emancipation, promote conservative rather than progressive values (see the way they view gender relations), and organise society from a hierarchical point of view by classifying and exploiting individuals, which is the antithesis of democracy. They cultivate ignorance, emphasising opinion and misinformation to the detriment of knowledge and its construction.

New education must not be afraid to tackle subjects that are admittedly complex but fundamental to the fight against these nauseating ideas, which run counter to our values. In its approaches, it promotes and encourages encounters. The debate on colonialism needs to be explored and explored further, and we need to move beyond denial and objectify the consequences and actions that are still present in our societies. Intercultural encounters can generate personal shocks that need to be accompanied and analysed if they are to be emancipating on a personal and social level.

The Biennial of 2024 reaffirms that the new education approach consists of creating the conditions for children, young people and adults to live in an egalitarian, just, fraternal, sororal and emancipating society: co-construction, the power to act, freedom of belief and conscience, the notion of a dynamic culture in perpetual evolution, emotional security... Let's not be afraid to say that when a society is not just, the new education reminds us that there is then a duty of civil disobedience. The new internationalist education is an almost natural bulwark against the extreme right and neo-fascism; it is at the service of the emancipation of each and every individual and social group.

 

Axis 4 New education to meet the ecological challenge 

Before this Biennial, we said that environmental issues were undoubtedly the issue of the century. More than ever, we need to work on them in our classrooms, in our structures, throughout society.
Knowledge and understanding of the phenomena that threaten human life on the planet are essential, but they can only be appropriated by young people if they are part of active teaching methods that involve all types of knowledge, scientific, but also literary, philosophical or artistic. Debates, controversies and the use of fiction are good tools for confronting different points of view, which need to be listened to.
We also need to work on reconnecting everyone with their environment, of which humans are a part.
There are still questions to be answered in the years to come:
how to give meaning to "eco-minor gestures" and turn them into levers for action rather than a misleading or guilt-inducing alibi
how to turn eco-anxiety into the will to act
how to encourage exchanges between schools or between jedreans to understand the different situations in the world.
How to involve families in coeducation
There is no doubt that ecological issues, which are eminently political, must play an increasingly important role in the thinking and practice of new education.

 

Axis 5: Privatisation and merchandisation of schools and education in general, cooperation and internationalism

The liberal capitalist system is demonstrating its ability to unify its practices: managerial methods in education, the house arrest of young people, the imposition of a language of learning, often the one of the dominant, and the gradual imposition of a monolingualism. 
The right to free movement of individuals is also being damaged, and so our freedom to associate and meet internationally. In view of the above, we reaffirm Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
1 - Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
2 - Everyone has the right to leave any country, including their own, and to return to their country.

It is up to us, the members of Convergences, to work together to :
- Deconstructing the managerial thinking implemented in popular education and schools and promoting active pedagogies.
- Make states aware of their obligation to organise an education system that is accessible and equitable for all.
- Rethink the social diversity in neighbourhoods so that it exists in schools and in every living environment.
- Develop ways of working together to support educators in crisis or conflict situations.