Estelle* always leaves the door to her classroom open. “I have no choice! I have to try to keep an eye on Adam* when he’s wandering around or bouncing with his jumping ball in the hallway. This ball is the only solution I have. I found to channel it a little and be able to teach other students”, sighs this teacher who works in a school in Yvelines classified as a priority education network. And the young woman describes the unmanageable behavior of this twelve-year-old boy, who upsets the daily life of his CM2 class: insults, untimely remarks, running away, impulses of violence against his comrades.
Last February, Estelle was arrested for ten days by her doctor who diagnosed a “major reactive stress syndrome”. The teacher, exhausted, explains having knocked on all doors to get help and try to put in place concrete actions. In vain. “The child welfare service in my city had finally accepted my request to bring in a special education teacher to support me. All it took was for my inspector to sign the papers, but she didn’t even bother to answer me,” she says. Before launching: “I feel totally abandoned and I live in fear that something tragic will happen.”
For the past few months, testimonials like Estelle’s have been multiplying. The local press regularly echoes similar situations where very young “terrors” wreak havoc in their primary school, both in Toulouse and around Marseille, and at La Celle-Saint-Cloud in the West of Paris or in a small village in Meurthe-et-Moselle. The common point of all these stories: the authors of these outbursts are very young, aged 6 to 12, and often manage alone to crack their teachers one after the other. Simple effect of media magnifying glass or real phenomenon? Difficult to say since there is, to date, no investigation or quantified assessment. “But it is certain that we have more and more feedback from colleagues reporting such difficulties affecting their health and safety”, replies Guislaine David, co-secretary general of SNUipp-FSU, the main union of the first degree. .
Like her, many specialists make the link with the broken promises of the inclusive school. Since the law of February 11, 2005, the public service of education must, in fact, provide “school education to children with a disability or an incapacitating health problem”. However, the institution is sorely lacking in the means to respect this commitment. “It is of course important that all students can go to school, there is no question of going back on this principle, insists Guislaine David. Only, the staff are not sufficiently trained, we do not have enough ‘nurses and psychologists, the classes are overcrowded, the waiting times for a place in medico-educational institutes are very long… In short, we cannot cope with certain overflowing behaviors on our own”, continues Guislaine David.
“He threatened a comrade with a pair of scissors”
Jean-Joël Raffin himself came up against the impotence of National Education. In the primary school of Plan-de-Cuques (Bouches-du-Rhône) where his child is educated, a 7-year-old boy was violent towards other pupils and educational staff. A situation that does not date from this year. “In the establishment where the child was previously enrolled, some of his former comrades have developed behavioral problems or school phobia”, says the father of the family who, for lack of an answer, decided, last March, to alert the media with a group of parents. “We may have filed four complaints at the police station, written to the academic inspector of the sector, asked the town hall, nothing was moving. And I realized that there was no synergy between the services”, says- he.
Since then, their call seems to have been heard since the little boy in question recently joined another school in Marseille. “But I don’t know if we can talk about victory because, once again, we are only shifting the problem”, reacts Jean-Joël Raffin who entrusts L’Express to create an association with other parents this Friday 24 March, baptized Stigma. The goal: to support families and teachers whose children or students are victims of violence or harassment within a school.
At the other end of France, in the town of Celle-Saint-Cloud (Yvelines) Cindy Casse lives a similar situation. “My son’s mistress is once again arrested for burn-out and, since last October, replacing them,” she sighs. In question: this little boy who sows terror in his CE2 class. “He climbs on the tables, tried to jump out of the window, to drop the library, threatened a little friend with a pair of scissors, hit his teacher several times,” says the devastated mother. “One day, on the way to recess, he attacked a little boy on the pretext that he was singing. He didn’t like it, so he started kicking him in the stomach and thorax. The student victim was prescribed seven days of total incapacity to go to school, “she continues. Several complaints from parents have been filed. “For the time being, we do not know at all what the National Education services plan to do and we are very worried. Especially since the students have already accumulated two months of delay in their learning”, continues Cindy Broken.
The causes of these outbursts of violence are of course multiple. “We are sometimes confronted with families in very precarious situations and in great social distress. This can lead children to explode at school”, explains Guislaine David. Many of his kindergarten colleagues have also found that their young students, after experiencing the Covid crisis and confinements, find it difficult to interact with others and to fit into a collective. And the psychologist Didier Pleux to put forward another explanation for this apparent upsurge of “tyrannical” students. “We are dealing with children who at home have the right to do everything, monopolize the floor, watch TV when they want, explains the author of Benevolent education is enough (ed. Odile Jacob). When they arrive at school, they come up against the principle of reality, rules, respect for others and the notion of effort. Inevitably, they do not accept it!” It is up to teachers to set limits and intervene “as soon as the first red lights go through” at the risk, otherwise, of being overwhelmed. Without the adhesion and support of parents, the task is all the more difficult.
A “disarmed school”
Jean-Pierre Bellon, director of the Center for Resources and Systemic Studies against School Bullying (Resis) says he is very worried. “Something is happening, it’s undeniable,” he says, citing the example of little Maël. This 10-year-old boy, living in a small village near Le Creusot (Saône-et-Loire) suffered threats, insults, and physical violence from another student for three years. The latter will end up being changed schools, on March 1, after a long battle led by Maël’s parents who filed a complaint, prompting the opening of an investigation. “We are facing a disarmed school, denounces Jean-Pierre Bellon. The college has the means to react to a difficult student since there are about ten possible penalties, ranging from the word in the correspondence book to the definitive exclusion In elementary school, there is no such scale of sanctions.”
Another advantage of secondary school, the often larger premises and the system of school life made up of several supervisors make it easier to remove the disruptive student from the class and put him away for a while. “It is urgent to review our system, both for the victims and for the children who exercise this tyranny and are in great suffering”, warns Jean-Pierre Bellon. For Jean-Joël Raffin, the freedom of speech on this admittedly very delicate subject can only be beneficial. And the father of the family confided: “For me, school was the place where my child was safest after home. I came back from there and I’m not the only one.”
* The first name has been changed