The rise of far-right thinking in our society has consequences that also affect life in schools. But what we should ask ourselves is whether we, at school, are sufficiently effective in counterbalancing this ideological trend, or whether we are unwittingly fueling it.
By definition, the far right prioritizes the maintenance of individual privileges and interests over the collective good. We can see this in the political and social reactions to complex phenomena. At the same time, our children's families are increasingly asking us to discuss issues primarily related to their own son or daughter. We find it harder to mobilize them to address community issues related to education, culture, or childhood.
We could read this as a problem or as an opportunity to rethink ways to regenerate dialogue between families and educational institutions. We are, therefore, facing a context that asks us, once again, to rise to new challenges, but I think it's also important to ask ourselves if schools are also co-responsible for fostering this democratically dangerous dynamic that we are too readily normalizing.
Aside from a few worthy exceptions, there's no shame in acknowledging that schools, as a whole, prioritize individual values over collective ones. Starting with us teachers, who prefer to demand, for example, the ability to work with smaller groups of children rather than more resources to organize co-teaching. From my point of view, the demand for better working conditions should always take into account the achievement of the common good through the collective construction of ideas.
More democratic relations
Our school model prioritizes the individual dimensions of learning to the detriment of the collective. Our current curricula are filled with assessment criteria that are strictly individual, yet lack any guidance that would lead us to generate collective thinking. This hinders dialogue between schools and families, which today focuses primarily on an exchange that addresses issues related to the development of individual children. To top it all off, schools are increasingly relying on applications that nurture the individual dimension more than the collective.
These are just a few examples that illustrate what, in my opinion, we at schools should try to reverse in order to counterbalance the ideologies that threaten us.
It's necessary for schools to work together to organize more collectively, prioritizing teams over individuals. This way, they'll also feel empowered to engage with us in a deeper dialogue that goes beyond treating them as users or clients of a service. And this also educates children, who will learn to relate to each other by seeing how adults relate to each other.
If we want to reverse far-right thinking and build a society based on more democratic relationships, besides worrying about what kind of world we will leave for our children, we must wake up, as the beloved Philippe Meirieu says, to ask ourselves what kind of children we want to leave in this world.
