This represented the greatest disruption to education the modern world has ever seen, the UN Secretary General stresses. Antonio Guterres. The Covid-19 pandemic led to sudden school closures worldwide in 2020. Almost 1.6 billion learners are affected. In France, many pupils and students had to follow their lessons from home via the screen. It is up to the teachers to ensure this “pedagogical continuity” through improvisation.

The incident, which caused general astonishment, is well known. What is less clear, however, is how teachers experienced this internally Forced march experience. What impact did they have on their psyche, but also on their methods and the knowledge they were able to impart?

Jean-Luc Rinaudo, professor of education at the University of Rouen-Normandy, examined these questions in a book published by Erès. Teaching: How much does it cost? A work in which, through numerous testimonies, he explores the experiences of the actors of this unprecedented episode, regularly resorting to psychoanalytic analysis and highlighting the power of the unconscious processes at work.

During this time, teachers had to face their first challenge: finding “The right distance” in their relationship with pupils and students. “Participants in virtual classes can feel a sense of each other’s presence, provided that this presence does not become intrusive or intrusive and that boundaries of intimacy are maintained.”, indicates the author. They also had to maintain contact with the students, which was a priority for teacher Stéphanie: “Relationship issues take precedence over the actual content of the knowledge to be imparted. »

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Mr Rinaudo points out that the conditions for practicing teaching may have tested teachers “Situation that is similar[ait] but not at school [était] just a replacement ». In fact, they had to do their job in front of a computer, “regular teacher”, in an often disembodied relationship. Worse still, in many cases all that was visible was a black screen and the learners’ cameras were not activated. Teachers then no longer had the ability to rely on students’ reactions to understand how their speech was being received.

THE Interactions are deletedTrainers can then experience themselves as easy “teaching machines”. They also held their lessons in unusual silence. “An ordinary class rustlesrecalls Mr. Rinaudo. The teacher who feels that he is alone, that he is speaking into the void, may legitimately question the meaning of his professional practice and feel a kind of loss of identity. »

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