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Education Newsletter / Bulletin pédagogique 1 February / Février 2014

Education Newsletter

Bulletin pédagogique

February 2014


Contents

Nelson Mandela’s vision of education in Long Walk to Freedom 2

Nelson Mandela ou De l’éducation dans Un long chemin vers la liberté 16

Conrad Hughes

The Charterhouse-Ecolint teacher exchange 31

Liz Waldman (Ecolint), Michael Gillespie (Charterhouse)

A values-based education / Les valeurs au centre 36

Alejandro H. Rodriguez-Giovo

Nouvelles de l’Institut de l’Apprentissage et de l’Enseignement 41

Alison Ball, Frédéric Mercier

STEM Learning 44

Michael Winter

CoWriter: supporting writing acquisition through human-robot interaction 45

Shruti Chandra (EPFL)Sévérin Lemaignan,

Les ateliers d’échanges de pratiques de la Journée pédagogique de la

Fondation 48

Conrad Hughes

Lanterna & Ecolint 48

Hugo Wernhoff (Lanterna)

SEN Conference 50

Teresa Nunn

Rapports Annexe VI 51


Nelson Mandela’s vision of education in Long Walk to Freedom

Conrad Hughes

Introduction

This article synthesises the approach Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (1918-2013) took to

education in his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom, published in 1994. I think it is

valuable to examine the theme of education through the lens of Mandela’s autobiography

because the reflections are rich and made at many levels. What I will show is that in his

autobiography, Mandela presents education at three analytical levels that all point to the

fundamental question: what is an education for?

First, we see that education transcends the institution: it goes beyond the school and the

university into the streets. Mandela shows us that a competent person does not necessarily

have an academic education and that, on the contrary, institutionalised education can lead to

compromise, quietism and moral ambiguity. This was particularly salient in the context of

apartheid South Africa, where that educational systems lacked moral legitimacy, but as the

examples will show, the question has implications that go well beyond South Africa and

make us think hard about the extent to which we can reach worthwhile educational goals

through institutionalised means.

Second, education is power. Mandela’s lifelong learning helped him to survive and ultimately

vanquish the system of white minority rule in South Africa. Education not only has the ability

to liberate individuals from the shackles of poverty, it gives them insights that allow them to

build new realities and imagine new worlds. This might seem obvious, but the way it is

articulated in Long Walk to Freedom is subtle, suggesting that an education for a better world

is as much a question of attitude as it is one of access.

Thirdly, education is about cultural transmission. I will cite those passages from Long Walk to

Freedom that speak of African history, cultural practices and ancient traditions and how

these are communicated and learned. These educational moments of cultural transmission

take place through oral history, group discussion, performance and art.

In my conclusion I hold that these three pillars of education (its de-institutionalisation,

potential for empowerment and vehicle for cultural transmission) are essential to understand

today, not only because they bear the testimony of an extraordinary historic leader, but

because they give form to the oft-cited statement “education is the most powerful weapon we

can use to change the world” that Mandela made at the University of the Witwatersrand in

2003. I will argue that in a globalised world where neo-liberal positivistic assumptions are

driving educational discourse (education for technological growth, a globalised economy

made up of extreme corporate values and a type of new age Futurism), we need to stand

back and reflect on the stories of those that have gone before, for whom education points to

more enduring values such as past wisdom, higher-order moral imperatives, social justice

and ideological freedom.


Hannah Adlide, Campus des Nations

Education transcends the institution

Mandela’s early education took him, successively through missionary schools, from a one-

room school in the village of Mqhekezweni (1994, p. 20) to the “far grander” (p. 38)

Clarkebury, then Healdtown, which “in 1937 […] was the largest African school south of the

equator” and finally the university of Fort Hare, “both home and incubator of some of the

greatest African scholars the continent has ever known” (p. 52). Mandela says of these

experiences that “the learning environment of the missionary schools, while often morally

rigid, was far more open than the racist principles underlying government schools” (p. 52).

Indeed, it is not of insignificance that Mandela escaped Bantu education and, due to this,

was allowed to flourish intellectually – albeit within the confines of a colonial model of

education.

Part One of Long Walk to Freedom is filled with anecdotes that describe the various

experiences Mandela had at these institutions. The reader senses the colonisation of the

mind and European acculturation that missionary education entailed:

Dr Wellington […] a stout and stuffy Englishman […] would walk on stage and say: ‘I

am the descendant of the great Duke of Wellington, aristocrat, statesman, and

general, who crushed the Frenchman Napoleon at Waterloo and thereby saved

civilization for Europe – and for you, the natives’. At this we would all enthusiastically

applaud, each of us profoundly grateful that a descendent of the Great Duke of

Wellington would take the trouble to educate natives such as ourselves. (pp. 43-44)

Yet it is here that Mandela suggests that the seed of his political activity is planted as we see

in a discussion with student called Nyathi Khongisa after the students have listened to a

lecture by General Jan Smuts on why South Africa should fight alongside the British in WW2:

During one session, a contemporary of mine […] condemned Smuts as a racist. He

said that we might consider ourselves ‘black Englishmen’, but the English had

oppressed us at the same time as they tried to ‘civilise’ us. Whatever the mutual


antagonism between Boer and British, he said, the two white groups would unite to

confront the black threat. […] A fellow student whispered to me that Nyathi was a

member of the African National Congress [ANC], an organization that I had vaguely

heard of but knew very little about. (p. 58)

Essentially, it is the experiences out of the classroom that mark the young Mandela the most:

the mingling of different Africans steadily draws him beyond his Thembu and Xhosa identity

to a broader sense of what it means to be African, the way certain black teachers stand up to

the white head of school teach Mandela the lesson that “a black man did not have to defer

automatically to a white, however senior he was” (p. 45). These observations help to form his

notion of humanity. Mandela also notices habits and behaviours that build his metacognitive

awareness (or ability to learn about learning): “I saw many young men who had natural

ability, but who did not have the self-discipline and patience to build on their endowment” (p.

55).

At this stage of his life, Mandela idealises the importance of an academic education and says

that “a university degree, I believed, was a passport not only to community leadership but to

financial success” (p.59). However, an extremely significant event at Fort Hare, recounted in

detail, means that he will not complete his degree there. Mandela is elected to the Student

Representative Council unfairly as the elections have been boycotted by the students and he

therefore resigns. However, “Dr Kerr, a graduate of Edinburgh University, […] virtually the

founder of Fort Hare and […] a greatly respected man” (p. 61) threatens to expel him from

Fort Hare if he does not accept what is, effectively, an illegitimate position. Mandela

struggles with the moral dilemma somewhat in the vein of St Augustine in The Confessions:

“shaken” and spending “a restless night”, he asks himself “was I sabotaging my academic

career over an abstract moral principle that mattered very little?” (p. 61). Finally, he will not

budge and rather than compromise his values he refuses to stand on the council and is

expelled by Dr Kerr.

Ironically, it is Mandela’s expulsion from Fort Hare that marks one of the most profound

elements of his early education – education in the deep sense of growth or more specifically

‘leading out’ - as it is the first of many acts of self-sacrifice he will make, later defining him as

the freedom fighter who will risk his life and spend over 27 years of his life in prison for his

beliefs. It is also because of this decision that he travels to Johannesburg and follows a path

other than the one set for him in the Transkei. What these passages from Long Walk to

Freedom suggest is that an institutionalised education is not necessarily the path to freedom

or justice but on the contrary to compromise and selfishness, and we see that Mandela will

not buckle under the injustice it suggests.

In Johannesburg, Mandela meets Walter Sisulu, a lifelong friend and high-ranking member of

the ANC. He is surprised to learn that “Walter Sisulu had never gone beyond Standard VI”

(p.80) and points out that he “found that many of the most outstanding leaders had never

been to university at all”, this being a lesson from Fort Hare that he has to “unlearn” in

Johannesburg. The point is made more emphatically in describing ANC stalwart Gaur

Radebe:


Gaur was an example of a man without a BA who seemed infinitely better educated

than the fellows who left Fort Hare with glittering degrees. Not only was he more

knowledgeable, he was bolder and more confident. Although I intended to finish my

degree and enter law school, I learned from Gaur that a degree was not in itself a

guarantee of leadership and it meant nothing unless one went out into the community

to prove oneself. (p.85)

The point is, naturally, linked to the type of education that a black person could expect in

South Africa in the 1940s and the fact that institutional discourses were ingrained with racism

and iniquity. Years later, on Robben Island, Mandela compares prison to school in remarking

that the brutal prison warder, Piet Badenhorst “ like a teacher who takes over a rowdy class,

[…] sought to discipline the student he regarded as the principal troublemaker” (p. 545).

However, the reflections are not only significant in the context of 1940s South Africa but

should speak to all of us about the limits of an institutionalised education to bring about

meaningful change since the moral principles, risk-taking and freedom of spirit of those who

have the capacity to transform society will often conflict with the stayed established ritual of

an academic education and in some instances might even go against the grain in

uncomfortable ways. We should remember those historical geniuses who represented

thinking outside of the confines of the institution, people like Shakespeare who did not attend

university, or the many brilliant minds who were expelled from school including Shelley,

Frost, Einstein and Dali.

In Johannesburg, Mandela continues to study law at the University of the Witwatersrand

where “despite the university’s liberal values, [he] never felt entirely comfortable there” (p.

103). Part Two of Long Walk to Freedom describes how one of Mandela’s law professors

holds that women and Africans are not meant to be lawyers and how many whites make him

feel that he did not belong there (p. 104). Here again, it is not the written curriculum or the

institutional discourse that shape Mandela’s moral education directly but the interactions he

has with fellow students, usually outside of lectures in late night discussions:

Wits opened a new world to me, a world of ideas and political beliefs and debates, a

world where people were passionate about politics. I was among white and Indian

intellectuals of my own generation, young men who would form the vanguard of the

most important political movements of the next few years. (p. 105)

These reflections bare testimony to the real educational experience Mandela had at Wits, for

though he failed his examinations several times (p. 171), it was here that his political

consciousness developed substantially.

What these extracts show us is that the idea that an education means qualifications falls

short of education in the broader, more spiritual sense of developing character. Mandela

reiterates the point during the treason trial: “to a narrow-thinking person, it is hard to explain

that to be ‘educated’ does not only mean being literate and having a BA, and that an illiterate


man can be a far more ‘educated’ voter than someone with an advanced degree” (p. 299).

This is a citation that we might wish to ponder over in a modern educational climate where

literacy and numeracy are seen, understandably, as essential but, worldwide, few

assessments are done to test traditional knowledge systems, a person’s moral fabric,

wisdom or non-academic competences.

Under the oppression of the apartheid government, it is clearly the school of life that teaches

Mandela his most valuable lessons. The accounts of political actions and decisions are

strewn with reflections that suggest this: in discussing the relationship between the ANC’s

executive and grass-roots level support, “it was one of the first times that I saw it was

foolhardy to go against the people. It is no use to take an action to which the masses are

opposed, for it will then be impossible to enforce” (p. 153); in prison he shares with the

reader lessons learnt empirically about the human spirit: “strong convictions are the secret of

surviving deprivation” (p. 494), “prison was a kind of crucible that tested a man’s character.

Some men, under the pressure of incarceration, showed true mettle, while other revealed

themselves as less than what they had appeared to be” (p. 539).

The trials and tribulations that Mandela faces and his reactions to them are testimony to his

remarkable person and ability he has to extract valuable lessons from life, including

seemingly unremarkable incidents: he draws salient symbolic parallels between the struggle

for freedom and Antigone’s rebellion when playing Creon in a prison production of

Sophocles’ play (pp. 540-541), when Badenhorst, upon leaving Robben Island, wishes him

“good luck” he philosophises that “all men, even the most seemingly cold-blooded, have a

core of decency, and if their hearts are touched, they are capable of changing” (p. 549),

when tending his garden on Robben Island he learns “through trial and error” (p. 582) as he

draws metaphorical parallels between his work as a leader and a gardener (“the leader must

take responsibilities for what he cultivates; he must mind his work, try to repel enemies,

preserve what can be preserved and eliminate what cannot succeed” [p. 583]).

Passages like these (there are many) show the reader that the self-taught learner in Mandela

is what distinguishes him from others, as he is constantly alert and reflective, a genuine

inquirer at all times. He remarks “it is what we make out of what we have, not what we are

given, that separates one person from another” (p. 194). Indeed, to read Long Walk to

Freedom in itself is a powerful educational experience as the lessons are real and the way

they are presented to the reader full of the wit and perspicacity that made Nelson Mandela

such an extraordinary human being. Again, all this shows that the ingredients of a

remarkable education are not just about curriculum and diplomas, they are about lessons

that are drawn from life itself.


Julia Einsweiler, Campus des Nations

Education is power

Of course, it is not because Mandela in Long Walk to Freedom recognises that true wisdom

and conscientiousness often exist beyond the walls of the institution that he totally disregards

what an institutional education has to offer. On the contrary, Mandela sees the battle for

access to quality education as paramount in the struggle, making it clear how a conventional

school education can empower and liberate individuals and communities of people. A

seminal passage reads:

Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that

the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can

become the head of the mine, that the child of farmworkers can become the president

of a great nation. (p. 194)

This is why one of the most pernicious apartheid acts to be passed was the 1953 Bantu

Education Act whereby missionaries were to relinquish their schools to the Native Affairs

Department so that, from then on, Africans would be “trained to be menial workers” (p. 195).

This Act was accompanied by the 1959 Extension of University Education Act “which barred

nonwhites from racially ‘open’ universities” (p. 270).

However, whilst school and university education would be a vital ideological battleground for

the ANC, Mandela realises that strategically political action is a more immediate route:

“‘education is all well and good,’ Gaur said, ‘but if we are to depend on education, we will

wait a thousand years for our freedom” (p. 99). It is here that we see a different type of

learning grow and sustain the liberation struggle, away from the impoverished classrooms of

Bantu education. Indeed, Gaur Radebe brings the theory that Mandela learned in the

classroom to life: “I had taken two courses in modern history at Fort Hare, and while I knew

many facts, Gaur was able to explain the causes for particular actions, the reasons that men

and nations had acted as they did. I felt as though I was learning history afresh” (p. 99). The

extract is important because it shows the power of education when revitalised, contextualised

and made relevant. More especially, we see how Guar Radebe brings understanding to


history, and it is with that understanding that there is the power that allows for analysis and

application.

In the 1950s, when Mandela becomes a banned person, he elaborates a series of political

lectures for ANC members: “there were three courses, ‘The World We Live In’, ‘How We Are

Governed’ and ‘The Need for Change’ (p. 168). These courses in politics and economics are

supplemented by courses on African history and culture, delivered by imprisoned ANC

activists awaiting trial in 1952 (p. 234). Robben Island becomes known as “the University”

because of the rich exchange of ideas that circulate among political prisoners: “we became

our own faculty, with our own professors, our own curriculum, our own courses” (p. 556).

Courses in Marxism, political economy, the history of the ANC, the history of the Indian

struggle are described as a syllabus, “the style of teaching was Socratic in nature; ideas and

theories were elucidated through the leaders asking and answering questions”.

This informal education of that time does not only take place amongst ANC members,

Mandela takes any opportunity to educate white South Africans about the history of the

organisation and what he stands for, and his long speeches from the dock in the treason and

Rivonia trials are extremely historical and didactic. On Robben Island, in discussing the

prison warders he says “I wanted to demystify the ANC for them, to peel away their

prejudices” (p. 542); “it was ANC policy to try to educate all people, even our enemies: we

believed that all men, even prison service warders, were capable of change, and we did our

utmost to try to sway them” (p. 497). The first day of talks with the Nationalist government in

1990 are described as “more or less a history lesson” (p. 693) with Mandela explaining that

“the ANC from its inception in 1912 had always sought negotiations with the government in

power”. These quotations show how education outside the school and university had a

crucial role to play in the struggle against apartheid. More specifically, knowledge of history

that had been suppressed by propaganda and censorship, played a crucial role in the

shaping of opinions (p. 498) and reaffirms Mandela’s “long held belief that education was the

enemy of prejudice” (p. 601) .

Education as power comes through Long Walk to Freedom in another, manner: Mandela is a

genuine lifelong learner and his continual study of the law allows him insights into the legal

system that empower him and those who he represented as an attorney while free and in

prison.

Throughout the Rivonia trial, Mandela continues to study for his LLB by correspondence with

the University of London (p. 443). Recognising the importance of study, the political prisoners

on Robben Island enrol in correspondence courses and despite being deprived of decent

study conditions, “within months, virtually all of us were studying for one qualification or

another. At night our cell block seemed more like a study hall than a prison” (p. 489). This

course of action proves to be crucial for it allows the men reading materials to which they

would otherwise not have had access: “the authorities attempted to impose a complete

blackout; they did not want us to learn anything that might raise our morale or reassure us

that people on the outside were thinking of us” (p. 492). Knowledge of the law in particular is

described as power as it allows knowledge of the legal system that challenges the prison


warders: “Mac had studied law and was adept at putting the authorities on the defensive” (p.

515).

Mandela’s reading of Nadine Gordimer, John Steinbeck, and Leo Tolstoy in prison (p. 585)

further develop his philosophical reflections on leadership and social justice while his

constant efforts to learn the languages of South Africa are borne from deep thoughts on

identity and culture:

Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them; once cannot share

their hopes and aspirations; grasp their history; appreciate their poetry or savour their

songs. I again realized that we were not different people with separate languages; we

were one people, with different tongues”. (p. 97)

Education in Long Walk to Freedom represents power in social, ideological, historical and

cultural realms. It is the spirit of lifelong learning that Mandela incarnates and propagates in

and outside any formal educational setting that characterises not only his personal

development, that of his family (his children are saved from Bantu education through private

schooling [p. 198] and then outside South Africa in a boarding school in Swaziland [p. 505]),

but much of the core struggle against apartheid: the June 16 massacre in 1976, known as

“Soweto Day” came about after students took to the streets to protest against a Secondary

School curriculum that was half in Afrikaans, the language of oppression.

The passages that I have termed “education is power” resonate with the theories of Antonio

Gramsci, Paulo Freire and Frantz Fanon: education empowers when it is developed away

from the institutional organs of ideological propaganda; it is here that it offers the oppressed

an alternative to the master narrative that enslaves them. Whether this means escaping

Bantu education by self-educating or organising underground educational systems, it is the

thread of education that allows the resistance to remain linked to its historical roots.

This is particularly valuable to reflect upon today in a world where the media plays a powerful

role in shaping opinions through normalising constructs such as “free market economy”,

“developing world”, “ “illegal immigrant”, “anti-democratic” or “terrorist” to give but a few

examples. These officialised narratives, if unchallenged, constitute reality for millions of

people. It is the counter-narratives of whistle-blowers such as Julian Assange and John

Pilger that represent an alternative story. The theme of education in Long Walk to Freedom

reminds us not only of the valuable testimony of apartheid South Africa but also calls out for

the underground stories that feature less prominently in history text books such as those – to

mention just a few - of the Aborigines, the Native Americans, Armenians, Palestinians,

Burmese, the stories of the slave trade and colonisation.


Maxine Ntambwe, Campus des Nations

Education as Cultural Transmission

So what was it that made Nelson Mandela such an exceptional leader? The question that

haunts us about great figures of history can be asked of him, was it his upbringing, his

lineage, the circumstances, his education? Part Three of Long Walk to Freedom, “Birth of a

Freedom Fighter” starts with a remarkable passage that tells of Mandela’s decision to

dedicate his life to the struggle. The inception remains elusive:

I cannot pinpoint a moment when I became politicized, when I knew that I would

spend my life in the liberation struggle. […] I had no epiphany, no singular revelation,

no moment of truth, but a steady accumulation of a thousand slights, a thousand

indignities and a thousand unremembered moments produced in me an anger, a

rebelliousness, a desire to fight the system that imprisoned my people. (p. 109)

So trying to pinpoint the birth of Mandela’s political conscience is difficult, but what his

autobiography does tell the reader is how formative his childhood experiences were in rural

Transkei. Indeed, the traditional African education that Mandela received clearly laid the path

that he would take to his destiny as president of South Africa. In Part One (“A Country

Childhood”), in speaking of the chieftaincy, Mandela wrote: “My later notions of leadership

were profoundly influenced by observing the regent and his court. I watched and learned

from the tribal meetings that were regularly held at the Great Place” (p. 24).

In these meetings “it was democracy in its purest form. […] The foundation of self-

government was that all men were free to voice their opinion and were equal in their value as

citizens”. The young Mandela observes the different speakers and clearly draws valuable

lessons on oratory from this:


I noticed how some speakers rambled and never seemed to get to the point. I

grasped how others came to the matter at hand directly, and who made a set of

arguments succinctly and cogently. I observed how some speakers used emotion and

dramatic language, and tried to move the audience with such techniques, while others

were sober and even, and shunned emotion. (p. 25)

He goes on to make it clear how essential these observations were for his education in a

famous passage:

As a leader, I have always followed the principles I first saw demonstrated by the

regent at the Great Place. I have always endeavoured to listen to what each and

every person in a discussion had to say before venturing my own opinion. Oftentimes,

my own opinion will simply represent a consensus of what I hear in the discussion. I

always remember the regent’s axiom: a leader, he said, is like a shepherd. He stays

behind the flock, letting the most nimble go on ahead, whereupon the others follow,

not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind. (pp. 25-26)

Indeed, it is useful to remember how distinctly African Mandela’s style of leadership was as

this debunks the view one hears in certain corners that traditional African society is not

congenial to democracy because of tribal organisational structures and chieftaincy when

quite clearly these passages show that this was not the case in traditional Xhosa society at

all. It was in Mandela’s speech at the Rivonia trial that he articulated clearly the value of his

cultural heritage in his world view:

The structure and organization of early African societies in this country fascinated me

very much and greatly influenced the evolution of my political outlook. The land, then

the main means of production, belonged to the whole tribe and there was no

individual ownership whatsoever. (p. 391)

The experiences Mandela has as a youth in the Transkei do not only expose him to models

of leadership but to history from an African perspective. The most ancient of all, Chief Joyi,

educates Mandela about the Thembu, the Pondo, the Xhosa and the Zulu: “In pantomime,

Chief Joyi would fling his spear and creep along the veld as he narrated the victories and

defeats” (p. 26). He also tells Mandela of the coming of the white man (“abelungu”):

I did not yet know that the real history of our country was not to be found in standard

British textbooks, which claimed South Africa began with the landing of Jan van

Riebeeck at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652. It was from Chief Joyi that I began to

discover that the history of the Bantu-speaking peoples began far to the north, in a

country of lakes and green plains and valleys. (p. 27)

Mandela’s traditional circumcision at the age of 16 is described in detail (pp. 30-36). It is

through this rite of passage that, according to Xhosa ritual, he becomes a man but the

chapter ends with a reflection: “looking back, I know that I was not a man that day and would

not truly become one for many years” (p. 36). Many years later, on Robben Island, Mandela


agrees to secret circumcision for young Xhosa inmates. He reflects that circumcision “was a

cultural ritual […]. It was a rite that strengthened group identification and inculcated positive

values” (p. 511). This is an important step in the education of Xhosa males and the

discussion around circumcision school in Long Walk to Freedom is significant as we see

traditional values carried through society as fundamental educational values.

The deep messages that Mandela received from his traditional upbringing would not leave

him. Instead of allowing this cultural heritage to create tribal divisions between him and other

Africans, which would have suited the strategy of divide and rule that the apartheid

government thrived on, mainly in the creation of the homelands and the way the mines were

managed, Mandela saw commonality and a sense of African humanity in the stories of other

ethnic groups. A powerful passage resonates with this sense of African nationalism as it

describes a lecture on Zulu music by an ANC prisoner at the time of the treason trials:

Yengwa draped himself with a blanket, rolled up a newspaper to imitate a sword, and

began to stride back and forth reciting lines from the praise song. All of us, even those

who did not understand Zulu, were entranced. Then he paused dramatically and

called out the lines [that] liken Shaka to a great bird of prey that relentlessly slays its

enemies. At the conclusion of these words, pandemonium broke out. Chief Lutuli, who

until then had remained quiet, sprang this feet and bellowed ‘Ngu Shaka lowo!’ (‘That

is Shaka!’), and then began to dance and chant. His movements electrified us, and

we all took to our feet. […] Suddenly there were no Xhosas or Zulus, no Indians or

Africans, no rightists or leftists, no religious or political leaders; we were all

nationalists and patriots bound together by a love of our common history, our culture,

our country and our people. In that moment , something stirred deep inside all of us,

something strong and intimate, that bound us to one another. In that moment we felt

the hand of a great past that made us that we were and the power of the great cause

that linked us all together. (pp. 234-235)

It is here that we clearly experience one of the most electric moments of Mandela’s lifelong

education, not in the classroom or over a book but through the living memory of ancient

history in traditional dance and song. The passage is one of the most important in Long Walk

to Freedom because it not only gets to the core of the spirit of unity that characterised

Mandela as a political figure and led to the freedom of South Africa, but in it we see the

seeds of what might one day liberate South Africa further still to bring white and black culture

together in honour of a common African culture and history.

Mandela’s message of unity expressed in this passage speaks not only to South Africa but to

the whole continent of Africa, for it is through such unity that the continent might seek respite

from the internecine wars, exploitation of resources, dictatorships and corruption that fetter

the continent and stand in the way of the harmony that is needed for it to federate and

consolidate its natural wealth.


Conclusion

Nelson Mandela’s vision of education in Long Walk to Freedom makes profound statements

on the only real question there is: what is an education for?

Clearly education has the power to liberate the individual socially, politically and

philosophically, to open and sharpen the mind and to develop one’s personality. In a context

where there is no freedom and/or no access to knowledge, it is the will to carve out an

education that will determine the success of this goal. The accounts Mandela gives of de-

institutionalised education, knowledge as empowerment and traditional education are all

bound by his willingness to learn, to extract values and lessons from events and to

generalise principles from experience. In this regard, the purpose of an education is lifelong

learning; it creates the conditions that make an individual passionate about life, determined

to continue in the face of adversity and always ready to re-evaluate, re-think and re-adjust.

Whether a school or a curriculum could ever create such conditions for this to be possible

remains to be seen but one is tempted to quote Oscar Wilde’s flippant but disturbing

“education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is

worth knowing can be taught”.

At the same time, we see the tremendous power of the narratives of the past and the structure of

ancient social organisation on Mandela’s world view. In this regard, the purpose of an education

is to transmit the past to the present for future generations. We are reminded how important the

subject of history is, not only ancient African history for Mandela, the unofficial narrative of the

ANC’s historical past whose survival was so important in the struggle against apartheid, but the

inestimable historical value of a book like Long Walk to Freedom for the rich historical legacy it

leaves behind. In an age where discourses on education, particularly in popular media, place

a significant if not disproportionately large emphasis on new technologies, higher-order

cognition such as creativity and critical thinking and learning to learn, there is less sound and

fury about history. Now that Nelson Mandela has passed away, the responsibility to transmit

his story to younger generations lies with us, a clear and vital goal of education remains,

quite simply, that of the telling of history.

Long Walk to Freedom is full of wisdom and humility that make its educational discourse at

once far less complex and far more demanding than those of the cluttered world of

textbooks, websites, homework assignments and examinations that students move through if

they spend their million minutes in school. The final message with which the book leaves the

reader in its last few pages, pages that shimmer with the vision and light of one of the world’s

most inspirational leaders, is the true and enduring goal of an education: education for

freedom, whether it be psychological, philosophical, economic or political. It is the legacy of

Nelson Mandela that will surely inspire us to move for our own freedom and the freedom of

others with whom we share life, be it by courageous acts for truth and liberation, selfless

acts of generosity or modest ones that simply acknowledge another person’s dignity. The

greatest educational message we have is the memory of Nelson Mandela himself and what

he stood for. When one closes the last page of the book the overwhelming thought, a deeply

educational thought, is surely that if each one of us could act as he did in the smallest of

ways, there would be more light in the world, more peace, more freedom.


Works Cited

Mandela, N.R. (1994). Long Walk to Freedom. London: Abacus.

Chloe Rene, Campus des Nations


Nelson Mandela ou De l’éducation dans Un long chemin vers la

liberté

Conrad Hughes

Introduction

Cet article synthétise le regard que porte Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (1918-2013) envers

l’éducation dans son autobiographie Un long chemin vers la liberté, publiée en 1994. Je

pense qu’il est profitable d’étudier le thème de l’éducation par le biais de cette

autobiographie, car les réflexions qu’elle contient sont riches de sens et portent sur plusieurs

niveaux. Ce que je montrerai est que dans son livre, Mandela présente l’éducation sur trois

niveaux d’analyse, qui tous mènent à cette question fondamentale : à quoi sert l’éducation ?

Premièrement, nous voyons que l’éducation transcende l’institution : elle s’étend au-delà de

l’école et de l’université, jusque dans les rues. Mandela nous montre qu’une personne

compétente ne possède pas forcément de formation académique et qu’au contraire,

l’éducation institutionnalisée peut mener au compromis, au quiétisme et à l’ambiguïté

morale. Ceci était particulièrement prégnant dans le contexte de l’Afrique du Sud sous le

régime d’apartheid, pendant lequel les systèmes éducatifs étaient dépourvus de légitimité

morale ; cependant, comme des exemples le montreront, la question a des implications qui

vont bien au-delà de l’Afrique du Sud et qui nous font durement réfléchir quant aux

possibilités que les moyens institutionnels nous donnent pour atteindre des objectifs

éducatifs valables.

Deuxièmement, l’éducation est un pouvoir. L’inextinguible soif d’apprendre de Mandela l’a

aidé à survivre et, en fin de compte, à terrasser le système de domination blanche d’Afrique

du Sud. L’éducation a non seulement la capacité de libérer les individus des chaînes de la

pauvreté, elle leur donne également des idées qui leur permettent de construire de nouvelles

réalités et d’imaginer de nouveaux mondes. Cela semble peut-être évident, mais la manière

dont cela est dit dans Un long chemin vers la liberté est subtile, de par la suggestion que

l’éducation pour bâtir un monde meilleur est autant une question d’attitude que

d’accessibilité.

Troisièmement, l’éducation, c’est aussi la transmission culturelle. Je citerai des passages

d’Un long chemin vers la liberté qui parlent de l’histoire de l’Afrique, des pratiques culturelles

et des traditions anciennes, et de la manière dont ces dernières sont communiquées et

apprises. Ces moments éducatifs de la transmission culturelle se produisent par le

truchement des contes, des discussions de groupe, des performances artistiques.

Dans ma conclusion, j’affirmerai que ces trois piliers de l’éducation (sa désinstitutionalisation,

son potentiel pour favoriser l’autonomie et son utilité en tant que véhicule de la transmission

culturelle) sont essentiels pour comprendre notre époque, non seulement parce qu’ils portent

le témoignage d’un dirigeant extraordinaire, mais aussi parce qu’ils donnent forme à la

déclaration que Mandela a faite à l’université du Witwatersrand en 2003 que « l’éducation est


l’arme la plus puissante que nous puissions utiliser pour changer le monde ». J’avancerai

l’argument que, dans ce monde globalisé où les hypothèses positivistes néo-libérales sous-

tendent le discours éducatif (l’éducation pour la croissance technologique, pour une

économie globalisée construite sur des valeurs entrepreneuriales extrêmes et un type de

futurisme New-Age), nous devons prendre du recul et réfléchir sur les histoires de ceux qui

sont passés par là avant nous et pour lesquels l’éducation concerne des valeurs plus

durables telles que la sagesse du passé, des impératifs moraux supérieurs, la justice sociale

et la liberté de pensée.

Alexa Bryan, La Châtaigneraie

L’éducation transcende l’institution

Durant ses premières années scolaires, Mandela a fréquenté successivement des écoles

missionnaires, l’école du village de Mqhekezweni, qui n’avait qu’une seule classe (p. 18),

Clarkebury, un collège qui « était beaucoup plus grand » (p. 32), puis Healdtown, « en 1937

[…] le plus grand lycée africain au-dessous de l’équateur » (p. 36), et enfin l’université de

Fort Hare, qui « a accueilli et formé quelques-uns des plus grands universitaires africains

que le continent ait connus » (pp. 42-43). Mandela dit de ces expériences que

« l’environnement scolaire des établissements de mission, tout en étant rigide sur le plan


moral, était souvent plus ouvert que les principes racistes sous-jacents des écoles

gouvernementales » (p. 42). Il n’est pas sans importance que Mandela a échappé à

l’éducation bantoue et que, grâce à cela, il a pu s’épanouir intellectuellement – quoique dans

les limites d’un modèle d’éducation colonial.

La Première Partie d’Un long chemin vers la liberté est remplie d’anecdotes qui décrivent les

diverses expériences que Mandela a vécues dans ces établissements. Ce sont pour le

lecteur des descriptions saisissantes de la colonisation de l’esprit et de l’acculturation

qu’entrainait l’éducation missionnaire européenne :

Dr Wellington […], un Anglais robuste et collet monté […], montait sur l’estrade et

disait de sa voix grave de basse : « Je suis le descendant de l’illustre duc de

Wellington, aristocrate, homme d’Etat et général, qui a écrasé le Français Napoléon à

Waterloo et a ainsi sauvé la civilisation pour les Européens – et pour vous, les

Indigènes. » Nous devions applaudir avec enthousiasme, profondément

reconnaissants qu’un descendant de l’illustre duc de Wellington prît la peine

d’éduquer des indigènes comme nous. (p. 36)

Mandela suggère que c’est pourtant là que la graine de son activité politique a été plantée,

comme on peut le lire dans une discussion qu’il a avec un étudiant nommé Nyathi Khongisa,

après que les élèves ont assisté à un cours donné par le Général Jan Smuts sur les raisons

pour lesquelles l’Afrique du Sud devait se battre aux côtés des Britanniques pendant la

Seconde Guerre mondiale :

Au cours de l’une [de ces sessions], un garçon de mon âge, Nyathi Khongisa, qu’on

jugeait très intelligent, accusa Smuts d’être raciste. Il dit que nous pouvions nous

considérer comme des « Anglais noirs », mais que les Anglais nous avaient opprimés

en même temps qu’ils essayaient de nous « civiliser ». Quel que fût l’antagonisme qui

opposait les Boers et les Britanniques, dit-il, les deux groupes blancs s’uniraient pour

affronter la menace noire. Les conceptions de Khongisa nous stupéfièrent parce

qu’elles nous semblaient dangereusement extrémistes. Un camarade me chuchota

que Nyathi était membre de l’African National Congress (ANC), une organisation dont

j’avais vaguement entendu parler mais dont je ne savais pas grand-chose. (pp. 47-

48)

Pour l’essentiel, ce sont les expériences vécues en dehors de la classe qui ont le plus

marqué le jeune Mandela : le fait de côtoyer différents Africains le tire régulièrement hors des

frontières de son identité Thembu et Xhosa pour le conduire à une compréhension plus large

de l’identité africaine, de la manière dont certains enseignants noirs se dressent devant le

principal de l’école en enseignant à Mandela la leçon « qu’un Noir ne devait pas

automatiquement obéir à un Blanc, même s’il s’agissait de son supérieur » (p. 38). Ces

observations l’aident à former sa conception de l’humanité. Mandela remarque également

des habitudes et des comportements qui construisent sa conscience métacognitive

(autrement dit sa capacité à apprendre sur l’apprentissage) : « J’ai vu quantité de jeunes


hommes avec de grandes capacités naturelles mais qui manquaient de discipline et de

patience pour tirer profit de leurs dons » (p. 45).

A ce stade de sa vie, Mandela idéalise l’importance d’une éducation universitaire, il croyait

« qu’un diplôme universitaire était un passeport non seulement pour la communauté

dirigeante mais aussi pour la réussite financière » (p.48). Cependant, à Fort Hare, un

événement d’une extrême importance et qui est relaté dans les détails, signifie qu’il n’y

achèvera pas son diplôme. Mandela est désigné pour siéger au Conseil représentatif des

étudiants, mais de manière inéquitable, car les élections ont été boycottées par les étudiants.

Dès lors, il démissionne. Cependant, « le Dr. Kerr, diplômé de l’université d’Edinbourg, […]

virtuellement le fondateur de Fort Hare et […] entouré d’un grand respect » (p. 50) menace

de le renvoyer de Fort Hare s’il n’accepte pas ce qui est, dans les faits, une position

illégitime. Mandela est en proie à un dilemme moral un peu dans la même veine que celui de

Saint Augustin dans Les Confessions : « troublé » et passant « une mauvaise nuit », il se

demande : « Etais-je en train de saboter ma carrière universitaire à cause d’un principe

morale abstrait qui comptait si peu ? » (p. 50). Finalement, il ne cède pas et, plutôt que

compromettre ses valeurs, il refuse de faire partie du conseil et est renvoyé par le Dr Kerr.

Ironiquement, c’est son expulsion de Fort Hare qui représente l’un des épisodes les plus

marquants des premières années de l’éducation de Mandela – une éducation à prendre

dans le sens large de développement ou plus précisément « d’affranchissement » – car il

s’agit du premier d’une longue liste d’autosacrifices, ce qui le définira plus tard comme un

combattant de la liberté qui risquera sa vie et passera plus de 27 ans de sa vie en prison

pour ses convictions. C’est également dû à cette décision qu’il ira à Johannesburg et suivra

une voie autre que celle qui lui était tracée dans le Transkei. Ce que suggèrent ces

passages d’Un long chemin vers la liberté est que l’éducation institutionnelle n’est pas

nécessairement la route menant à la liberté ou la justice, mais au contraire, celle du

compromis et de l’égoïsme ; et l’on constate que Mandela ne cédera pas sous la pression de

l’injustice qu’elle sous-tend.

Alexa Bryan, La Châtaigneraie


A Johannesburg, Mandela rencontre Walter Sisulu, un haut dignitaire de l’ANC avec lequel il

sera ami toute sa vie. C’est avec surprise qu’il apprend que « Walter Sisulu n’avait pas fait

d’études » (p.64) et il souligne qu’il avait « découvert que beaucoup des responsables de

premier plan n’étaient jamais allés à l’université » ; c’était encore une leçon de Fort Hare qu’il

devait « oublier » à Johannesburg. Ce point est rendu plus saillant encore dans la

description qu’il fait du pilier de l’ANC Gaur Radebe :

Gaur était l’exemple même d’un homme sans diplôme mais qui semblait infiniment

plus formés que ceux qui quittaient Fort Hare avec des titres ronflants. Il était non

seulement plus instruit, mais il avait également plus d’audace et plus d’assurance.

J’avais l’intention de passer ma licence et de m’inscrire à la faculté de droit, mais je

n’en ai pas moins appris auprès de Gaur qu’un diplôme n’était pas en soi une preuve

de supériorité et ne signifiait rien si l’on n’allait pas faire ses preuves dans la société.

(p.68)

Cette remarque est naturellement liée au genre d’éducation à laquelle pouvait s’attendre une

personne noire dans l’Afrique du Sud des années 1940 et au fait que les discours

institutionnels étaient encrassés par le racisme et l’iniquité. Des années plus tard, sur

Robben Island, Mandela compare la prison à l’école en faisant remarquer que le brutal

gardien de prison Piet Badenhorst agit « comme un professeur qui reprend une classe de

chahuteurs, et qui cherche à mater le meneur » (p. 418).

Cependant, ces réflexions ne revêtent pas seulement une importance dans le contexte de

l’Afrique du Sud des années 1940 ; elles doivent aussi avoir une résonnance en chacun

d’entre nous en ce qui concerne les limites de l’éducation institutionnelle pour provoquer un

changement significatif, puisque les principes moraux, l’esprit de liberté et la volonté de prise

de risque de ceux qui ont la capacité de transformer la société seront souvent en conflit avec

les rituels bien établis de l’éducation académique et, à certains moments pourraient même

aller à l’encontre des valeurs de manière désagréable. Nous devons nous rappeler de ces

génies historiques qui incarnaient une pensée hors des limites de l’institution, des personnes

comme Shakespeare, qui ne fréquenta pas l’université, ou encore tous ces esprits brillants

qui furent renvoyés de leur école, comme ce fut le cas pour Shelley, Frost, Einstein et Dali.

A Johannesburg, Mandela continue d’étudier le droit à l’université du Witwatersrand où

« malgré les valeurs libérales de l’université, [il ne s’est] jamais senti vraiment à l’aise » (p.

83). La Deuxième Partie d’Un long chemin vers la liberté décrit la manière dont les

professeurs de droit de Mandela soutiennent que les femmes et les Africains ne sont pas

destinés à être avocats et la façon dont les Blancs lui font sentir qu’il n’est pas à sa place (p.

84). Une fois encore, ce n’est pas le programme écrit ou le discours institutionnel qui forme

directement l’éducation morale de Mandela, mais ses interactions avec des camarades

étudiants, généralement en dehors des cours, lors de discussions tard la nuit :

Wits m’a ouvert un nouveau monde, un monde d’idées, de convictions politiques et

de débats, un monde où les gens se passionnaient pour la politique. J’étais parmi des

intellectuels blancs et indiens de ma génération, de jeunes hommes qui formeraient


l’avant-garde des mouvements politiques les plus importants des prochaines années.

(p. 85)

Ces réflexions portent le témoignage de la réelle expérience éducative qu’a vécu Mandela à

Wits car, bien qu’il ait échoué à ses examens à plusieurs reprises (p. 134), c’est là que sa

conscience politique s’est fortement développée.

Ce que ces extraits nous montrent, c’est que l’idée d’une éducation équivalant à des

qualifications tourne court face à un sens plus large, plus spirituel qui serait celui du

développement du caractère. Mandela réitère cet état de fait pendant son procès pour

trahison : « Il est difficile d’expliquer à quelqu’un qui a des idées étroites qu’être « éduqué »

ne signifie pas seulement savoir lire et écrire et avoir une licence, mais qu’un illettré peut être

un électeur bien plus « éduqué » que quelqu’un qui possède des diplômes » (p. 230). C’est

une citation à laquelle nous aimerions certainement réfléchir, dans un climat pédagogique

moderne où le fait de savoir lire et écrire est certes conçu tout naturellement comme étant

essentiel ; mais à travers le monde, peu d’évaluations sont menées pour tester les systèmes

de connaissances traditionnelles, la teneur morale d’une personne, la sagesse et les

compétences non-scolaires.

Sous l’oppression du gouvernement de l’apartheid, c’est clairement l’école de la vie qui

donne à Mandela ses leçons les plus profitables. Le récit des actions et des décisions

politiques sont émaillées de réflexions qui suggèrent ceci : en discutant la relation entre

l’exécutif et la base de soutien de l’ANC, « Pour la première fois, j’ai vu qu’il était imprudent

d’aller contre l’avis d’un grand nombre de gens. Il ne sert à rien de décider d’une action à

laquelle les masses sont opposées car il sera impossible de la mettre en œuvre » (p. 122) ;

en prison, il partage avec le lecteur des leçons qu’il apprises sur l’esprit humain de manière

empirique : « De fortes convictions sont le secret de la survie » (p. 379), « La prison était une

sorte de creuset qui mettait le caractère à l’épreuve. Sous la pression de l’incarcération,

certains faisaient preuve d’un vrai courage, tandis que d’autres apparaissaient très en

dessous de ce qu’ils avaient semblé » (p. 412).

Les difficultés et les tribulations auxquelles Mandela fait face et la manière dont il y réagit

sont le témoignage de sa remarquable personnalité et de sa capacité à retenir les

précieuses leçons que la vie lui enseigne, y-compris à partir de ce qui ressemble à des

incidents sans importance : il tire de grands parallèles symboliques entre la lutte pour la

liberté et la rébellion d’Antigone lorsqu’il joue le rôle de Créon dans la pièce de Sophocle,

dans une production donnée par la prison (p. 413) ; quand Badenhorst, en quittant Robben

Island, lui souhaite « bonne chance », il philosophe que « tous les hommes, même ceux qui

semblent les plus insensibles, ont un fond d’honnêteté et qu’ils peuvent changer si on sait les

toucher » (p. 419) ; également, en s’occupant de son jardin sur l’île-prison, il apprend « par la

méthode des essais et des erreurs » (p. 443) tout en tirant des parallèles métaphoriques

entre son travail de dirigeant et celui de jardinier (« un dirigeant politique est responsable de

ce qu’il cultive ; il doit faire attention à son travail, il doit essayer de repousser les mauvaises

herbes, garder ce qui peut l’être et éliminer ce qui ne peut réussir » [p. 445]).


Des passages comme ceux-là (et ils sont nombreux) montrent au lecteur que les inclinations

autodidactes de Mandela sont ce qui le distingue des autres, car il est constamment en état

d’alerte et de réflexion, un chercheur de tous les instants. Il remarque que « c’est ce que

nous faisons avec ce que nous avons et non ce qu’on nous donne qui fait la différence entre

les gens » (p. 152). A cet égard, la lecture d’Un long chemin vers la liberté est en soi une

expérience éducative puissante, car les leçons sont tirées du réel et présentées au lecteur

avec toute l’intelligence et la perspicacité qui a fait de Nelson Mandela un extraordinaire être

humain. A nouveau, tout cela montre que les ingrédients d’une remarquable éducation ne

sont pas la simple adjonction de programmes et de diplômes, mais plutôt des éléments issus

de la vie elle-même.

Christophe Van Der Kwasty, La Châtaigneraie

L’éducation, c’est le pouvoir

Bien entendu, ce n’est pas parce que Mandela reconnait dans Un long chemin vers la liberté

que la véritable sagesse et la diligence d’esprit existent souvent au-delà des murs de

l’institution qu’il rejette complètement ce qu’une éducation institutionnelle peut offrir. Au

contraire, il considère que la bataille pour accéder à une éducation de qualité constitue un

élément primordial de la lutte, en faisant clairement comprendre comment l’éducation

dispensée par une école conventionnelle peut responsabiliser les individus et les

communautés et les libérer. Voici ce que dit un passage fondateur :

L’éducation est le grand moteur du développement personnel. C’est par l’éducation

qu’une fille de paysans devient médecin, que le fils d’un mineur peut devenir directeur

de la mine, qu’un enfant d’ouvrier agricole peut devenir président d’une grande

nation. (p. 151-152)


C’est pourquoi l’une des lois les plus pernicieuses de l’apartheid est la Loi sur l’éducation

bantoue (Bantu Education Act), promulguée en 1953 et à la suite de laquelle les

missionnaires devaient transférer la gestion de leurs établissements au Département des

affaires autochtones afin qu’à partir de cette date, les Africains soient « formés pour occuper

des emplois non qualifiés » (p. 153). Cette loi fut complétée par l’Extension of University

Education Act de 1959 qui interdisait aux non-Blancs les universités dites « ouvertes » (p.

209).

Cependant, bien que l’éducation au niveau primaire et universitaire constituera une bataille

idéologique d’un caractère vital pour l’ANC, Mandela se rend compte que, d’un point de vue

stratégique, l’action politique est une route plus directe : « L’éducation, c’est parfait, disait

Gaur, mais si nous devons compter dessus, nous devrons attendre mille ans pour obtenir

notre liberté » (p. 79). C’est là que nous voyons se développer et alimenter la lutte pour la

libération un type d’apprentissage différent, loin des salles de classe pauvres de l’éducation

Bantu. Gaur Radebe donne en effet vie à la théorie que Mandela a apprise en classe :

« J’avais suivi des cours d’histoire contemporaine à Fort Hare et, si je connaissais beaucoup

de faits, Gaur, lui, était capable d’expliquer les causes des événements particuliers, les

raisons pour lesquelles les hommes et les nations avaient agi ainsi. J’avais l’impression

d’étudier à nouveau l’histoire » (p. 80). Cet extrait est important parce qu’il montre le pouvoir

de l’éducation quand on la revitalise, contextualise et qu’on la rend pertinente. Plus

précisément, nous voyons comment Gaur Radebe amène à une compréhension de

l’Histoire, et c’est par cette compréhension que naît la capacité d’analyse et de la mise en

pratique.

Dans les années 1950, à l’époque où Mandela est mis à ban, il élabore une série de cours

politiques pour les membres de l’ANC : « Il y avait trois grands cours : « Le monde dans

lequel nous vivons », « Comment nous sommes gouvernés » et « La nécessité du

changement ».Dans le premier cours, nous discutions des différents types de systèmes

politiques et économiques dans le monde et en Afrique du Sud » (p. 133). Ces cours de

politique et d’économie sont complétés par des cours sur l’histoire et la culture africaine,

dispensés par des activistes de l’ANC emprisonnés en 1952 et en attente de jugement (p.

234). Robben Island devient connue sous le nom de « l’Université » à cause de la richesse

des échanges d’idées qui circulent parmi les prisonniers politiques : « Nous étions devenus

notre propre faculté, avec nos professeurs, nos programmes et nos cours » (p. 23). Les

cours sur le marxisme, l’économie politique, l’histoire de l’ANC, l’histoire de la lutte des

Indiens sont décrits comme un cursus ; « la pédagogie était de nature socratique; les idées

et les théories étaient analysées par questions et réponses « (p. 424).

L’éducation informelle de cette période n’a pas seulement lieu parmi les membres de l’ANC,

Mandela saisit toutes les opportunités pour éduquer les Sud-Africains blancs sur l’histoire de

l’organisation et sur ce qu’il défend, et ses longs discours dans le box des accusés lors du

procès de trahison et celui de Rivonia sont extrêmement historiques et didactiques. Sur

Robben Island, au sujet des gardiens de prison, il déclare : « Je voulais démythifier l’ANC,

détruire leurs préjugés » (p. 414) ; « La politique de l’ANC consistait à éduquer tout le


monde, même nos ennemis : nous pensions que tous les hommes étaient susceptibles de

changer et nous faisions tout notre possible pour les faire basculer » (p. 381). Le premier

jour des pourparlers avec le gouvernement nationaliste en 1990 sont décrits comme

ressemblant « plus ou moins à une leçon d’histoire ». (p. 525), Mandela expliquant que « dès

sa création en 1912, l’ANC avait toujours cherché à ouvrir des négociations avec le pouvoir

(p. 525). Ces citations montrent comment l’éducation en dehors de l’école et de l’université a

joué un rôle crucial dans la lutte contre l’apartheid. Plus spécifiquement, la connaissance de

l’Histoire, que la propagande et la censure avaient supprimée, a tenu une place centrale

dans la formation des opinions et réaffirme chez Mandela son « vieux principe selon lequel

l’éducation était l’ennemi des préjugés » (p. 458).

Le thème de l’éducation en tant que pouvoir ressort dans Un long chemin vers la liberté

d’une autre manière : Mandela est un véritable apprenant tout au long de sa vie et son étude

continuelle du droit lui permet d’acquérir une connaissance du système légal qui lui sera

d’une utilité sans pareil pour lui et tous ceux qu’il a représenté en tant qu’avocat, en liberté et

en prison.

Tout au long du procès de Rivonia, Mandela continue ses études par correspondance avec

l’Université de Londres pour l’obtention de son bachelor en droit (p. 445). Reconnaissant

l’importance des études, les prisonniers politiques de Robben Island s’inscrivent à des cours

par correspondance et, bien que ne pouvant étudier dans des conditions décentes, « en

l’espace de quelques mois, presque tout le monde étudiait. Le soir, nos cellules

ressemblaient plus à des salles de cours qu’à des cellules de prison » (p. 375). Cette

tournure des événements s’avère cruciale car elle permet aux hommes de lire du matériel

auquel ils n’auraient pas eu accès autrement : « Les autorités essayaient de nous imposer

un black-out total ; elles ne voulaient pas qu’on apprenne quelque chose qui puisse nous

redonner le moral ni qu’on sache qu’on pensait encore à nous à l’extérieur » (p. 377). La

connaissance du droit en particulier est considérée comme synonyme de pouvoir car elle

permet de connaître le système légal et de défier les gardiens de prison : « Mac avait fait des

études de droit et était expert pour mettre les autorités sur la défensive » (p. 394).

En prison, la lecture des œuvres de Nadine Gordimer, John Steinbeck et de Léon Tolstoï (p.

446) pousse Mandela plus loin dans ses réflexions philosophiques sur les notions de

commandement et de justice sociale, tandis que ses efforts constants pour apprendre les

différentes langues d’Afrique du Sud sont soutenus par des pensées profondes sur l’identité

et la culture :

Sans langue commune, on ne peut parler à un peuple ou le comprendre ; on ne peut

partager ses espoirs et ses aspirations, saisir son histoire, apprécier sa poésie et ses

chansons. Je me suis à nouveau aperçu que nous n’étions pas des peuples différents

avec des langues différentes ; nous ne formions qu’un peuple avec des langues

différentes. (p. 77)

Dans Un long chemin vers la liberté, l’éducation représente le pouvoir dans les domaines

sociaux, idéologiques, historiques et culturels. C’est un esprit d’apprentissage tout au long


de sa vie que Mandela incarne et propage au sein et hors de tout cadre éducatif formel et qui

caractérise non seulement son développement personnel et celui de sa famille (ses enfants

échappent à l’éducation bantoue en étant scolarisés dans le privé [p. 198], puis en dehors

d’Afrique du Sud dans un pensionnat du Swaziland [p. 388]), mais aussi de manière

générale la lutte contre l’apartheid : le massacre du 16 juin 1976, connu sous le nom des

émeutes de Soweto, a lieu après que des écoliers descendent dans la rue pour protester

contre le programme de l’école secondaire qui était pour moitié en Afrikaans, la langue de

l’oppression.

Les passages que j’ai regroupés sous la thématique « l’éducation, c’est le pouvoir » trouvent

un écho chez les théories d’Antonio Gramsci, de Paulo Freire et de Frantz Fanon :

l’éducation favorise l’autonomie quand elle est dispensée loin des organes institutionnels de

la propagande idéologique ; c’est là qu’elle offre à l’opprimé une alternative à la narration du

maître qui le réduit à l’esclavage. Que cela signifie échapper à l’enseignement bantou en

s’auto-éduquant ou en organisant des systèmes pédagogiques clandestins, l’éducation est le

fil conducteur qui permet à la résistance de garder des liens avec ses racines historiques.

Il est particulièrement important d’y réfléchir aujourd’hui, dans un monde où les médias

exercent une forte influence dans la formation des opinions en normalisant des constructions

telles que « économie de libre marché », « monde en développement », immigration

illégale », « anti-démocratique » ou encore « terroriste », pour ne citer que quelques

exemples. Ces formes narratives officialisées, si elles ne sont pas remises en question,

constituent une réalité pour des millions de gens. Ce sont les formes d’opposition employées

par des dénonciateurs tels que Julian Assange et John Pilger qui font contrepoids et donnent

une vision de rechange. Le thème de l’éducation dans Un long chemin vers la liberté est un

dépositaire précieux du régime de l’apartheid, mais qui nous rappelle également l’histoire de

peuples peu représentés dans les livres d’histoire, tels que les Aborigènes, les Indiens

d’Amérique, les Arméniens, les Palestiniens, les Birmans – pour n’en mentionner qu’un petit

nombre – ou encore l’histoire de la traite des esclaves et de la colonisation.

Haakon Lim, La Châtaigneraie


L’éducation et la transmission de la culture

Alors, qu’est-ce qui fit de Nelson Mandela un dirigeant si exceptionnel ? Cette question qui

nous hante en parlant des grandes figures de l’Histoire peut se poser le concernant ; est-ce

la manière dont il fut élevé, ses origines ancestrales, les circonstances, son éducation? La

Troisième Partie d’Un long chemin vers la liberté, « La naissance d’un combattant de la

liberté », débute avec un remarquable passage où Mandela parle de sa décision de

consacrer sa vie à la lutte. Le point de départ reste flou :

Je suis incapable d’indiquer exactement le moment où je suis devenu politisé, le

moment où j’ai su que je consacrerais ma vie à la lutte de libération. […] Je n’ai pas

connu d’instant exceptionnel, pas de révélation, pas de moment de vérité, mais

l’accumulation régulière de milliers d’affronts, de milliers d’humiliations, de milliers

d’instants oubliés, a créé en moi une colère, un esprit de révolte, le désir de

combattre le système qui emprisonnait mon peuple. Il n’y a pas eu de jour particulier

où j’aurais dit : à partir de maintenant je vais me consacrer à la libération de mon

peuple ; […]. (p.86)

Ainsi, il est difficile de situer exactement quand a émergé la conscience politique de

Mandela ; en revanche, ce que son autobiographie dit au lecteur est à quel point les

expériences qu’il a vécues durant son enfance passée dans le Transkei rural furent

formatrices. En effet, l’éducation africaine traditionnelle qu’a reçue Mandela a clairement

tracé la voie qu’il empruntera et qui le mènera jusqu’à la présidence de l’Afrique du Sud.

Dans la Première Partie (« Une enfance à la campagne »), en parlant du système

hiérarchique clanique, Mandela écrit : « L’idée que je me ferais plus tard de la notion de

commandement fut profondément influencée par le spectacle du régent et de sa cour. J’ai

observé les réunions tribales qui se tenaient périodiquement à la Grande Demeure et elles

m’ont beaucoup appris » (pp. 20-21).

Dans ces réunions, « c’était la démocratie sous sa forme la plus pure. […] Le gouvernement

avait comme fondement la liberté d’expression de tous les hommes, égaux en tant que

citoyens ». Le jeune Mandela observe les différents orateurs et il est clair qu’il en tire de

précieuses leçons oratoires :

Je remarquais que certains tournaient en rond et ne semblaient jamais réussir à dire

ce qu’ils voulaient. En revanche, d’autres abordaient directement le sujet et

présentaient leurs arguments de façon succincte et forte. J’observais que certains

orateurs jouaient sur les sentiments et utilisaient un langage dramatique pour

émouvoir leur public, tandis que d’autres restaient simples et sobres, et fuyaient

l’émotion. (p. 21)

Il poursuit et précise à quel point ces observations furent essentielles pour son éducation,

dans un fameux passage :

En tant que responsable, j’ai toujours suivi les principes que j’ai vus mis en œuvre par

le régent à la Grande Demeure. Je me suis toujours efforcé d’écouter ce que chacun


avait à dire dans une discussion avant d’émettre ma propre opinion. Très souvent, ma

propre opinion ne représentait qu’un consensus de ce que j’avais entendu dans la

discussion. Je n’ai jamais oublié l’axiome du régent : un chef, disait-il, est comme un

berger. Il reste derrière son troupeau, il laisse le plus alerte partir en tête, et les autres

suivent sans se rendre compte qu’ils ont tout le temps été dirigés par-derrière. (p. 22)

Il est en effet utile de se rappeler à quel point le style de commandement de Mandela est

distinctement africain, ce qui tord le cou à certaines idées reçues selon lesquelles la société

africaine traditionnelle n’est pas adaptée à la démocratie du fait de ses structures

organisationnelles d’obédience tribale et clanique, alors que ces passages montrent assez

nettement que cela n’était pas du tout le cas dans la société xhosa traditionnelle. C’est dans

son discours au procès Rivonia que Mandela exprime clairement en quoi son héritage

culturel contribue à sa vision du monde :

La structure et l’organisation des premières sociétés africaines de ce pays me

fascinaient et elles ont eu une grande influence sur l’évolution de mes conceptions

politiques. La terre, principale ressource à l’époque, appartenait à la tribu tout entière

et la propriété privée n’existait pas. (pp. 297-298)

Outre des modèles de commandement, les expériences de jeunesse dans le Transkei ont

également exposé Mandela à l’Histoire, selon une perspective africaine. Le plus âgé des

chefs, le chef Joyi, éduque Mandela sur les Thembu, les Pondo, les Xhosa et les Zoulous :

« Le chef Joyi se lançait dans une pantomime, il tirait son épée et rampait sur le veld en

racontant les victoires et les défaites » (p. 26). Il parle également à Mandela de la venue de

l’homme blanc (« abelungu ») :

Je ne savais pas encore que la véritable histoire de notre pays ne se trouvait pas

dans les livres britanniques qui affirmaient que l’Afrique du Sud commençait avec

l’arrivée de Jan Van Riebeeck au cap de Bonne-Espérance en 1652. Grâce au chef

Joyi j’ai commencé à découvrir que l’histoire des peuples de langue bantoue

commençait bien plus au nord, dans un pays de lacs, de plaines et de vallées vertes,

[…]. (p. 24)

La circoncision de Mandela à l’âge traditionnel de 16 ans est décrite en détails (pp. 25-30).

C’est par ce rite de passage que, selon le rituel xhosa, il devient un homme, mais le chapitre

se clôt pourtant sur cette réflexion : « Quand j’y repense, je sais que ce jour-là je n’étais pas

encore un homme et que je ne le serais pas encore pendant de nombreuses années » (p.

30). Des années plus tard, sur Robben Island, Mandela accepte que soient effectuées des

circoncisions secrètes sur les jeunes codétenus xhosa. Il commente que la circoncision était

« un rituel culturel […]. Il s’agissait d’un rite qui renforçait l’identification du groupe et qui

inculquait des valeurs positives » (p. 511). C’est une étape importante dans l’éducation des

hommes xhosa et dans Un long chemin vers la liberté, la discussion concernant l’école de

circoncision est importante, alors qu’il nous est montré que les valeurs traditionnelles sont

transmises dans la société en tant que valeurs éducatives fondamentales.


Les enseignements profonds que Mandela reçoit de son éducation traditionnelle ne le

quitteront plus. Au lieu de laisser cet héritage culturel créer des divisions tribales entre lui et

les autres Africains, ce qui aurait épousé la stratégie consistant à diviser pour mieux régner

et grâce à laquelle le gouvernement de l’apartheid a prospéré, principalement avec la

création des homelands et la gestion des mines, Mandela voyait dans les histoires des

autres groupes ethniques des points communs et une certaine humanité africaine. Un

passage puissant qui décri un cours sur la musique zoulou donné par un prisonnier de l’ANC

à l’époque du procès de trahison fait écho à ce sentiment de nationalisme africain :

Yengwa s’est drapé dans une couverture, il a roulé un journal en guise d’épée, et a

commencé à marcher de long en large en déclamant les vers. Nous étions tous

subjugués, même ceux qui ne comprenaient pas le zoulou. Puis il a fait une pause

avant de déclamer : « Inyoni edlezinya ! Yathi isadezinye, yadiezinya ! » Ces vers

comparent Chaka à un oiseau de proie qui tue impitoyablement ses ennemis. Une

clameur s’est élevée. Le chef Luthuli, qui jusque-là était resté silencieux, s’est dressé

en hurlant : « Ngu Shaka lowo ! » (Voici Chaka !) et il s’est mis à danser et à chanter.

Ses mouvements nous ont électrisés et nous nous sommes tous redressés. […]

Soudain, il n’y avait plus de Xhosas, de Zoulous, d’Indiens, d’Africains, de

responsables de gauche ou de droite, religieux ou politiques ; nous étions tous des

nationalistes et des politiques liés par l’amour de notre histoire, de notre culture, de

notre pays et de notre peuple. A cet instant, quelque chose s’animait au plus profond

de nous, quelque chose d’intime et de fort, qui nous liait les uns aux autres. A cet

instant, nous sentions le passé immense qui nous avait faits tels que nous étions et le

pouvoir de la grande cause qui nous réunissait. (p. 183)

C’est ici que nous expérimentons l’un des moments des plus électriques de l’éducation au

long cours de Mandela, non dans une classe ou dans un livre, mais à travers la mémoire

vivante du passé lointain qui s’exprime dans la danse et le chant traditionnels. C’est l’un des

passages les plus importants d’Un long chemin vers la liberté, non seulement parce qu’il

pénètre au cœur de l’esprit d’unité qui caractérise Mandela en tant que figure politique et qui

a conduit à la libération de l’Afrique du Sud, mais aussi parce son contenu nous donne à voir

les graines de ce qui pourrait un jour libérer davantage le pays, afin de rassembler les

cultures noire et blanche en l’honneur d’une culture et d’une histoire africaine commune.

Le message d’unité que Mandela exprime dans ce passage est parlant non seulement pour

l’Afrique du Sud, mais également pour tout le continent africain, car c’est par cette unité que

le continent pourrait trouver un répit aux guerres intestines, à l’exploitation des ressources,

aux dictatures et à la corruption qui entravent le continent de leurs chaînes et qui barrent la

route à l’harmonie qui lui est nécessaire pour fédérer et consolider sa richesse naturelle.


Victoria Vassileva, Campus des Nations

Conclusion

Par le regard qu’il porte sur l’éducation dans Un long chemin vers la liberté, Nelson Mandela

énonce des constats d’une grande profondeur sur la seule question réellement importante : à

quoi sert l’éducation ?

L’éducation a clairement le pouvoir de libérer l’individu socialement, politiquement et

philosophiquement, d’ouvrir et d’aiguiser son esprit et de développer sa personnalité. Dans

un contexte où il n’y a pas de liberté et/ou d’accès à la connaissance, c’est la volonté de se

construire une éducation propre qui déterminera le succès de cet objectif. Les récits de

Mandela sur l’éducation désinstitutionalisée, sur la connaissance comme étant source

d’autonomie et sur l’éducation traditionnelle ont tous en commun sa volonté d’apprendre, de

retirer des leçons bénéfiques à partir des événements et des expériences vécues et d’en

généraliser des principes. A cet égard, la motivation de l’éducation est l’apprentissage de

toute une vie : elle crée les conditions qui font qu’un individu est passionné par la vie, qu’il

est déterminé à continuer face à l'adversité et qu’il est toujours prêt à réévaluer, repenser et

réajuster. Qu’une école ou un programme d'études puisse créer de telles conditions pour

que cela soit possible, cela reste à voir, mais on est quand même tenté de mentionner cette

citation d’Oscar Wilde, désinvolte certes, mais toutefois inquiétante : « l’éducation est une

chose excellente, mais il faut bien se souvenir de temps en temps que rien qui vaut la peine

de savoir ne peut être enseigné ».


En même temps, nous voyons l’énorme influence des récits du passé et de la structure

d'organisation sociale antique qui s’exerce sur la vision du monde de Mandela. À cet égard,

le but de l’éducation est de transmettre le passé au présent pour les générations futures. Il

nous est rappelé à quel point l’Histoire est une matière importante, pas seulement l'Histoire

africaine antique pour Mandela ou le récit officieux du passé historique de l'ANC, dont la

survie était si importante dans la lutte contre l'apartheid, mais aussi la valeur historique

inestimable d'un livre comme Un long chemin vers la liberté, pour le riche héritage qu'il

laisse. Dans une ère où les discours sur l'éducation, en particulier dans les médias

populaires, met un accent significatif si ce n’est disproportionné sur les nouvelles

technologies et les processus cognitifs d'un ordre supérieur comme la créativité, la pensée

critique et l'apprentissage pour apprendre, on entend moins de bruit et de fureur à propos de

l'Histoire. A présent que Nelson Mandela est décédé, la responsabilité de transmettre son

histoire aux jeunes générations nous revient ; un objectif clair et vital d'éducation demeure

également, celui, tout simplement, de raconter l'Histoire.

Un long chemin vers la liberté est un livre plein de sagesse et d'humilité, ce qui rend son

discours éducatif à la fois beaucoup moins complexe et beaucoup plus exigeant que ceux du

monde encombré des manuels, des sites Web, des devoirs et des examens qui passent

entre les mains des étudiants pendant les millions de minutes qu’ils sont à l'école. L’ultime

message que le livre laisse au lecteur dans ses dernières pages, des pages miroitant la

vision et la lumière d'un des leaders les plus inspirants du monde, est l’objectif véritable et

durable de l’éducation : la liberté, qu’elle soit psychologique, philosophique, économique ou

politique. C'est l'héritage de Nelson Mandela qui nous inspirera sûrement pour agir pour

notre propre liberté et celle des autres personnes avec qui nous partageons notre vie, que ce

soit par des actes courageux pour la vérité, par des actes de générosité désintéressée ou

des actes modestes qui reconnaissent simplement la dignité d'une autre personne. Le plus

grand message éducatif que nous possédions est le souvenir de Nelson Mandela lui-même

et pourquoi il s’est battu. En tournant la dernière page du livre, la pensée qui nous envahit,

d’un enseignement profond, est que si chacun d'entre nous pouvait agir comme il l’a fait,

même à la plus petite échelle, il y aurait plus de légèreté dans le monde, plus de paix, plus

de liberté.

Livre cité

Mandela, Nelson (1994). Un long chemin vers la liberté. Paris: Fayard, Le livre de Poche.

Traduit de l’anglais (Afrique du Sud) par Jean Guiloineau.


The Charterhouse-Ecolint Exchange

Liz Waldman The recently published “What is an IB Education,” states that the objective of an IB education is to “create educational opportunities that encourage healthy relationships, individual and shared responsibility and effective teamwork and collaboration” (IBO: 2013, 3) The issue of community building is often discussed at Ecolint, both within campuses and across the entire foundation. We have such a diverse community of languages, cultures and nationalities not to mention the physical distance which separates our schools that at times community building seems to be a near impossible task. However, despite these obstacles there is a clear “esprit de corps” amongst the members of our community, although it may not be as strong as we may desire. In fact, the issue of community building at Ecolint is so significant that it has been identified as one of the key objectives in “Focus for the Future,” specifically, the aim is “to increase opportunities for students and staff to come together in their school communities to share expertise, take more initiative, celebrate achievements, and benefit more from belonging to one Foundation.” (Ecolint, 2013: 28) I recently was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to observe an example of very successful community building in a school environment. In November I participated in a teaching exchange with Charterhouse School in England where I spent a week teaching history, immersing myself in activities and observing the school community. It is true that the environment at Charterhouse is vastly different to that at Ecolint in that Charterhouse is predominantly boarding, runs from Year 9 through Year 13 only, and is less diverse both in staff and student composition. However, there are also a number of similarities including an emphasis on academic rigour combined with a developed extra-curricular programme and a focus on education for the whole person. Therefore, despite the differences between the two school environments, Ecolint could benefit from adopting a number of the methods used at Charterhouse to strengthen our community spirit. Charterhouse is particularly successful in creating environments, both formal and informal, where students and staff come together as members of the school community. In the most striking example, during morning Chapel, the entire school gathers for ten minutes three times per week. The brief service consists of a reading, hymn, short message and a prayer all of which are conducted before the first lesson. I found that attending Chapel set a positive tone for the day and provided me with a sense of community and belonging despite being only a visitor to the school. Assemblies are not missing from Ecolint and do in fact happen on a regular basis across all campuses and schools. But perhaps what we are missing is a secular version of Chapel, a regularly scheduled, school-wide meeting that takes a very brief amount of time but provides the opportunity to us to meet, share a common experience, and then continue with our different days. Given the limitations of physical space this may not be possible with an entire school, however, it should be feasible to gather together sections of each campus. The beauty of the Chapel service at Charterhouse is that is a regular, structured and inclusive, however, it takes a only a small amount of time. It seems clear from this example that successful community building does not need to consume significant periods of the time or calendar year but rather needs to be integrated into school day. Additionally, lunch time at Charterhouse is also a very important opportunity for community building and could be used to more effect at Ecolint. At Charterhouse students eat in their boarding houses and the teachers associated with that house eat with the students. As a visitor it was quite clear that sitting together in the dining room gave staff and students the opportunity to interact on a less formal basis than that found inside the classroom. The sense


created was that the dining room at lunch time was Charterhouse on a smaller scale, students of all age groups were represented along with teachers from a wide variety of subjects and the focus was on social interaction. It is true that our lunch times at Ecolint are precious and under pressure. We use them for rehearsals and auditions, academic and department meetings, and revision sessions in addition to the numerous activities which use lunch as their only meeting time. However, perhaps it would be possible to “protect” one lunch time per week as time for the community to slow down, sit down and eat together. The logistical issues will be different at each campus and at each school, however, this an opportunity that we could take greater advantage of without significant disruption and to a great advantage.

Charthouse is also successful in creating a strong sense of community amongst teaching staff which has the benefit of promoting “teamwork, collaborative planning, and sharing of best practice.” (Ecolint, 2013: 28) The most impactful ways in which this is achieved are through a morning coffee break, held in the staff room each day, as well as a shorter coffee break after lunch, held in the sitting room of the house master. These coffee breaks are attended by the majority of the teaching staff and have the benefit of bringing together colleagues from different subjects, who often teach in different buildings, in an informal and relaxed setting. During the course of my visit these coffee breaks gave me the opportunity to meet with a wide range of teachers, to learn about their activities and interests, to discuss specific students with Year Heads and Tutors and to discuss discipline procedures. In its attempt to promote more interaction among the teaching staff Ecolint could, perhaps model Charterhouse, in providing more regular and informal opportunities for staff to come together across disciplines to discuss common issues and ideas. This is not to suggest an extension of the existing breaks already built into the teaching day or added expense for the


Foundation but rather that the existing staffrooms and catering service provided by the cafeteria could be utilised to greater benefit and again without significant disruption. In his book Building Community in Schools Thomas Sergiovanni argues that “reformers and theoreticians alike should recognize that schooling is first and foremost about relationships between and among students and teachers, and that community building must be the basis for school reform efforts that seek to improve teaching and learning; all else will come more naturally when authentic communities flourish.” (Westheimer, 1996) It could be easily to minimise the importance of shorter assemblies, lunch time and coffee breaks and too suggest that these are too insignificant. I would argue that that it is because these ideas are fairly small that they can actually make a difference. These ideas could be easily implemented, without significant impact or disruption on our pre-existing schedules and therefore are achievable. These are not “pie in the sky” dreams but rather practical proposals to help us move forward immediately towards improving relationships within our community. It is a testament to Charterhouse’s success at community building that I was so warmly welcomed and so immediately integrated despite the short duration of my stay and we should take the opportunity to learn from their expertise. References International Baccalaureate (2013) What is an IB Education (Cardiff, International Bacculearate LTD Peterson House.) International School of Geneva (2013) Our Focus for the Future: Steps Ahead (Geneva, International School of Geneva.) Sergiovanni, Thomas (1994) Building Community in Schools (San Franciso, Jossey-Bass) in Westheimer, Joel (1996) Building Community in Schools, Harvard Educational Review, Winter 1996.

Michael Gillespie In November 2013 I was lucky enough to take part in an exchange with Liz Waldman, a

History teacher from the International School of Geneva. I had an immensely enjoyable and

rewarding week in Switzerland, and feel that it was very useful for my own professional

development.

In effect I only spent five days at Ecolint, so I should make clear at the start of this report that

my comments are based on only limited experience and perspective….

To start I think it would be useful to offer my thoughts on Liz’s report, in which she focused a

great deal on the extent of ‘community’ at Charterhouse. There is indeed a notable

difference between the two schools, and something I became conscious of by the second

day. The rest of the History Department were very friendly and useful, but I didn’t get to

meet as many other staff as I would perhaps have liked to have done. I noticed that quite a

few ate lunch at their desk and the ‘staff’ room at the top of the chateau was rarely used.

(One afternoon I spent an hour or so in there preparing a lesson, and was undisturbed

throughout). In short I did, to an extent, miss a little of the staff interaction, but appreciate

that five days is too short a time to make anything other than tentative observations.


I also found Liz’s comment about pupil/staff interaction an interesting one. This is because I

found virtually all the students I taught to be friendly, engaging and honest in their dealings

with me. In fact I could imagine that the relationship with students at Ecolint could easily

become more open and genuine than my relations with Carthusians. I say this because

Carthusians are very good at saying ‘yes sir’ at the drop of a hat, tucking in their shirt and

then walking away with a smirk on their face. In a sense I wonder whether too much

emphasis has been placed at Charterhouse on outwardly conforming at the expense of

engineering a questioning environment. When I put this somewhat casual observation to the

Headmaster in a brief chat outside the dining room he agreed, and argued that students at

Ecolint will happily do as they are told, if something is explained to them in a reasoned

manner. Why this made such an impression on me is that it is an issue I had already thought

about in relation to Carthusians. At times students antagonise staff at Charterhouse because

the adult concerned has mis-read the situation, and over-reacted to understandable teenage

behaviour.

From a professional perspective the most important thing I have reflected on has been on the

need for me to integrate a greater variety of tasks in the classroom. Having to teach ninety

minute lessons was completely new to me, and forced me to adapt my usual technique of

dominating the class from the front. With this in mind, over the last few months I have tried

to integrate a greater number of tasks into my usual routine, and know that this is something

I should continue to work on over the next year or so. Therefore even just a week at Ecolint

has encouraged me to reflect on my classroom teaching – not least the crucial point that

learning can still take place when I am guiding rather than talking!

When Dr Conrad Hughes very kindly took me out for dinner he asked me to make a few

suggestions for future reference. Having reflected on my experience in Geneva I must admit

that an exchange for just one week is bound to have its limitations. However, extending the

exchange to two weeks would no doubt create a different set of difficulties. One thing which

would probably have made a difference is if I had read some of the work produced by Liz’s

classes in advance. This would have enabled me to gauge the level of her various divisions

a little more reliably. For example the work I originally prepared for the Year 9 division was

too advanced, forcing me to completely change my plans when out there. Of course all

teachers need to be responsive to the students in front of them, but I wonder whether a

selection of just a few pieces of marked work from each class would have been useful. It

would be interesting, of course, to hear Liz’s thoughts on this point.

Both before and during the exchange Liz and I discussed the issue of whether we should do

some marking of our own. Looking back at my week in Geneva I am not sure how much

time I realistically had to mark a set of essays for example, but I think it would have been a

good idea if I had assessed some short answers, or marked a quick test etc. This would

have maintained the usual rhythm and routine of the academic week, and allowed me to set

some differentiated tasks in the classroom.

My final point is perhaps a touch bold, it could well be unrealistic and I am not sure how in

favour of it I really am! However I wonder whether the best way to get something from an


exchange is to do it all over again! I felt, for example, that my best lessons with the Year 13

were at the end of the week when I had got to grips with how they liked to be taught, and I

had had the time to prepare hand outs and the like. Having acquired some idea of how the

lunch/timetable/tram system/photocopier (the whole school experience, in other words)

worked, it was then time to go home again.

Liz and Rodger made me very welcome when I was in Geneva – not least through the

cooking which Liz did in advance – and I am very grateful for all the help and advice they

provided. I will certainly encourage other members of Brooke Hall to take advantage of

anything similar in the future and, although working in a day school is perhaps not for me (at

least at this stage of my life), I hope the link between Ecolint and Charterhouse can be

maintained.

Nicolas Evans-Dale, Campus des Nations


Value-Centred Education

Les valeurs au centre

Alejandro H. Rodriguez-Giovo

If our school has an ideological or – better still – a spiritual heart, it is surely Article 4 of our

Charter. Whereas the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “all

human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights,” Ecolint’s Charter goes further,

boldly and famously asserting the “equal value of all human beings” (my italics).

This philosophically fundamental concept is easier to affirm than to explain and understand

fully – which is perhaps why the United Nations shied away from it in 1948, and settled for a

worthy but less radical formula. That human beings differ, sometimes considerably, in

individual attributes, characteristics and qualities – physical, intellectual, artistic, moral – is

too obvious to deny (and so much the better – Vive la différence! – one might add). “How is

it, then, that we are all worth the same?” a student might not unreasonably wonder. As you

will find when you reflect on the matter, the most satisfying, compelling answer is not

empirical, nor even rational, but rather it springs from a metaphysical certainty. That all men

are created equal is a “self-evident” truth, as the United States’ Declaration of Independence

puts it.

Il va de soi qu’affirmer, justifier et appliquer cette conviction centrale de notre école, et les

valeurs morales qui en découlent, devrait être une mission essentielle pour tous ses

enseignants. Mais la remplissons nous pour autant, ou sommes nous trop distraits par des

théories pédagogiques d’avant-garde et tout le charabia néophilique et pseudo-scientifique

qu’elles génèrent pour assumer notre rôle comme source naturelle de repères cognitives,

philosophiques et éthiques pour nos élèves et étudiants?

An implicit dogma of trendy education during the last three or four decades seems to have

been that whenever a moral or ethical issue, rather than a strictly factual or scientific one, is

raised in class, the teacher ought immediately to withdraw into the role of passive, “non-

judgemental” listener, and merely monitor the responses of his or her students. At most, he

may chair the discussion with detached and dispassionate objectivity, lest by revealing his

views he should short-circuit the students’ self-discovery. Practised diligently over the years,

this technique may successfully drain every last molecule of moral assertiveness from the

teacher, turning him into a human jellyfish, content to drift on the random swell of group-

generated babble in his class. But the demotion of educators to the role of “facilitators” is not

my prime concern here.

Not much importance is attached these days to what teachers actually know about the

subject they teach; all the emphasis is on methodologies and skills, often at the expense of

content. Even so, few self-respecting instructors of Biology, “facilitators” or otherwise, would

stand by passively while their students developed an unquestioning faith in the evolutionary

theories of Lamarck or Lysenko. History teachers too circumspect to quash the hypothesis

that Thutmose III, using a papyrus raft propelled by a primitive form of nuclear energy, was


the first explorer to circumnavigate our planet would doubtless be regarded as hopelessly

pusillanimous. An English teacher who studiedly maintained a non-judgemental expression

while his students debated among themselves whether Heathcliff kept a mad wife or a mad

dog locked up in the attic at Pemberley might reasonably be criticized for abdicating his

professional duties. But as soon as the discussion shifts to a moral plane, such as eugenics

in Biology, imperialism in History or the propriety of incarcerating an insane spouse in

English, it is widely assumed that an educator’s role must shrink to the point of invisibility.

The implication is that, since there are few, if any, moral certainties, teachers should

scrupulously avoid imposing their own prejudices on their students.

This tacit assumption is exacerbated within the context of an international, secular, multi-

cultural education, such as the one we aim to provide. Affirmations of value are bound to be

subjective, conditioned and ethno-centric, and are liable to tread on someone’s toes. Given

these constraints, is it not prudent and wise for educators to be consistently non-committal

and systematically to eschew moral definitions?

Prudent, perhaps, if never to ruffle any feathers is an educational priority. Wise, I think not, if

as international educators we genuinely wish to contribute, however modestly, to making

mankind less irresponsible, insensitive, cruel and unjust than it is. What humanity shares, in

terms of moral assumptions and convictions (never mind how much they are disregarded in

practice), is incomparably greater than what divides it. To be able to recognize this common

ethical fund and draw from it, as the circumstances may require, is surely a desirable skill for

a teacher in an international milieu, and one that we should be encouraged to cultivate.

I would be hard put to justify through argumentation the validity of these universal values to

which I am referring, as I take it to be axiomatic. However many exceptions different peoples

have devised, over the centuries, to fundamental precepts such as “Thou shalt not kill,” and

regardless of the particular cultural trappings with which they are accoutred, the essential

truth of such principles has always been, and remains, “self-evident” (as Thomas Jefferson

regarded the equality of all human beings) to everyone, on a par with 1+1=2 – barring a tiny

minority of psychopathic individuals who genuinely suffer from an innate moral deficiency.

The appendix to C. S. Lewis’ famous essay, The Abolition of Man, usefully compiles

essentially similar precepts and maxims from a broad chronological and geographic range of

cultures and civilizations. Although they often sound very different, having been uttered by

men and women continents and millennia apart, what is remarkable is the common thread

that runs through them.

Lewis’ affirmation of “natural law” is part of a great philosophical tradition that stretches back

to Plato and notably includes Aristotle, the Stoics, Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant (“The

moral law, Kant argues, is addressed to all rational beings, in the form of a categorical

imperative: it has not changed through the centuries, nor could it change.”) and, more

recently, Jacques Maritain in Les droits de l'homme et la loi naturelle.

This is the thread that we should enable our students to grasp firmly and follow through life’s

labyrinths. As Aristotle emphasized in The Nicomachean Ethics, moral virtue must be


practised habitually if it is to take root. Since automatic moral relativism is the zeitgeist that

young people today seem to have suckled with their mother’s milk (“Everything is a matter of

personal opinion,” “There are no absolutes,” “All points of view are equally valid,” and so on),

it is all the more necessary to begin by identifying moral standards that cannot be tailored to

suit the circumstantial convenience of a particular society or person. Fortunately, there are

still some philosophers today who do not hesitate to affirm the universality of certain values,

such as Roger Scruton and John Finnis. In Natural Law and Natural Rights, the latter

asserts, for instance, that there are “exceptionless or absolute human claim-rights – most

obviously, the right not to have one's life taken directly as a means to any further end,” which

echoes Kant's principle that humanity must never be treated as a means only, but always as

an end in itself. It was perhaps Marcus Tullius Cicero, however, who defined most clearly

and vigorously the notion in question:

True law is Reason, right and natural, commanding people to fulfil their obligations and

prohibiting and deterring them from doing wrong. Its validity is universal; it is

unchangeable and eternal. (...) Any attempt to supersede this law, to repeal any part of

it is sinful; to cancel it entirely is impossible. (...) There will not be one law at Rome, one

at Athens, or one now and one later, but all nations will be subject all the time to this

one changeless and everlasting law (...)

Sophocles, through his mouthpiece Antigone, had expressed much the same conviction

some three and a half centuries earlier.

I am still haunted by the memory of one of my Geography teachers at Ecolint in the late

1960s who, when we were studying South Africa, could not bring himself to condemn

apartheid. He was surely a decent man, untainted by any racist leanings, but all he could say

on the subject to the class was: “This is a complex issue that one day you will probably make

up your own minds about.” I remember being acutely disappointed at this spineless evasion,

but then again, sound attitudes had already been inculcated in me at home. Other children in

the class may have been left with the enduring impression that there was more than one

valid side to the issue.

To be sure, not all my teachers were so faint-hearted; some, such as the legendary Robert J.

Leach (who, more than anyone, can be credited with the genesis of the IB), more than

compensated by charging with gusto into moral minefields that angels feared to tread. And

long before my time, Marie-Thérèse Maurette, who guided our school’s destinies between

1929 and 1949, held daily assemblies during which she expressed robust political opinions,

which over the years drifted increasingly towards an apology of communism. Controversial

though such teachers may have been, they provided a salutary stimulus by demonstrating a

vigorous and essentially sound involvement in moral matters. They very obviously cared

about rights and wrongs, and their concern permeated the roots of their students’ awareness,

from where it could emerge at crucial moments later in life.


Marie-Thérèse Maurette

I vividly recall Michael Quin, a wise and gentle Latin teacher, deprecating violence in the

wake of the May ’68 demonstrations. “I might boo, hiss, shout, wave banners, hand out

leaflets, lie down in the road…” he stated firmly but with the faintest of smiles – it was,

indeed, difficult to imagine him, with his pipe, three-piece tweed suit, horn-rimmed glasses

and walking stick doing any of this – “but it would be quite wrong to throw stones or bottles or

to try to hurt anyone.” Many years later, when, as part of an unruly protest march in Buenos

Aires, I faced a thick cordon of threatening policemen, I remembered his pronouncement –

and, as it happens, momentarily dismissed it. But that is beside the point.

The point is that I was aware, partly thanks to what my Latin teacher had said in class all that

time ago, of what was morally at stake. Even in the heat of the moment, I was able to make

an informed decision and, however briefly and breathlessly, ponder its consequences.

En tant qu’éducateurs internationaux, c’est notre devoir d’expliquer, cultiver et promouvoir

cette conscience morale, dans la mesure où notre sagesse et expérience nous le

permettent. Bien entendu, nos élèves et étudiants seront libres de faire leurs propres choix

dans la vie, et c’est très bien ainsi. Mais au moins nous leurs aurons fourni les outils

intellectuels et – n’ayons pas peur du mot – spirituels pour qu’ils puissent juger eux-mêmes

si leurs décisions se conforment à ce que l’humanité a toujours considéré comme vrai, bon

et beau, selon la célèbre formule de Platon.

References

Roger Scruton, Modern Philosophy (London: Mandarin, 1996), pg. 460 John Finnis, Natural Law and Naural Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), pp. 223 -226


Marcus Tullius Cicero, “Right and Wrong”, in Roman Readings, edited and translated by Michael Grant (Harmondsworth: Pelican Books, 1967), pp. 42 and 43

Freya Stratton, Campus des Nations


Nouvelles de l’Institut de l’Enseignement et de l’Apprentissage

Alison Ball, Frédéric Mercier

Nous vous souhaitons à tous une belle année 2014 avec plein de projets, pédagogiques ou

non.

Les cours de langues, Anglais, Français, ont commencé en septembre et les

demandes augmentent. Nous avons opté pour des cours intensifs de 2 fois trois semaines

avec environ 1 mois 1/2 entre les deux sessions. Les premiers retours sur cette formule sont

très positifs et nous encouragent à poursuivre dans ce sens.

Plusieurs cours auront lieu de janvier à juin et nous préparons déjà ceux de l'année

2014/2015.

Cours d’anglais

Cours intensif d'anglais, A2, Nations, session janvier 2014 / Inscription

Cours intensif d'anglais B1, à Nations en mars et mai 2014

Cours intensif d'anglais B2, LGB, session mars et mai 2014 / Inscription

French courses

French, B1, Nations Campus, January 2014

Tests de langue

Les tests de niveau de langue en anglais (TOEIC Bridge) ou français (TFI) auront lieu une

fois par mois. Si vous voulez vous inscrire cliquez sur le lien suivant :

Inscription TFI

Inscription TOEIC Bridge

Pour plus de renseignements, contacter : [email protected]

LE MASTER EN EDUCATION INTERNATIONALE

a maintenant 13 personnes inscrites, dont 7 de notre fondation. Le premiers module aura

lieu en février 2014.

La conférence d'ouverture du jeudi soir est ouverte gratuitement à tous.

Pour les inscriptions merci de contacter l’assistante de l’institut : [email protected]

https://docs.google.com/a/ecolint.ch/forms/d/11cQGUxpVLrBTwidVaWHwquq-rF1s7YHOCKUrhVTWZhU/viewform

https://docs.google.com/a/ecolint.ch/forms/d/1_X_ZG97bpU1mxjZmq2xJBELnXnhqsHbnjV8FLhuKPFs/edit

https://docs.google.com/a/ecolint.ch/forms/d/1vh2jwbt_eOZ22GqlmcjIM5VmE9moJ7hCjn-MiLVujko/viewform

https://docs.google.com/a/ecolint.ch/forms/d/1kKNMkhXvUUxYQTBwvhO8-vEQMAD09xF7CiAGismlODM/viewform

https://docs.google.com/a/ecolint.ch/forms/d/1ZPdNSKJQADAe2zlBt3vAiwSb0tG2ezu-iFLfVYqDtZw/viewform

https://docs.google.com/a/ecolint.ch/forms/d/1_HuSW-f-NgKumOrT9hAlW2ZL4FLDC-T9Ho6-WYgZH30/viewform

mailto:[email protected]



Conférence 27 février – de 17h15 à 19h15

Campus des Nations

Salle Rousseau

Recherche, pratique d’enseignement et réflexivité EJUProf. B.Wentzel, HEP BNE

Conférence, en savoir plus...

“S.O.S. I.T”. …….Une nouvelle organisation

Lancé en septembre 2013, “S.O.S. I.T.” se révèle être une bonne idée. Grâce à vos

remarques et propositions, nous avons transformé cette offre informatique, afin de vous

permettre d’en profiter encore plus facilement.

A partir de janvier 2014

Nous proposons une journée de disponibilité helpdesk dans un campus. Catherine Moreno

pourra se rendre entre 9h et 18h à votre place de travail (votre bureau, salle de classe ou

lieu commun : centre multimédia....)

Pour cela, il vous suffît d’inscrire votre nom dans les horaires qui vous intéressent, ainsi que

le lieu, dans le formulaire en ligne dont voici le lien :

SOS IT 2014

Vous pouvez aussi envoyer un e-mail à Catherine Moreno qui prendra directement rendez-

vous avec vous.

Nous espérons que cette nouvelle formule répondra encore mieux à vos demandes.

THE DURHAM MASTERS IN ITERNATIONAL EDUCATION

https://www.dur.ac.uk/education/postgraduate/taught/ma-int-geneva/

We welcomed Professor Stephen Gorard to the first session of the year last November,

looking at Research Methods in Education. For those unable to be at this very interesting

and stimulating session a copy of his latest book, Research Design: Creating Robust

Approaches for the Social Sciences, is now available in the secondary library at Campus

des Nations. This is a very readable book and highly recommended for anyone wishing to

design classroom research.

A reminder that the Durham Masters in International Education sessions can also be taken

as professional development modules, with no follow on assignment. The next module

takes place from Thursday evening to Sunday lunchtime 27th February to March 2nd and is

entitled: Enhancing Learning and Teaching Through Creativity and Productive

Thought: It will be taught by Professor Lynn Newton who provides us with this overview:

https://docs.google.com/a/ecolint.ch/file/d/0B4SSXsk9ZBH2Uk5EbF9Xb3FWckU/edit

https://docs.google.com/a/ecolint.ch/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnRa0Ae4wzA-dEdRSjdJT0g4S2hLYVhocDkxbWtFRWc&usp=sharing




This module will explore the nature and purposes of kinds of thinking and behaviours that

enhance the processes of learning and teaching and result in productive thinking on the part

of the learners. The over-arching aim is that, by the end of the module, you should have

acquired a critical understanding of issues relating to each of these in relation to teaching

and learning for the fostering of productive thought in the classroom.

There are professional development spaces remaining on this module and if you are

interested please contact Alison Ball for further information.

The Ecolint Research Journal 2014

We are busy preparing the second Ecolint Research Journal and once again we would like to

include a summary of any research recently undertaken by Ecolint colleagues. If you are

involved in postgraduate degrees and can send us an abstract of any recent work please get

in touch.

Forthcoming event

JoAnn Deak http://www.deakgroup.com/our-educators/joann-deak-phd/ will be visiting

the Foundation in March, details of this event will be announced after half term. Her new

book The Owner's Manual For Driving Your Adolescent Brain will also be on our library

shelves soon.

JoAnn Deak

PGCE – Thanks

Finally, can we take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been working with our PGCE

trainees this year in the PGCE classroom. Thank you also to colleagues who have helped

and supported the trainees during their first school placement and those who will be doing so

in the second school placement beginning in February. Your help and support is much

appreciated.

With best wishes and we look forward to hearing from you,

Alison Ball and Frédéric Mercier

http://www.deakgroup.com/our-educators/joann-deak-phd/


STEM Learning

Mike Winter

I am very excited to be part of a large group of people working with EPFL on a cross

curricular STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) project.

At the beginning of October teachers from across the foundation and across the science,

technology and maths disciplines travelled to the very impressive Rolex building at EPFL to

meet with a team of people who had designed and built an educational robot. The Thymio

robot https://aseba.wikidot.com/en:thymio is an inexpensive and easy to program robot which

is designed for use in primary and secondary school (and if you have a child between the

ages of about 7 and 15 would make an excellent birthday present!). The team at EPFL were

not just offering to show us what the robot could do but were offering to work in partnership

with the foundation to help to develop cross curricular materials. I went away from the

meeting very impressed with what the robot could do but unsure as to how we were going to

proceed to build a unit of work to fit with our curriculum requirements.

Inspiration came later in the month at the October PED day where a small group of the team

met to discuss ideas and with recent news reports of the Mars rover programme fresh in our

minds came up with the idea of developing a cross curricular unit called ‘A mission to Mars’.

The idea being that work in maths, science and ICT in year 9 will culminate in students

controlling their Mars rover (Thymio robot) to explore the surface of Mars. Unfortunately

EPFL are unable to transport their robots to Mars (yet) and so we will have to settle for

setting up a room to simulate the surface of the planet. The students will program their robot

to explore the planet from a different room and then take the data from sensors on the robot

to map the planet. The way that this will be implemented will be different on the three

different campuses. As a member of La Chataigneraie it has been particularly interesting to

hear how Nations (with their greater experience of cross curricular work through the MYP

programme) are going about this and I think one of the best features of this project has been

the chance to talk with colleagues from across the foundation.

As we are currently rewriting our year nine curriculum In the science department at La

Chataigneraie we have decided that we will build a large unit around the mission to Mars

idea which will, as well as the exploration of the planet with the robots, bring together ideas

from the three main branches of science to investigate the challenges of how we might travel

to and live on the planet in the future.

The project for La Chataigneraie will be run with students for the first time next year.

https://aseba.wikidot.com/en:thymio


CoWriter: supporting writing acquisition through human-robot

interaction

Shruti Chandra, Séverin Lemaignan

EPFL-CHILI

The CoWriter project (carried out as a partnership between Ecolint and EPFL) explores new

ways to support children with writing acquisition through human-robot interaction. We aim to

find out if robots may trigger interesting novel interactions to complement the teacher/learner

relationship, and more concretely, which modes and styles of child-robot interactions may

lead to effective learning gains for children with different levels of writing skills.

Le projet CoWriter s'appuie pour cela sur des petits jeux pendant lesquels enfants (4-5 ans,

reception class) et robot écrivent des lettres, soit ensemble (peer-learning condition), soit en

attribuant des rôles (teacher/learner condition). En juin dernier, nous sommes ainsi venus

mener une première expérience "enfant-enfant" (sans robot, donc) à l'École Internationale,

d'une part pour évaluer la pertinence de ces deux conditions, d'autre part pour identifier les

difficultés spécifiques rencontrées par les enfants.

In the peer-learner mode, two children play the role of learners. The experimenter shows a

letter both learners write on their respective sheets. They then exchange their sheets and

suggest corrections on each other’s sheet. In the teacher-learner mode, one child plays the

role of a teacher: the teacher-child asks the learner-child to write a letter by showing a pre-

made model, and then assesses the produced letter suggesting corrections, verbally or

manually. Roles are then reversed.

Nous avons mené cette première expérience avec 20 enfants, en collectant leur production

sur papier, tablette tactile et vidéo. L'un des résulats important pour la suite du projet est la

construction d'une taxonomie des difficultés rencontrées par les enfants lorsqu'ils tracent des

lettres. Nous avons ainsi identifié une quinzaine de catégories (topologie de la lettre

incorrecte, tremblements, découpage de la lettre en sous-parties indépendantes, etc.) que

nous espérons pouvoir affiner avec les retours des enseignants. Ces catégories devraient

nous permettre d'adapter le comportement et les capacités de

reconnaissance du robot.

Another significant outcome is a better understanding of the interaction modalities when

children comment on each other's writing attempts. Deictic and verbal interactions mix with

backchannel communication (like nodding). These are important cues to build a natural

interaction between the robot and the children.

Il apparait aussi que l'identification des imprécisions/erreurs d'écriture commises par le

partenaire est plus difficile que ce que nous anticipions: certaines erreurs qui semblent, à

première vue, saillantes

(comme une lettre écrite en "mirroir") ne sont ainsi jamais identifiées. Ceci pourrait suggérer

que les difficultés de certains enfants à écrire seraient liées à une difficulté à correctement


appréhender les éléments topologiques et morphologiques essentiels des lettres. Nous

espérons approfondir cette hypothèse dans les premières expériences enfant-robot prévues

à l'École Internationale dans les prochaines semaines.


Les ateliers d’échanges de pratiques de la Journée

pédagogique de la Fondation

Conrad Hughes

Merci aux facilitateurs des échanges de pratiques (« Job Alike ») pour les comptes-rendus

de ces réunions. J’ai été très impressionné par la passion qu’ils vouent à l’idée d’une bonne

pédagogie et qui a clairement dirigé la grande majorité des discussions. Toute l’idée derrière

ces moments de partage est l’exploration des stratégies, le partage des ressources et des

expériences, et la discussion philosophique sur l’éducation entre collègues de la Fondation.

Voici quelques-unes des lignes directrices qui ressortent de ces discussions :

- Les professeurs de la Fondation bouillonnent d’idées et d’expériences et nous avons

beaucoup à partager et à apprendre des uns aux autres.

- Nous devons continuer de chercher à creuser les potentiels de nos élèves avec les

opportunités mises à notre disposition mais aussi parfois, malheureusement, en dépit

des obstacles considérables (logistiques, organisationnels, etc.).

- Le développement de la créativité et la pensée critique est parfois menacé par la

pression qu’exercent le curriculum et les examens. Nous devons avoir le courage de

nos convictions pédagogiques et ne pas tomber dans le piège qui consiste à penser

qu’une pédagogie pauvre qui donne l’impression du progrès (exercices multiples et

répétitif sans le temps nécessaire pour des retours correctifs, détaillés ou qualitatifs)

mènera à un meilleur apprentissage.

- Nous continuons à nous heurter à un manque de ressources en langue française,

surtout en année baccalauréat.

Il y a bien plus encore dans ces notes, qui sont lues et considérées avec soin pour nos

directeurs d’écoles.

Merci encore pour vos bonnes idées et partages.

Victoria Vassileva, Campus des Nations


Lanterna & Ecolint

Hugo Wernhoff

Lanterna

As a newly registered IB student in a small state school, far out on the Swedish countryside, I first heard about ISG as the school where the IB over 10 years ago. Today, it is with great joy that I see forces joined between Lanterna Education, a company I co-founded shortly after my IB studies, and that very school.

Lanterna Education, and our learning tool Lanterna Online, has as its purpose to bring technology into learning. We believe in doing this not by trying to radically alter how teachers work, nor telling students how they should learn. Rather, we want to empower what is already going on in schools.

Lanterna Online is an online learning tool used by IBDP Schools on five continents. For students, it adds interactivity and adaptivity to the independent studying. For teachers, it automates parts of formative assessment and let them spend more time on doing what they do best – interact with students.

The newly launched partnership between ISG and Lanterna means that the two organizations will co-develop Lanterna Online. ISG’s teachers and students will help oversee that everything that is in the tool and that everything that is being developed is in fact valuable, simple to use, and purposeful. The insights we gain from developing an online learning tool in such proximity to a school are very valuable. Beyond providing feedback, teachers at ISG will also assist in creating pedagogic material for the tool.

The partnership also means that Lanterna Online will be co-branded with the ISG brand. With this, we hope to further strengthen ISG’s recognition in the IB community as being in the forefront of education and the programme’s development.

In conclusion, at Lanterna we have high hopes for a long and mutually beneficial partnership that can strategically strengthen both Lanterna and the International School of Geneva.

Alexander Vassileva, Campus des Nations


SEN Conference

Teresa Nunn

Saturday May 3rd 2014

Title: New Technology, New Learning?

Using the new technologies to improve the learning and

integration of students

with special needs

Speakers:

Carol Allen is the Advisory Teacher for ICT and SEN in North Tyneside, UK. She has taught

since 1980 in both primary and secondary mainstream schools and schools for students with

severe, profound and multiple learning difficulties. The major focus of her work is on the

creative and engaging use of technology to support communication in its widest sense. Mrs

Allen will focus on the use of technology to support language development and

communication skills

Ian Bean is a leading technology consultant working with schools around the world to

maximise the potential of new and existing technologies to support the teaching, learning and

communication needs of students with special needs. His work has made a significant

contribution to understanding the use of technology in overcoming barriers to learning for

children and young people with special needs. Mr Bean will focus on Ipads – their potential

and their limits.

Dr Sarah Parsons is Head of the Research Centre for Social Justice and Inclusive

Education in the School of Education, University of Southampton, UK. She has significant

research experience in disability related projects and particular interests in the use of

innovative technologies for children with autism , and in the views and experiences of

disabled children and their families. Dr Parsons will focus on issues of research in this field

and on methods of properly evaluating the introduction of new technologies.

To find out more please contact [email protected]



Annexe VI reports

Odyssey of the Mind – LGB

LGB has nine teams (Primary, Middle, Secondary) each working on resolving a long term

problem: Driver’s Test (designing and building a vehicle that will attempt to complete tasks),

The Not-So Haunted House (creating an original performance that includes a “pop-up-style”

environment with four special effects), and It’s How We Rule (creating and presenting a

humorous performance that includes a recreation of an actual historic royal court, a team-

created court, student created puppets, a team-created instrument, and a song).

Spontaneous Fun Saturday, February 1, 2014; LGB Primary

This event provides the opportunity for teams to have fun practicing all types of Spontaneous

Problems. Volunteers work one of the stations and judge, based on set criteria, each team’s

performance at that station.

Four OotM teams from Bern and two from the school Anhugar School at La Rippe will join

Ecolint teams for this event.

After the competition each child will receive this year’s Odyssey of the Mind Switzerland T-

shirt. The T-shirt was designed by one of our parents, an artist, Mr. William Linthicum.

Regional Tournament, March 1, 2014, LGB Primary

The Regional Tournament is the showcase for teams of up to 7 students to present their

creations to panels of judges. The team will also compete in a Spontaneous Problem with

other teams in their division and Long Term Problem. Three scores will be added for a total

score.

Following the Regional Tournament, some teams will have the opportunity to compete at

either Odyssey of the Mind Eurofest, April 24 – 29, 2014 at Liptovsky Mikuláš in Slovakia,

or at the World Finals May 28 – 31 at Iowa State University, USA.

Marcia Banks

Odyssey of the Mind in Nations Y3-4

We started our Odyssey of the Mind (OoTM) club meetings at the beginning of November,

and the activities of the club will come to fruition at the Swiss Association’s national

competition on March 1st. This means that we are roughly at the half-way stage of our

project this year. We have just reached a turning point in the focus of the group’s activities,

as the children start the process of producing their own original solutions for the Long Term

Problems.

Our aim for the first phase of club meetings was to establish the club membership, and to

start to build on the members’ team-working skills through giving them a Spontaneous

Problem to work on each week. The children tackled these problems with gusto, for example:


At the same time the coaches started to introduce the children to the Long Term Problems

from which they would have to choose. This proved difficult at times, since allowing a

relatively free choice meant that compromises had to be made later, when not enough

children wanted to do one of the problems to enable a team to be formed. Eventually two

teams were formed, each working on one of the problems outlined below -

While the children are developing their brainstorming, team-working and critical thinking

skills, the adult coaches are learning how to encourage and support their efforts without

suggesting solutions or telling them how to do things. It’s a fundamental tenet of OoTM that

the work is owned completely by the children, and this is sometimes as hard as it sounds!

Sandra Simpson, one of the coaches, is undertaking piece of research for a Masters

dissertation about how the programme affects the creativity of its participants. Whatever the

results of her study, I think that all the coaches agree that we have been bowled over by the

enthusiasm and excitement of the children, the abundance of their ideas and the energy they

are bringing to the club meetings.

Coaches: Andree Bercin, Laurence Martin, Sandra Simpson and Nicola Vickers


Musique a La Chatiagneraie

Ce qui a été accompli:

1. Nous avons rencontré des spécialistes de théâtre, de sport, de langue B et de FAL dans le but de récolter du langage spécifique pour nos chants.

2. Nous avons créé les paroles et la musique de quatre chansons qui sont maintenant prêtes à être enregistrées. Nous avons d’autres chansons en cours………

3. Nous avons contacté notre administration sur des questions relatives aux droits d’auteur et à la diffusion du livre électronique final.

4. Nous avons contacté le ICT Training Manager pour des questions de multimédia.

5. Nous avons rencontré notre technicien du son pour établir des modalités à suivre pour enregistrer notre travail. Préparation avant les vacances de février, et enregistrements après les vacances de printemps.

6. Nous avons filmé un enfant en train de chanter. 7. Nous avons commencé le travail des illustrations.

Ce qui reste a faire:

1. Terminer les chansons en cours. 2. Relancer les questions des droits d’auteur, de diffusion, ainsi que de

multimédia pour lesquelles nous n’avons pas encore de réponses. 3. Continuer les illustrations, photos, dessins et films. 4. Faire les enregistrements 5. Créer le livre électronique

Janet Bouwmeester et Annie-Marie Tizou

Elaboration et coordination du curriculum de français PYP / Campus des Nations

Dans un premier temps, le processus d’élaboration du curriculum a commencé par une collaboration avec tous les enseignants de français du primaire pour identifier ce qui était actuellement enseigné en classe de français selon les niveaux et les âges des élèves. Suite à cet état des lieux, un travail de recherche documentaire autour des différents curriculum de français existants (entre autre ceux fournis par les autres campus ) nous a permis de mieux appréhender la particularité du programme de français proposé aux Nations et le fait que seul un programme « sur mesure » est envisageable. En parallèle de cette recherche, beaucoup de discussions ont été engagées lors de réunions de professeurs, notamment avec le département d’EAL qui se retrouve dans une position similaire, pour déterminer quelles seraient les solutions les plus adaptées à notre public d’élèves et aux particularités de notre programme de français, à savoir un enseignement de matières par l’intégration d’une langue étrangère (CLIL/EMILE) tous niveaux confondus, ainsi que des cours de français plus technique par niveaux de langue.


Il est vite apparu que, dans un désir d’optimiser l’apprentissage du français et afin d’établir un document de travail pratique pour les enseignants, il était impératif d’établir des objectifs de langue par niveau pour les cours EMILE. Et donc l’orientation logique pour l’élaboration du curriculum serait non seulement de suivre les unité de recherche effectuées dans les classes régulières, mais plus encore de prendre comme centre des objectif de langue détaillés par unité par niveau - le but étant de déterminer quelle partie de ces d’objectifs devrait être conduite durant les cours EMILE et quelle part devrait être enseignée en cours de « langue technique ». En conclusion, un premier format pour l’élaboration de ce curriculum a été proposé et est en cours d’être testé pour une des unités de recherche. Suite à ce travail, des questionnements ont commencé à émerger par rapport à l’alignement du programme de français entre le primaire et le secondaire et des réunions sont prévues avec tous les professeurs (du secondaire et du primaire) pour élargir cette question.

Charlotte Noring, Campus des Nations

Online course development

Thus far the project has concentrated on planning and developing online course content. Meetings have also taken place with DP IB Computer Science teachers from the International School of Zug and Luzern. This has provided additional information to further refine the requirements of students and test prototypes on a broader scale. Finally, a collaboration with Lanterna Education has been set in place providing a platform for the online course.

Owen Davies


Teaching ESL (FSL) students in the mainstream classroom redux: language support at

La Châtaigneraie Secondary School

As bilingual education develops at La Châtaigneraie secondary school, so does the

discussion of how best to deliver our course content when a large number of our students do

not have the language of the mainstream (English or French) as their native language and

are at varying stages of mainstream language proficiency.

As language learners ourselves we know all too well that the best way to learn a language is

not through a language course, per se, but through doing some kind of activity in the target

language. If you want to learn Japanese, take a flower-arranging course that is conducted in

Japanese. If you want to learn French, join a local Swiss football club. If you want to learn

Italian, take a cooking course delivered in Italian. Whatever the (stereotypical) activity, if you

are engaged and interested, the language used to convey the information will be acquired

much faster.

It is precisely this premise which underscores the Teaching ESL (and FSL, I might add)

Students in the Mainstream Classroom (TESMC) course. Training content-area teachers in

the facilitation of language learning is a key component of language support at La Chât

secondary.

Whether it is the language of Science or History or the language of Maths, Music or Art, we

are all either using language to communicate and connect with our students or teaching them

how to use content-specific language to show us, the teacher, the extent of their

understanding of what we have covered in a given unit. As teachers, we often forget that

language is the vehicle to student understanding. Once reminded, we become more

conscious of how we use language and what our expectations are regarding its use as it

relates to our subject-area.

As we reach the midway point of the TESMC course at the secondary campus, I find myself

reflecting on our monthly discussions; discussions on how we can: better understand the

language learners in our classrooms through language profiles; scaffold language learning in

a systematic way; and offer opportunities to develop a variety of speaking registers.

What I have most observed and learned from my colleagues by delivering the course is the

value it offers us as teachers: the opportunity to simply sit with a group of colleagues and

discuss best teaching practice around a very pertinent and practical topic. Through the

stimulus of the course content, we are able to rehash educational ideas from our past,

consider new ideas from a different perspective and, most importantly, discuss and share

best practice in teaching in general. As teachers we all know how easy it is to get caught up

in the day-to-day grind of teaching, administrating, organizing, managing that it is worth

reminding ourselves why we got into the profession in the first place (the students!) and what

makes quality teaching.

As I see it from this mid-point, there are two main benefits this course has offered so far. One

is the variety of practical activities which have direct relevance to our daily teaching; and two


is the realisation that good language teaching in our classrooms is really just good teaching

in our classrooms. The activities and concepts we discuss benefit the literacy development in

all our subjects. In fact, I think the course’s name should be changed to Teaching Literacy in

the Mainstream Classroom.

The next half of the course will focus on scaffolding writing, assessment and whole-school

language support. Indeed, La Châtaigneraie is experiencing exciting times in terms of

language support on the secondary campus. While La Châtaigneraie has always offered

English and French language support at the secondary level, in addition to the TESMC

course, we are also developing a more structured format to language scaffolding. A formal

English-as-an-Additional-Language (EAL) program in Years 7-9 is currently being

established with in-roads being made in the areas of language assessment, primary-

secondary transition and moving towards more standardised language support in both

English and French. With the introduction of a new Bridge English class (within mainstream

Language A lessons) and specific in-class language support broadening throughout these

middle school years, we are beginning to better meet the language needs of our bilingual

clientele.

Our work in language support is far from over, and many challenges lay ahead, but I, for one,

am excited to be a part of such a dynamic development at the school.

Xanthe Cobb

Recueil d’exercices mathématiques en français

Quatre facteurs imposent une rationalisation de l’ordre des chapitres du recueil d’exercices

prévu : les ressources existantes, le besoin de pré-acquis pour nombre des chapitres,

l’harmonisation avec les textes anglophones, et l’utilisation aisée avec notre ordre

d’enseignement. Ils sont bien sur tous liés, et demandent donc une réflexion poussée avant

de choisir un ordre donné.

Progrès :

Les ressources qui vont être utilisées sont classées ensembles, dans un ordre

logique.

L’ordre des chapitres est en voie de finalisation, de même qu’un cadre de mise

en page dans lequel insérer les ressources, au fur et à mesure de leur mise au

nette

Nombre de ressources sont réécrites dans Word, prêtes à être utilisées

Reste à faire :

Finalisation de l’ordre des chapitres

Réécrire les ressources qui ne sont pas encore sous format Word (p.ex.

manuscrites, photocopies, numérisations)

Harmonisation de la présentation

Vérification/recherche éventuelle des réponses


Vérification de la version finale (orthographe, numérotation, etc)

Collation des documents Word en un seul PDF avant l’impression

Charles Savory

Ecolint Outreach Program The goals of the Outreach Program focussed on offering pedagogical expertise and teaching resources to areas where there are defined needs. Not only would recipients of the Ecolint Outreach benefit from the experience of a world leader in international education, but the reciprocal benefits to our school in terms of professional development, community service and exposure would be immense. Currently there are teachers and administrators throughout the campuses of the Foundation who coordinate a number of programs involved in teacher training and school development in less advantaged areas of Asia, Africa and Latin America. These programs are run by individuals with wonderful intentions; but often the people involved work in anonymity, the project is largely dependent on the efforts of a few or even a single individual, and there is little recognition, let alone formal support, by way of the Foundation. I have begun to catalogue the work being done by Ecolint staff in this area. Although there are a large number of humanitarian projects planned or in progress, the Outreach Program is specific to educational support through teacher training or school development. I will shortly be able to publish a synopsis of projects that fit this criterion. The hope is that the catalogue will do three things:

1. Foster a synergy between different projects 2. Give a public platform for projects that fall under the radar 3. Act as a catalyst for further educational projects to be developed.

To date I have communicated with or met a number of individuals leading wonderful initiatives in education. One such person lead a team of administrators to Zambia where she organised a number of teacher development workshops and will do so again next summer. I have discussed with a teacher from La Chat his support for educational programs in Latin America and Palestine. This teacher and another from Nations are involved in helping a school in Venezuela, building a music school in Nicaragua, and supporting an NGO that guides parents in education, healthcare and children’s rights. I will be meeting further with the Swiss director and a Board member of an organisation that supports a school and orphanage near the border of Bhutan and northern India. I am discussing the work of teachers who lead projects in Africa (Zambia, Mozambique, Ghana and Tanzania) as well as India. Lastly I am liaising with the director of a grassroots NGO who is supporting educational programming in Kenya. Keith Browne


Areesha Ibrar, Campus des Nations


Le site internet en espagnol de La Grande Boissière (LGB)

Le site internet en espagnol LGB que j’ai créé au début de l’année 2013 a été officialisé lors

de la dernière rentrée des classes.

Son objectif était multiple :

Offrir un matériel didactique à disposition des élèves.

Présenter un média en langue espagnole.

Promouvoir les activités en espagnol du département.

Faire connaître le site du département des Langues (limité pour le moment aux activités en espagnol) à l’ensemble de l’école.

Bien que le site soit très récent, l’objectif que nous nous étions fixé a été atteint.

On y trouve les informations suivantes :

La composition du corps professoral

Des activités telles que le concours de tapas, le décernement du prix du Jeune public du festival « FILMAR EN AMERICA LATINA » et le concours de microfictions : Brevísimo.

Le compte-rendu des voyages à Valence, Séville, Grenade, Cordoue et Pays Basque, avec des vidéos et des photos pour qu’élèves et parents puissent avoir une idée des activités réalisées lors de chaque voyage.

Des liens avec des sites interactifs didactiques qui sont un point de référence d’abord pour les élèves et en suite pour ceux qui visitent le site.

Le site offre également des outils pédagogiques autant pour les enseignants que pour toute personne intéressée par le sujet.

Le lien « projet » permet aux élèves de voir les travaux qu’ils ont réalisés en cours. Ces travaux vont ainsi rester en ligne comme exemple de travaux proposés par les enseignants sous forme écrite et visuelle ce qui permet d’avoir un historique des activités.

Les vidéos, qu’elles soient réalisées par les professeurs ou par les élèves, sont un témoin de toutes les réalisations de l’année. Elles concluent les processus pédagogiques.

Ce site doit être dynamique et pour cela il doit être actualisé: il sera remanié et adapté

régulièrement afin d’accompagner et stimuler les activités de notre département.

Lien du site : http://lgbspanish.wix.com/mundohispano

Hernan Hoyos

http://lgbspanish.wix.com/mundohispano


Implementing sustainable development across the Foundation

In the past months my efforts have been focussed on two major projects:

1. Implementing mindfulness

2. Introducing Goodwall

Ad 1.

Although mindfulness and sustainability may not seem immediately related, they are indeed

within our educational context. Allow me to explain. Within the ten Principles of One Planet

Living formulated by WWF, that have been adopted as a guideline for introducing

sustainability, the tenth principle is Health and Happiness (see image below). The foundation

has recently published its guidelines on Mindfulness and Health and we see that the overlap

in titles focusses on health. Health and sustainability thus go hand in hand, and mindfulness

provides the bridge within our school community.

For those not familiar with mindfulness in an educational context, I refer to the work of the

Mindfulness in Schools project (www.mindfulnessinschools.org). This project is based on the

work of John Kabat-Zinn, which adapts the benefits of the program he developed within a

medical context, to the school environment. The full name of the program is Mindfulness

Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), which suggests, correctly, that the benefits of the program

lie in the reduced levels of stress experienced by the practitioner of the program. Stress is a

tangible phenomenon within our school environment and applies to students, teacher and

administration alike. Not only does stress influence the well-being, or perceived quality of life,

negatively, but it also has a negative impact on student performance. With the introduction of

mindfulness at the foundation, we expect to be able to raise well-being as well as academic

performance.

The preliminary exchanges I have had with colleagues and students indicate that there is a

wide interest across the foundation. I have applied some strategies within my classes and

students have generally responded positively, as have the colleagues with whom I have

been in contact. The next stage is to organize training by the mindfulness in schools project,

establish quiet spaces within every school and organize meeting among those interested in

these preliminary stages.

By the time I write my next report I hope to be able to describe when the training took place

and how many participated, as well as how teachers have started to implement practice

within their classes. For now I can say that I have been most encouraged by the wide interest

and support I have received from colleagues and students. As a result, I am confident that a

constructive implementation of mindfulness can be established across the foundation in

years to come. Positive effects we can expect as a result are raised levels of well-being for

the wider community, as well as raised levels of academic performance for those students

currently suffering from stress.

Finally, there is a strong relationship between mindfulness and reflection, deep thinking and

has been demonstrated to raise levels of creativity and critical thinking, but I will write more

http://www.mindfulnessinschools.org/


about that in my next report. I intend to compile a reader of research articles in which these

results are discussed for the interested reader.

Fig.1: The 10 Principles of One Planet Living as formulated by the World Wildlife Fund.

Ad 2.

The goodwall is an initiative of endignorance, an organisation started by young

entrepreneurs in Geneva, including an alumnus from La Châtaigneraie. The goodwall profiles

itself as ‘the social network to do good’ and can be found at www.goodwall.org. The potential

of this platform is vast, as it will allow students to connect in initiating and organizing projects.

At La Chat that starts in year 6 with the end of Primary project on sustainable matters and

can be used by students in years 12 and 13 to organize CAS projects, as well as posting

reflections they wish to share with a larger audience. The aim is to create a continuity from

year 6 to year 13, making service learning and integral part of the educational experience at

our school.

I have been in close contact with the developers to discuss the requirements for our students

and teachers to be able to use it optimally. Discussions have been had with teachers, ICT

and CAS coordinators as well as senior management at La Châtaigneraie. A meeting has

been planned with the LGB sustainability coordinator and hope to meet with Conrad Hughes

to discuss the possibilities of implementation across the foundation (where appropriate). For

now we hope to be able to pilot a closed version of the network (so only to be used within the

school) with year 6 in Primary and the Green Committee in Secondary at La Chat. In the next

report I hope to be able to share our evaluations. It is very much hoped that once we are

more familiar with the platform, it will allow us to connect to schools worldwide, creating

educational benefit for all parties involved.

Jan Dijkstra

http://www.goodwall.org/


Online Apps

The Bring Your Own Device Program (BYOD) student 1:1 computing initiative is currently

having a staggered implementation across the Foundation. The Strategic Plan, appraisal

process and Our Focus for the Future commit us to implement a strategy for digital learning

which makes the most creative and worthwhile use of ICT'. I will be using this Annexe VI

opportunity to find 'cross-platform' Apps (preferably for little to no cost), websites and online

activities that encourage this ambition to be fulfilled. The aim will be for students in terms of

general ICT use but with a focus on Mathematics ICT. Given the vast array of devices we will

have in our classrooms, I will be checking (depending on access to such devices) the

compatibility of such ICT across as many devices/operating systems as possible including

Windows OS, IOS, OSX, and possibly others as well.

Having looked at many Apps, I had the dilemma of trying to decide ‘Is this an educational

app?’ I placed a few to the side deciding they were not. Later however I decided that for me

to classify any App as educational or not would be a bit arrogant on my part. It would also be

an insult to the creativity of teachers in the Foundation. I therefore include them all in hope

someone may find it a spark for pedagogy.

I am afraid that I have only just received an ipad and hence have not tried many of these on

that platform. I have mostly chosen Apps that are multi-platform but some seemed too good

not to include.

Below are links to Apps and a brief description of what they do.

● Google sky - Android only, cost: free

○ Sometimes is seen a strange spot in the sky….this app uses the location

function of your device to show on the screen a map of the stars and planets

based on where the phone is pointing. Yup, that’s Jupiter!

○ https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.stardroid

● Duolingo - iOS and Android. Cost: free

○ Learning another language on the move. This is giving Rosetta Stone some

competition and is picking up good reviews, nominations, awards as an

educational app.

○ http://www.duolingo.com/mobile

● Today’s meet - Any device. Cost: free

○ Chat room with a time limit before it self deletes

○ possibly good for internet safety/ anti cyberbullying tool as people have less

time to get in contact with the vulnerable.

○ Can’t be extended nor closed early.

○ Today’s meet does not participate in rooms so that you know if you are

contacted by them, it is not authentic.

○ Discussion not public (unlike twitter) - only those with permission can use it..

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.stardroid



http://www.duolingo.com/mobile


○ Real time feedback on your presentation, allows for audience questions and

audience trends to be detected, allows you to be in control of which questions

you wish to answer. Probably not a replacement for real human audience

member to presenter questioning

○ http://todaysmeet.com/

● Keep - Any device. Cost: free

○ Googles version of an all round notebook

○ Seems more effort than what you get out of it but may suit some

○ https://drive.google.com/keep/

● IFTTT = If This, Then That - iOS only (for the moment) ;( . Cost: free

○ Literally as it says on the tin….

○ Great for automating actions

■ If someone tags a photo with me in it on Facebook, then upload that

photo to my Instagram account.

■ If I log into my gmail, create an event in my calendar to log my work

hours on email.

■ If it rains, send me an sms to pack an umbrella.

○ https://ifttt.com/

● CoLAR - iOS and Android. Cost: free

○ allows you to print and color in a picture and then point your devices’ camera

at the picture. The individualised picture comes to 3D life preserving the

colour. Rather magical actually.

○ http://colarapp.com/

● Aurasma - iOS and Android. Cost: free

○ similar to coLAR but this superimposes a predesigned cartoon over a photo

such that whenever you again point the camera of your device at the same

scene the cartoon appears on the screen. The cartoons are still in their

infancy but lots of potential here.

○ http://www.aurasma.com/

● TED - Android only. Cost: free

○ For watching your favourite TED talks

○ https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ted.android

● Vine - any device. Cost: free

○ Youtube meets Twitter perhaps.

○ Looping videos of 6 seconds or less

○ https://vine.co/

● Daltonizer - Android only. Cost: free

○ a color blindness simulator application that uses the camera device.

○ It can be used to illustrate how the color blind see the world or to ensure that

http://todaysmeet.com/

https://drive.google.com/keep/

https://ifttt.com/

http://colarapp.com/

http://www.aurasma.com/

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ted.android

https://vine.co/


the colors you choose for a work can be seen by a color-blind person.

○ https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.nghs.android.cbs&hl=en

Here are two links to some Apps news

● London gets smart parking sensors - hopefully reducing carbon emissions!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25727117

● iDoctor - some interesting medical apps (unfortunately with some sensationalised

reporting)

Steve Cormack

Helena Zivkovic, Campus des Nations

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.nghs.android.cbs&hl=en

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25727117

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=r13uYs7jglg


Mathematical concepts The goal of my project is to facilitate the experience of looking at student work together, which will allow Nations’ PYP (Early Years and Primary) teachers to develop a shared understanding of our students' key mathematical ideas at the year levels. With this shared understanding, we will be able to agree upon more explicit assessment criteria and benchmarks. My first step was to analyze assessment materials from the First Steps Math Resource Book and Exemplars materials to propose assessments to be used at specific year levels in line with the PYP Scope and Sequence Phases and current units of inquiry. I have proposed First Steps assessments to four of the year levels and we are in the process of administering/moderating these assessments. Some teams have met to look at student work together while other teams have plans to meet in the near future. I have looked at aligning the assessment tasks to avoid redundancy of tasks and to further reflect on year level expectations. We have started to talk about what assessment materials could be passed along to the child's teacher for the following year. We have also looked at results from the assessments to guide instruction and plans for future assessments.¨

Melissa Sundquist

European Student Film Festival 2014

The European Student Film Festival is in full preparation. The doors will be opening on the largest festival of its kind in Europe, March 19-23. The International School of Geneva will be welcoming 150 students across 15 schools and 13 countries. We will also be hosting filmmakers representing all aspects of the film industry to deliver cutting-edge workshops for the participants.

Many goals have been met thus far, and many more on their way. With two months to go the push for excellence will be going until the final minute. The festival’s organization is three-fold.

The first will be to showcase the competition films, which many of our students and students from around the world, are in the middle of producing. These will be showcased in a top cinema i the region and will accompany a night of celebration, with a representatives from the foundation, alumni and the film community contributing to the event. Each school has the opportunity to submit five seven minute films, of which 25 will be chosen from the possible 75 submissions. The international jury will decide the final winner.

Secondly, the festival will host 1o different workshops lead by filmmakers that represent the full range of film. These will be cover all aspects of production that a film undergoes. Each of the participants will choose three of the workshops to engage in a deep level the meanings constructed by the facets of film. Workshops range from storytelling, scriptwriting, directing cinematography, sound design and montage development. We are still working on filling these roles, and high priority is given to this, as learning is at the heart of the festival.


Finally, the students on the last day will take part in the 24 hour film challenge. The groups will be a mix of the schools and participants with guidance from the professionals. This event is complete submersion and will prove to be an event that challenges the students’ abilities to work as a team and at a demanding professional level.

I have also set a network of teachers across the foundation that will be helping in the event. Michael Shevlin, and Chris Hambley from La Chataignerie; Julian Parry, and Giles Shirley at Campus des nations; and I am still waiting to hear from LGB regarding students and Teachers, but contact has been made early last year. So far we have 38 students in the foundation attending the festival and hopefully many more to come.

We will be hosting the festival in Annecy at the Balcons d’Annecy for the workshops, boarding and the 24 hour film festival. The evening of showcase, will either take place in Geneva, or Annecy, we are still waiting to hear back from Cinemas. The event had to be held in Annecy, due to cost and space, as we do not have the facilities to host over 200 people at once.

I am proud to announce we have also top sponsors signing on, including Sony Software, dartfish and Visuals, an International Film rental house. We expect many more to sign on board before the lights shine on the event.

The challenges, at the moment are completing the list of workshop leaders, locating more sponsors, IT infrastructure, and finding a Key-note speaker for the event.

If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. I will also attach a schedule once we get closer to finalisation.

Benjamin Bottorff

Introduction des TICE en cours de sciences – bilan au premier trimestre

La pédagogie en lien avec l’introduction des TICE reste un domaine relativement nouveau

dans les écoles du degré primaire et MS. Elle pose un nombre important de questionnement

et nécessite des compétences diverses : pédagogiques certes mais également

technologique. La dimension recherche-action dans un nouveau domaine semble également

faire sens pour ne pas, comme je l’avais déjà exposé dans mon premier compte rendu, faire

simplement du neuf avec du vieux. Il faut donc impérativement se mettre en équipe pour

mieux définir quels objectifs constituent une réelle plus-value lorsque l’on opère un

croisement entre enseignement d’une matière-utilisation des TIC.

La triangulation suivante est enfin née, au terme de ce premier semestre ! Il va sans dire que

cela implique une volonté de faire un travail d’équipe et de dégagé du temps commun à cet

effet.


Mais qu’en est-il des élèves ?

Les élèves ont effectué deux cyberquêtes, durant ce premier semestre. Une première

imposée par les enseignants autour du thème de la lumière blanche. Les sites de recherche

avaient été donnés, il s’agissait d’un travail de groupe où chacun avait un rôle défini. Cette

première cyberquête qui aurait pu constituer une sorte d’évaluation formative sous une forme

originale, n’a pas fonctionné et nous n’avons pas atteint les objectifs fixés.

En effet, la décomposition de la lumière est un sujet dense, les sites où ces phénomènes

sont expliqués sont complexes. L’information vulgarisée est rare. Autrement dit les

contenus n’étaient clairement pas à leur portée.

C’est pourquoi, nous avons changé notre projet initial (recherche orientée) et débuter une

deuxième cyberquête en partant du questionnement des élèves, sans imposer de sites. La

dimension travail de groupe a également été abandonnée pour cette deuxième expérience.

Les résultats étaient meilleurs et les productions finales des élèves nous ont conduit à faire

les observations suivantes :

o La majorité des élèves se sentent tout à fait habilité à chercher des sites, ils n’aiment pas être orientés.

o La moitié des élèves consultent un seul site pour répondre

o Un quart en consulte au moins deux, le dernier quart visite entre 3 à 4 sites par question.

o 64% des élèves consultent des sites appropriés (visées éducatives ; partage d’informations référenciées etc.)

o 19% des élèves trouvent des sites partiellement appropriés (parfois trop complexe mais bien référencié ; information correcte mais sans source ; site publicitaire mais sans trop de spam etc)

o 17% des élèves s’appuient sur des sites inappropriés à visée commerciale envahis par des spams de toutes sortes, sans références etc.

o 29% des élèves donnent une réponse paraphrasée correcte.

L’enseignant

TICE de la MS

M. Mandel

L’enseignant de

la discipline

(B. Bichsel)

L’enseignant projet TICE

(recherche-action) E. Sullo


o 32 % donnent une réponse correcte mais incomplète.

o 32% répondent de manière erronée ou ne parviennent pas du tout à répondre.

o 7% répondent par un copier-coller.

Ce pourcentage a été calculé sur les élèves d’une seule classe. Cependant, il est intéressant

de voir que ce qui pose davantage problèmes n’est pas la recherche de l’information mais

l’extraction et la reformulation de cette dernière.

En tenant compte des ces résultats et de la difficulté que les élèves ont eu à travailler en

groupe, je suis parvenue à dégager les objectifs suivants pour notre deuxième semestre :

Objectifs généraux Moyens Apprentissages

RECHERCHER DE L’INFORMATION = Utilisation et analyse des ressources internet

Google ou autre moteur de recherche Application i-pad

Apprendre à trianguler les informations (trouver deux autres sources à l’appui). S’approprier quelques critères d’évaluation des sites internet.

COLLABORER-PARTAGER- ECHANGER-COMMUNIQUER = Initiation au travail collaboratif à distance.

Mails GoogleDocs Cyberquête Balados

Apprendre à communiquer par mail poliment de manière concise avec ses camarades et ses professeurs. Différencier l’usage des TICE pour l’école = requiert quelques critères de savoir-faire et de savoir être. Collaborer avec tous les élèves (même ceux que l’on « n’aime pas » en partageant ou échangeant de l’information)

PRESENTATER = produire des travaux sur différents supports issus des technologies.

Mind mapping Power point Vidéo Cyberquête (site web)

Maîtriser des outils de présentation = savoir concevoir une carte heuristique, un power point, une vidéo etc.

Il faut ajouter à ces objectifs « TICE » l’objectif linguistique : reformulation ou paraphrase.

En effet, si les élèves comprennent bien pourquoi le copier-coller ou le plagiat est une

pratique interdite à l’école, ils n’en sont pas moins démunis lorsqu’on leur demande de

paraphraser un paragraphe. Il faut donc penser à enrichir leur vocabulaire à l’aide d’un

lexique ciblé à développer en classe de français ou d’anglais ou les deux !

Finalement ci-dessous voici :


La cyberquête des élèves de 6ème que nous devons encore compléter avec des balados (brèves réponses audio.)

La grille-outil pour valider les sites choisis que chaque élève devra s’approprier.

A noter qu’en fin d’année l’ensemble des productions sera partagé avec les autres élèves

de 6ème. et constituera une activité collaborative entre les classes de sciences. Ces

productions représenteront je l’espère une synthèse originale du cursus en sciences des

degrés 6.

Ces questions t’intéressent ? Clic sur les liens, ils te conduiront directement vers une

réponse simple et fiable. Pour t’assurer d’avoir bien compris ce que tu as lu, tu peux écouter

nos mini-conférences audio.

Questions Les sources internets Nos Réponses audio

Combien de muscles comprend l’œil ?

http://le_corps_humain.juniorwebaward.ch/ http://www.dummies.com/Section/Content-Search.id-324209.html?query=eye+muscles http://www.nanosweb.org/files/public/thyroideyedisease.pdf

CETTE PARTIE DOIT ÊTRE COMPLETEE !

Comment voit un daltonien ?

http://www.podcastscience.fm/dossiers/2010/09/22/dossier-le-daltonisme-les-daltoniens/ (pour écouter au lieu de lire, va à la 15ème minute directement)

Qu’est-ce que l’hypermétropie ?

http://www.fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperm%C3%A9tropie http://www.futura-sciences.com/magazines/sante/infos/dico/d/biologie-hypermetropie-11860/

Qu’est-ce que la myopie ? Myopie : Qu'est-ce que c'est - Santé - Le Figaro http://www.nei.nih.gov/healtheyes/myopia.asp http://www.cliniqueoeil.ch/page-154/lasik-operation-de-la-myopie.html www.nhs.uk http://www.laser-lasik.fr/MyopieExplications.html http://www.patient.co.uk/health/short-sight-myopia

Comment fonctionnent les illusions d’opique ?

http://psychology.about.com/b/2012/01/09/how-do-optical-illusions-work.htm Les illusions d'optique | Espace des sciences http://fr.wikimini.org/wiki/Illusion_d%27optique http://www.espace-sciences.org/sciences-ouest/archives/les-illusions-d-optique http://www.clg-galaberte-sthippolytedufort.ac-montpellier.fr/spip.php?article453 http://www.ask.com/question/how-does-an-optical-illusion-work

http://le_corps_humain.juniorwebaward.ch/

http://www.dummies.com/Section/Content-Search.id-324209.html?query=eye+muscles

http://www.dummies.com/Section/Content-Search.id-324209.html?query=eye+muscles

http://www.nanosweb.org/files/public/thyroideyedisease.pdf

http://www.podcastscience.fm/dossiers/2010/09/22/dossier-le-daltonisme-les-daltoniens/

http://www.podcastscience.fm/dossiers/2010/09/22/dossier-le-daltonisme-les-daltoniens/

http://www.fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperm%C3%A9tropie

http://www.futura-sciences.com/magazines/sante/infos/dico/d/biologie-hypermetropie-11860/



http://www.nei.nih.gov/healtheyes/myopia.asp

http://www.cliniqueoeil.ch/page-154/lasik-operation-de-la-myopie.html

http://www.cliniqueoeil.ch/page-154/lasik-operation-de-la-myopie.html

http://www.nhs.uk/

http://www.laser-lasik.fr/MyopieExplications.html

http://www.patient.co.uk/health/short-sight-myopia

http://psychology.about.com/b/2012/01/09/how-do-optical-illusions-work.htm

http://psychology.about.com/b/2012/01/09/how-do-optical-illusions-work.htm

http://www.espace-sciences.org/archives/science/16596-comment-ca-marche-93e6.html

http://fr.wikimini.org/wiki/Illusion_d%27optique

http://www.espace-sciences.org/sciences-ouest/archives/les-illusions-d-optique

http://www.espace-sciences.org/sciences-ouest/archives/les-illusions-d-optique

http://www.clg-galaberte-sthippolytedufort.ac-montpellier.fr/spip.php?article453

http://www.clg-galaberte-sthippolytedufort.ac-montpellier.fr/spip.php?article453

http://www.ask.com/question/how-does-an-optical-illusion-work


Comment ça marche « un trompe l’œil »

http://www.iptrucs.com/article-comment-fonctionne-un-trompe-l-oeil-118759344.html

Qu’est-ce qu’un mirage et comment se produit-il?

http://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Mirage http://www.linternaute.com/science/divers/pourquoi/06/pourquoi-mirage/mirage.shtml

Pourquoi a-t-on les yeux rouges quand on prend une photo avec un flash ?

http://lasciencepourtous.cafe-sciences.org/articles/lesyeuxrougessurlesphotos/ http://laestlaquestion.tfo.org/question_humain_pourquoi_avons_nous_les_yeux_rouges_sur_les_photos_200



http://fr.vikidia.org/wiki/Mirage

http://www.linternaute.com/science/divers/pourquoi/06/pourquoi-mirage/mirage.shtml

http://www.linternaute.com/science/divers/pourquoi/06/pourquoi-mirage/mirage.shtml

http://lasciencepourtous.cafe-sciences.org/articles/lesyeuxrougessurlesphotos/

http://lasciencepourtous.cafe-sciences.org/articles/lesyeuxrougessurlesphotos/

http://laestlaquestion.tfo.org/question_humain_pourquoi_avons_nous_les_yeux_rouges_sur_les_photos_200

http://laestlaquestion.tfo.org/question_humain_pourquoi_avons_nous_les_yeux_rouges_sur_les_photos_200

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