Tutorat

The tutorat is a formative relation between a Learning, the Tuteur, and a person (or an small group of people) in Apprentissage. It is distinguished from traditional teaching implying professors and pupils by an individualized and flexible formation. The tutor inevitably does not have all knowledge which must control learning it at the end of its formation because its role is not to bring brief replies to the problems arising but to guide the training.

The tutorat applies in different contexts in which the tutor can have various statutes. A tutor in company will generally have a legal status subjected to a strict regulation (which will vary according to the countries) whereas the role of Tuteur in school can be taken by any Enseignant or even student.

In the context of the studies, one can define the tutorat as a form of individualized assistance which aims at bringing apart from the context of the class, a help personalized being studied . In addition to this broad definition, it can take many aspects, in particular according to

that it is addressed to a student alone or a group of students
that the tutor is a Professor or another student (one speaks then about " tutorat by the pairs").
of many alternatives is possible, according to the nature of the device (temporality, choice or imposition of the tutor, nature of the activity), the formation given to the tutors, the trainings concerned (academic matters, but also improvement of the Intégration in the Institution or personal development). Rather than about tutorat, one then speaks about teaching Coaching

Historical tutorat approaches

Fathers of the tutorat

If the fundamental idea of the tutorat is present as of antiquity with Socrate and the orientation of the thought through questions which lead it to reflect, one owes especially the concept of tutorat with Coménius. This one regarded education as indissociable life in society. In its Didactic “Large” work, it treats need for the pupil to teach with others. It presents a model of education to it where the Master is supported in his task of best of his pupils, which repeat his dires and give their support for the other children. This process not only makes it possible to mitigate the problems of manpower, the pupils being comparatively numerous, but also to imply the latter, which take part consequently in their own education, like avoiding the setting with the variation of the students in difficulty. For Coménius, comprehension passes by the practice. He considers indeed that the traditional system of teaching is insufficient, and that only the application makes it possible the child to pass from the statute of pupil to that of Master.

It is in 1798 that Pestalozzi projects the construction of the school of Stans, school intended to the orphans of war and for the underprivileged children. It is to face a staff shortage in material and framing that it will apply to it the model of education which it developed in his work Léonard and Gertrude (published in three parts of 1781 to 1787). This one, inspired of the ideas of Coménius, rests on a system of mutual aid between the pupils, in the form of Monitorat.

The tutorat in France under the Old Mode

It is under the Ancien Mode that one sees in France the tutorat being put into practice. One indeed applies it in the schools accommodating of the underprivileged children to as well mitigate economic problems as by Pédagogie. One can quote in particular the Ecoles of Charity of Démia, the Institut of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, founded by Jean-Baptiste of the Room, or the royal Maison of the Girls of Saint-Louis, founded by Madam de Maintenon in 1686. The role of the tutorat is paramount there:

At the economic level, it makes it possible to reduce the expenses relating to the operation of the school.

On the level of the personnel, it allows:
# to mitigate the problem of the staff shortage
# to answer the lack of qualified teachers

On the level of schooling, it makes it possible underprivileged children to receive a education with lower costs.

At the teaching level, it allows:
# to reinforce the Discipline
# to more imply the pupils in their studies
# to develop the Training because of the active role of the pupil
# to support the Imitation by making better pupils of the models for the others

The tutorat throughout the world

The intercultural tutorat

During the Fifties and Sixties, the United States is confronted with a massive Immigration, composed mainly of Mexicans and Porto Ricans. These populations form ethnic minorities then. In parallel, another ethnic minority, the black population of America east finally taken into account and of the policies of desegregation are installation.

Europe also knows as from these years a strong immigration related to economic development characteristic of this period. Several countries of Western Europe accommodate populations coming from the underdeveloped Mediterranean countries. The children of these populations are quite naturally brought to be provided education for in their host country but that poses certain problems. Initially, they are not inevitably well accepted. Then, they must learn a new language, a new culture and a schooling different from their. These children often encounter difficulties.

With the the United States as in Europe, the children encounter the same problems of integration more especially as the professors often do not know how to manage this kind of situation. It is in this context that appears the intercultural tutorat. The idea consists in putting pupils of different cultures together (culture of reception and foreign culture or two cultures foreign with two levels of integration) the ones (tutors) charged to bring to the others (tutorés) that which they need.

Thus, several projects and initiatives make their appearance. Black children of Manhattan receive student tutors of junior high school charged to help them in their trainings, three fields being concerned: mathematical , the Vocabulary and the Orthography. The black children of Boston profit from Spanish course by Porto Rican and conversely, the Porto Rican children receive English courses. The Indians Navajo receive English courses by anglophone school-fellows. In Great Britain, young nationals of the Penjab are initiated with English by autochtones of the London agglomeration. All these initiatives have as an ambition to support the integration of the ethnic minorities and thus, to prevent crises social interethnic. The tutors, having a greater room for maneuver than the teachers (subjected to precise rules and standards), are placed better to arrive for this purpose.

Tutorat in the medical studies

To carry out medical studies, that they are studies of medicine, surgery-dental, midwife or of kinesitherapy or ergothérapie in certain cities, it is necessary to pass by the first year of medicine. This first year of medicine or PCEM1 is concluded by a very selective contest. It is only thanks to one classification in row useful to this test which the student can continue to study in the way that it will have chooses.

In certain cities, the students of the higher years organize tutorats to come to assistance of the first-year students in the preparation of this contest.

References

Alain Baudrit, Tutorat: richnesses of a teaching method , edition De Boeck, 2002
Gerard Barnier, Tutorat in teaching and the formation , edition Harmattan, 2001

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