Experimented in certain establishments since the start of the year, empathy courses must be generalized in all schools in France from next September. Well-being coaches from the business world will be responsible for delivering them. Corporate well-being has been, let us remember, a fiasco, since there have never been so many work stoppages, burn-outs and depressions since these well-being “trainers” started. invaded the professional sphere! Never mind, let’s reuse these ineffective devices for our children… It is never too early to format young minds for this fusional benevolence, for this unifying angelism.
If only the academic fundamentals were acquired, no one would contest this initiative. It is not a question of denying the importance of empathy, of denigrating it, but of putting it into perspective. When illiteracy, falling standards and academic failure have never been so high, the urgency lies elsewhere than in empathy courses. Secondly, what concerns education by parents is not the responsibility of school, whose role is not to devote itself to refining the qualities of the soul. Third, it is not teachers who will provide these courses, but coaches. Let us remember that coaching has never been academically recognized, and that it is less and less referenced in the National Directory of Professional Certifications (RNCP) because abuses and amateurism reign there. How can we then impose on parents that coaches who are not academically recognized enter academies to the point of morally guiding our children in schools?
Fourth, taking empathy seriously would mean not abandoning it to coaching. Because making it the subject of training amounts to apprehending it through causal determinations. For example: “You will be empathetic when you manage to judge less, to show curiosity and open-mindedness.” But if we decompose empathy in this way, using causal determinations, this immediate and intuitive coincidence with the other therefore becomes intellectualized, codified and therefore artificial. Empathy, like any feeling, is a quality of the soul, certainly not a juxtaposition of rationalized states nor the result of a behavioral recipe!
Finally, will school bullying (the reason why empathy courses were put in place) disappear thanks to this system? Surely not. Very weakened, our children will then find themselves bottle-fed with positive pedagogy compared to those who excel in the Pisa ranking through their demands, their effort, their work. Three big words from an elitist reactionary for well-being coaches, revealers of intelligence of the heart and other midwives of emotional quotient! Imposters have always existed. But each era has its particularities. Ours are free of any malice and full of good feelings. Their words are not personal, they are a refrain of agreed terms that they recite in unison. “Work”, “effort”, “authority” are musty words that they consider “reactive”. They prefer those of “kindness” and “positive energy”. All these beautiful people dabble in the same reservoir of preconceived ideas, wear the same demagogic glasses and are against the elites whom they are jealous of. He defends the soft skills to better denigrate the hard skills of which its members are deprived. It is a united corporation, which congratulates itself on its nullity and makes it its duty to come to war against its enemies (I am one of its favorites) on its battlefield that LinkedIn has become.
Observing this whole cohort of right-thinking people and well-being specialists, we feel vaguely heartbroken, embarrassed, confused by so much nonsense. These emollients of thought that are positive psychology and pedagogy which this whole regiment claims to claim are gradually undermining us. Let’s replace empathy coaching as quickly as possible with French lessons (not inclusive!), for the intelligence, vigor and freedom of mind of our children!
* Julia de Funès is a doctor of philosophy.
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