From March 21 to 26, 2022, the 33rd Press and Media Week in the School takes place. On this occasion, we went to meet three teachers in media class, who throughout the year question themselves and make their students question their relationship to information.
Press and Media Week in the School is an operation organized by the Center for Information Media Education (CLEMI), a service created in 1983 within the Canopé Network, a public operator under the supervision of the French Ministry of National Education.
The event is labeled as part of the French presidency of the European Union and intends to develop a European dimension, which of course takes on a very special meaning in the tragic news of recent weeks. The theme of the 2022 edition is “Getting informed to understand the world. »
This question is somewhat the red thread of Maryse Broustail, Elena Pavel and Sarah Ouagueni, history and geography teachers who, in Mantes-la-Jolie, Paris and Roubaix, officiate in classes at PEM (education project for media) more commonly referred to as media classes. The project was born in 2008 in five pilot establishments. It then developed at the academic level, with very diverse modalities.
The academy of Versailles is rather privileged. They are six teachers to have a discharge to take care of the CLEMI. Maryse Broustail teaches part-time and for the rest coordinates Media and Information Education (EMI) for the Yvelines department. For Elena Pavel, academic coordinator of the forty media classes present in the Paris academy, the mission letter is in addition to a full-time teacher and a thesis in progress.
Passionate teachers
Most employees, especially female employees, because these schemes are led by a large majority of women, do this in addition to their full time. “We feel useful, useful for them,” boasts Sarah Ouagueni, who opened her media class in September. The fact is that it is passion, much more than career prospects, that motivates their commitment.
Only librarian teachers are trained in media and information literacy. For the others, remarks Maryse Broustail, “the CLEMI remains very little known to teachers. I was a teacher for five years before I knew it existed. »
“We turn to librarian teachers who are trained in EMI but who cannot carry out this teaching alone, adds Elena Pavel. People need to train. You need project leaders, but you have to define the terms. There is a will in the programs, but we have a real problem on how to implement them. »
It is often in pairs with the history-geography teacher, in charge of EMC (moral and civic education) that pairs are established. However, French teachers are also directly concerned, especially since the theme “Informing, getting informed, deforming” was included in the program of 4and.
“The EMC, recalls Maryse Broustail, was the only time when we had half-classes. But the Blanquer reform left this to the discretion of the headteacher. Recent events have attracted new disciplines. Science teachers have had to confront fake news related to the pandemic and English teachers have spoken about it with the 2021 elections in the United States.
Students like the others, who get caught up in the game
In media classes, one or two hours are often dedicated to the project in addition to the compulsory courses. “It is a decision of the establishment on its own resources and this is not the case in the one where I teach” specifies Maryse Broustail. “There are establishments where the choice of media class is made on the voluntary basis of the students and their parents. For us, it was out of the question, because it would have come down to doing a level class. explains Elena Pavel. The same choice was made in the establishments of his two colleagues, for the same reasons.
“At first, the students complained about the overtime, smiles Sarah Ouagueni, who teaches in an establishment classified REP+ (reinforced priority education network), but in the end, the bet is completely winning. She takes the example of a student, practically mute in 6and who today seizes his phone to contact the speakers. “It’s a deliverance for her. She gives her opinion, and she realizes that people listen to her. »
It must be said that the educational device breaks with habits: “It is not an hour when they are sitting on a chair. They have the right to speak freely or to go and do research at the CDI. We are not in the teacher-learner relationship. Each time, they meet in an editorial conference. They craft their show from A to Z.”
Manufacturing is the key word. All three have in fact abandoned the classic option of raising awareness of the media to immediately give students the opportunity to produce their content. “They feel in a position to practice, explains Sarah Ouagueni, and valued because they are doing something they didn’t think they could do. And this valuation can be found on their newsletter. » Over the course of the year, the pupils acquire an expertise recognized by their classmates: « They are the ones who today are prescribers for the other pupils. »
This is all the more important as “there is a real gap, observes Maryse Broustail, for this age group of 14-18 year olds. General high school students who choose to specialize in history-geography, geopolitics and political science go to the adult media. But for others, the choice is limited. »
The art of verifying your sources
The written press is not part of their landscape, apart from a few readers of L’Équipe, among the boys. Television is a family practice, but not a personal choice, with the exception of Quotidien, on TMC, for high school students in general or technological streams. Radio and podcasts are not part of their habits either. In summary, students get their news almost exclusively through social networks.
For the general or technological sections, Maryse Broustail cites the editorial work of Le Monde on Snapchat, and some students who know the youtubeur “Hugo decrypts”. Paradoxically, a book appears less arid than an article. “Following a meeting with the journalist Delphine Minoui, six pupils out of thirty-five, excluding any school imperative, read her work” she recalls. And she adds: “So many girls! Also because the subject spoke to them, the story of a teenager of their age who was forcibly married.
“Our role, says Sarah Ouagueni, is to teach them how to use social networks. “All the major media have taken up media and information literacy,” adds Elena Pavel, referring in particular to the many pages and columns dedicated to fact-checking.
“The big break is the Charlie Hebdo attack. We run behind the urgency of media time that we can’t catch up with, we have the impression of emptying the sea with a teaspoon. “We teach them that time is necessary, adds Maryse Broustail, the work on the source is very important. Explaining what a source is in journalism then makes it easier to explain what a source is in history. »
Tools to understand the world
Columnists, opinion writers and those whose specialty changes with the news have created confusion. “It has become difficult for students to distinguish a journalist from a polemicist, deplores Elena Pavel, an opinion from a truth. The digital revolution has completely changed the situation and we are seen as a kind of after-sales service. At each session, we do not know what will be said by the students and what will have to be defused. »
“I call that intellectual self-defense,” sums up Maryse Broustail in reference to Normand Baillargeon’s book. “Our students are less equipped to face the world even though there is a lot more information. For me, there is a real challenge here,” concludes Elena Pavel.
As for Sarah Ouagueni, she remembers the first radio program produced by the students, and this first magic sentence, unexpected among these young people who often have the habit of depreciating their immediate environment: “Yes! In Roubaix, there are not only bad sides! Beyond a critical sense, learning about the media and information is also a way of changing one’s outlook on the world and arousing one’s curiosity every day.
Our selection on the subject: