GENERAL EDUCATION

GENERAL EDUCATION

 

In the recent past, the education given to young French people consisted almost exclusively of training minds by means of intellectual disciplines.

The educational value of these disciplines cannot be disputed by anyone. They help to form our character through the practice of intellectual effort. They make us participate in the immense experience acquired in all fields by men. They allow us to become fully aware of the spiritual universe where life takes on its meaning. They give those who claim to become leaders the overall vision that will be essential for them to lead the groups and communities for which they will be responsible.

General culture, an essential element of education , will continue to uplift and honor the French spirit.

"We will maintain, we will expand if possible," wrote[1] Marshal Pétain, a tradition of high culture that is part of the very idea of ​​our homeland. The French language has a universality attached to its genius. It is not without reason that we took pleasure in giving the supreme crown of our studies the beautiful name of Humanities. "

But, reduced to intellectual education, education is incomplete and thereby distorted. Man is not only a pure intelligence, he is a being of action, in whom the mind and the body are intimately linked and constantly react to each other. “To live is to act,” wrote the greatest philosopher of our time. Education should essentially prepare children to live as men, cannot neglect to make them act and guide them in their acts. In order to train elites, that is to say above all leaders, it is necessary to teach them to organize and to command and therefore to obey.

" We will endeavor to destroy the disastrous prestige of a purely bookish pseudo-culture, advisor of laziness and generator of uselessness " wrote the Marshal  [1] .

It will suffice for us to meditate on this sentence of the Head of State to identify the principle of a healthy education and rediscover the traditions of French common sense. “It is not a soul, it is not a body that is being trained, it is a man ; it should not be done in pairs ; and, as Plato says, they should not be trained one without the other, but also lead them like a pair of horses harnessed to the same drawbar: and hearing, it does not seem to take more time and concern for the exercises of the body and to consider that the mind is exercised as and when and not on the contrary ? ".   

In this famous text, Montaigne, linking French thought to Greek thought, not only indicates the main idea which should guide educators. It also shows that the educational activities in which the body intervenes necessarily have a more general educational character than the others.

These activities, to which henceforth a large place will be reserved in the timetables of educational establishments, have been called "general education activities" because they make it possible to develop simultaneously , and consequently harmoniously, all the faculties of being. alive and acting.

But, for the new activities to fully deserve their name, so that they leave in mind the preeminent place it should have, it is necessary that, in each establishment, the teachers with the highest intellectual titles participate in their direction. Only then, according to Montaigne's wish, “the games themselves and the exercises” can be “ a good part of the study”.

Among the educators, who all, of course, must, in order to deserve this title, be held responsible for the moral training of their students, we can therefore distinguish:

- intellectual educators, who in principle exercise their function in the classroom ;          

- physical and sports educators, who in principle exercise their function outside the classroom;        

- "general" educators, whose action, taking place both outside the classroom and in the classroom, allows them to make the essential synthesis between intellectual education and physical and sports education, and to reinforce one by the other.        

The essential school role of the General Commission for General Education and Sports is to enable the greatest possible number of intellectual educators to become general educators by enabling them to lead general education activities under good conditions. .

 

 

What are the main effects of educational activities carried out in the classroom and in what sense the educator who runs the must - it consequently orientate especially his effort?

The activities of general education simultaneously exercising all the principal faculties of the active being, one can, in order to examine their indivisible influence, consider successively from the physical, intellectual and moral points of view.

 

There is no need to stress that an education which forgets to promote and supervise the physical development of children compromises not only their material possibilities, but also their intellectual and moral possibilities. And it also strikes the children of these children in advance.

Neglecting the bodily being of an individual or a people has always been serious; in our time, the consequences of this neglect are becoming disastrous.

Modern civilization, in fact, tends to move us further and further away from the natural conditions of life for which our bodies are made.

From the physical point of view, the fundamental principle which must guide the action of the educator is therefore to make the child live a life more in conformity with natural existence.

Already Montaigne counseled: "Harden - the sweat and cold, the wind, the sun and the hazards that must despise ; take from him all softness and delicacy to dress and sleep in the eating and drinking, accustom - at any; let him not be a handsome boy and dameret, but a green and vigorous boy. "

Nowadays, Dr. Carrel[2] writes:

              “Man reaches his highest development when he is exposed to bad weather, when he is deprived of sleep and when he sleeps for a long time when his food is sometimes abundant and sometimes scarce, when he conquers his shelter and his food by effort. He must also exercise his muscles, get tired and rest, fight and suffer, sometimes be happy, love and hate, that his will alternately tense and relax, that it fights against its fellows and against itself. It is made for this mode of existence, like the stomach to digest food. "

We must, of course, correct what the application of these ideas might present of risks - especially addressing subjects which, for the most part, are far from having been raised so far according to these principles - of a on the one hand by observing a wise progression in the training of children and young people, on the other hand by accompanying a carefully organized medical check-up to the introduction of new activities at school. This medical check-up and the supervised practice of bodily activities will give teachers the opportunity to frequently draw the attention of their pupils to the essential rules of hygiene, too often unknown in our country.

 

The intellectual influence of general education activities is of prime importance. These activities make it possible to place intelligence, nourished by intellectual disciplines, in the natural framework which is essential for its complete development, that of action.

The educational value of handicrafts is, in this respect, undeniable. Marshal Pétain underlined this recently in terms which will be recalled in this notice.

Team games lead students, guided by their teachers, to think about new and essential problems. While purely intellectual disciplines tend to view most problems only from the point of view of the individual, collective action will force teachers and students to deal frequently with organizational matters and lead them to study material, intellectual and moral conditions of a realizing action.

This action which, without stopping at the verbal stage, comes up against the resistance of matter and of men, encounters difficulties which force the intelligence to bend to new disciplines and in particular to become methodical, organizational and realistic, to no longer "to pay for words".

The field trips will also provide general educators with the opportunity to give their intellectual teaching a new life and to further increase its interest. "Nothing replaces the direct observation of things", nothing better than direct observation is capable of developing in young people, with artistic intelligence, a sense of reality.

 

              If morality is the set of principles which govern our action, it is obvious that in this respect the influence of the educator is more effective when he is involved in the active life of children than when he is limited to formulate precepts in front of stationary subjects.

A simple word said in a circumstance well chosen by a teacher who is both the teacher and the companion of outings and games has more real significance than long theoretical developments.

But to give young people the moral tone that they must have as well as to temper their character, the most effective way can - being whose will have the educator will be to ensure that the outer holding is what it should be in all circumstances, and thus to exploit, to fulfill its mission, the solidarity of our feelings and our bodily attitudes. By giving the Master the possibility of molding, in the course of multiple activities, the soul of his disciples by the rectification of their external behavior, one puts in his hands a powerful means of moral action and one does not risk any more to make virtue boring and therefore hateful by long homilies.

Here again, Montaigne shows us the way forward: “Our lesson, happening as if by encounter, without any obligation of time and place, and mingling with all our actions , will flow without being felt. "

General education activities will not only allow the educator to soak the characters through the practice of effort and struggle, struggle against oneself, struggle against adversaries, struggle against subject, they will give him the way of sweeping away certain physical and moral aspects that are not in the French tradition

Finally, sports struggles and team games while forging strong individualities and making them aware of their strength, will teach everyone modesty, which generates real values, through the frequent, direct and indisputable perception of the superiority of others. . Each pren dra used to judge if its fair value, which is always relative, and find that the merit of the results obtained by his group to always carry over the effort of all and often on one another as on his own. Everyone will understand the necessity and the greatness of the discipline and team spirit. Everyone will feel the need and the desire to place their pride in the contribution made to the achievements and successes of the community.

              The susceptibilities, the grudges, the vanities, the selfishness of those who spend their life withdrawn into their individual will gradually give way to the spirit of camaraderie, devotion and sacrifice, which elevates the human person above. herself and which finds its highest expression in the love of the fatherland.