Experimental College of Saint-Nazaire
The experimental Lycée of Saint-Nazaire is a public General high school which functions in a managed jointly way. It gathers today nineteen members of the educative team and approximately a hundred and fifty raises S. the organization of the College is not-hierarchical, it does not have there a headmaster, not of CPE, not of supervisor, not of Secrétaire, not of Cleaning lady, nor of male domestic help, them also have the right to make the drudgeries. The members of the College car-organize themselves for all.
History
The experimental College of Saint-Nazaire opened its doors the February 2nd 1982 on the initiative of Gabriel Cohn-Bendit and André Daniel. François Mitterrand is then President of the Republic recently, and Gabriel Cohn Bendit challenges the Ministre for education Alain Savary by writing the " to him; Letter with the comrade Minister ". The eighteen teachers gathered around this project accepted freehand to create an experimental college managed jointly in order to try to find answers to the school failure.
Coadministration
The coadministration of the establishment, is exerted at various levels:-
At the Political level , the decisions which relate to the institutions of the college or its operation is taken with parity by the college raises and the college educative team;
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At the material level, the pieces of housework and of current management are carried out in turn by mixed groups (pupils and members of the educative team).
Decision makings
According to the principle of coadministration, decision makings pass by the confrontation of the pupils and the Members of the Educative team (Mee) organized in two distinct colleges whose meetings are called " Collèges".The body of confrontation of these two colleges is the Council of Establishment (EC). The EC is composed of six delegated college raises and two deputy of the educative team which goes voluntary for two months.
Any member of the College can seize the EC by addressing a letter to him. These requests are very varied. It can be a question of a request for Débat on the operation of the College, of a request for installation of the timetable, of a request for Subvention for a project, etc
The secretariat is charged to transmit to the EC the requests which come from outside. (Request for training course, requires authorization for a report…)
The EC meets a Wednesday on two to fix the day order of the Colleges. For that, it orders the requests which reach him. It can slice on secondary questions which it estimates not to be prone to controversy. It can also defer certain points to reduce the day order. The day order includes/understands information, a justified synthesis of the decisions which the EC took freedom to make without passing by the Colleges and the debates subjected to the Colleges. It is posted in the hall of the College.
The Colleges take place next Tuesday. The mees meet in a room and the pupils in one or more others according to their numbers. All the registered pupils are supposed to take part in the Colleges, but much from pupils desert them. The delegates animate the meeting and take notes on the arguments advanced and the made proposals.
Next Wednesday, the EC meets again to find a consensus and to make a report. The delegates pay what was said in their respective Colleges and seek compromises or alternative solutions. They are responsible in front of their Colleges, but can accept a decision to which them Collège was unfavourable if the other Colleges mentioned new elements or arguments. With load for them to justify their choice in the report of the EC.
The decisions of the EC are valid only until they are called into question and the EC does not have any armed force to make them apply. So that a decision is applied, it is necessary thus that she is recognized legitimate by the members of the College.
Programming of the activities
The organization of the College is decided by its members, also changes it regularly. Part of the operation of the College however seems to be maintained with the passing of years and to institutionalize itself. Thus the organization in the forms of workshops tends to remain.
Workshops
The workshops are generally held the morning and extend over one or two weeks. They gather around a definite subject one or two members of the educative team and a group of pupils. The workshops have vocation to deal with their subject in a multi-field way. However the need for preparing the pupils who want it with the baccalaureat leads to the programming of workshops specific to the tests of the Vat.
The specific workshops are often programmed at the beginning of year, whereas the other workshops are programmed during the year in a time reserved for this purpose before each period of school holidays.
The programming of the specific workshops is done by the groups of pupils of each test prepared (anticipated French test, scientific vat, etc) in collaboration with the mees (members of the educative team) which teach the matters concerned more specifically.
There is habit to divide the other workshops into three departments.
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the Nature department gathers the disciplines which exist independently of the human being: Physical sciences, biology (including human biology), the sport…
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the Humanité department gathers the disciplines which treat relations between the human beings: History, geography, right, sociology…
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the Discours department gathers the disciplines of representation of reality: Literature, mathematics, art, living languages…
The programming of the workshops starts with a meeting of department where each one can propose one or more workshops in the department which interests it, to even possibly move from one room to another to propose workshops in various departments. The workshops are discussed as for their opportunity and the workshops which make more consensus are retained. Volunteers of each department (pupils and mees) join together in commission of programming to distribute workshops on different sequences (time of one or two weeks in which fits a workshop) and to allot one or two to them mee and a room. The commission of programming takes care to place in competition of the workshops of each department which can interest the largest possible audience.
Once the grid of the workshops fixed, of the meetings of programming gather for each workshop the indicated mees and the pupils who wish to take part in the workshop. The purpose of this time is to define the objectives of the workshop, to detail unfolding and to organize it of it in advance. The meeting of programming can decide to limit the access to the workshop to the people present, to distribute between the people present a certain number of tasks (contact of an outside contributor, hiring of a video, information retrieval…), to impose the reading of a work to take part in the workshop… The meeting of programming also has the role the realization of a summary poster for the people who could not or did not want to come to the meeting and of those which took part in another meeting of programming. This poster exposes usually the objectives and methods of the workshop, the date, the place and the department of the workshop, as well as a list of the people present at the programming.
For each sequence, the pupils must choose between six or seven workshops. This choice can be to them suggested by the need for such or such workshop for the course which they consider, but each one keeps under control its choice and can make the dead end on part of the program or work this part in an autonomous way.
Directed Work
Directed work proceeds the afternoon and is weekly. They are time beaches one hour and half whose contents are decided by the educative team. The pupils can however direct the contents of it while discussing with the mees, even impose the creation or the suppression of a TD by the means of the EC.
Even if now, certain TD are more often named " LEDAP" or " Groups of niveaux".
The LEDAP (for Reading, Writing, To discuss, Argue, Produce) are based on an attempt to include all the forms of apprehension, comprehension, and transmission of the knowledge. One hour and half weekly will be devoted (for example) to going in a park to write, or to create a debate around the agroalimentary one. In these activities, it is not the contents which is important, but the way in which this knowledge is treated.
The Groups of levels gather different the knowledge necessary to the formation of each one, a little like the workshops, but instead of lasting two weeks and to work every morning, these activities are numerous the afternoon, but cover different subject very, but each subject is worked every week and that during 7 weeks.
Management
The members of the College are divided in six basic groups of three mees and approximately twenty-five pupils. These are the groups which, in turn, ensure the management of the College.
Each " group; gère" the College during a sequence, i.e. generally two weeks. Management is to some extent the public service of the college. It is charged to assume the maintenance and the maintenance of the College as well as the management of the go concern.
In theory, management is a time with share during which one does not take part in the teaching activities. It is nevertheless always possible for a pupil to negotiate near his management the possibility of following a workshop or a TD which is due to him in heart or which seems essential to him to the realization of its objectives. A mee can also negotiate the continuation of its TD, but generally the groups of TD are organized to continue their work without the mee when this one is of management.
The basic group or management group makes a first meeting to organize its sequence of management. This meeting is the occasion to work out projects of managements (to repaint certain rooms, to assemble an exposure, to present sketches during the pauses…) and to organize management concretely. The usual organization is to divide the members of management between various sectors of management.
Sectors of management
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the secretariat. The task of this sector is to hold a permanence with the reception to answer on the telephone, to answer the mail, to accommodate and make visit the College with the people of outside.
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kitchen. The meal of midday is prepared by management. The people who want to eat with the College register the morning near management and pay the price of the meal. The members of management kitchen work out a menu, will make races and prepare the meal.
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the cafeteria. A cafeteria (called Kasbah) is held by management.
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documentation - the newspaper. Management must maintain documentary space (to develop a system arrangement, to make research to help the workshops) and publishes an internal newspaper with the establishment.
There does not exist sector spares. Each sector is in charge of the maintenance of part of the College.
Criticisms
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It is frequently reproached the College not sufficiently for not tallying the pupils and for leaving them delivered to themselves. The majority of the pupils rent a room in Saint-Nazaire and do not live with their parents. Many pupils forsake the College and are often absent. There does not exist control of the presences, but a group of follow-up which gathers ten pupils and a mee. The group of follow-up meets every week and gives a progress report on the advance of the projects of each one. It is the occasion to start again the pupils who were not seen with the College the last days and, if need be, to telephone to them. The pupils who do not come to the College a certain time can be made désinscrire.
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rate of success with the vat is one of weakest of France. It is however advisable to relativize these results. Many pupils are registered with the tests without really wanting to pass them and the pupils who are registered with the College are often those which were refused in the other college because of their school failure. The experimental College does not make selection at the entry and accepts the descolarized people and those which did not obtain an favorable opinion of their staff meeting to pass in second. In spite of that, every year ago of the pupils who obtain the vat whereas they had been directed towards a training and were not considered to be ready to follow an mainstream education.
Documentary films
- 2007 "The school a world with constuire! the experimental college of Saint Nazaire " of Patrick Ray
- …
See too
- Pedagogy
- experimental College
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