They Were Foreigners
The story of this 22-minute video is about the hundreds of children and teenagers who came from all over the world and whom I taught to speak, write, and read French in two Paris secondary schools between 1977 and 2002: 12 years at the first school, located in a "good neighborhood," and 10 years at the second, which was classified as a "sensitive" school in what was considered a "disadvantaged" neighborhood. See A Testimony for more information on this subject.
Among the memories these children have left me with, I can still picture the Asian boy who was introduced to me one morning on the school's grand staircase.
First Dialogue:
- What's your name?
- Yes.
- How old are you?
- Yes.
I still remember his sweet, bright-eyed little face as he looked at me with curiosity and friendliness. He was a "complete beginner", and his face would become one of the hundreds of photographs that make up this video. There was always a small camera on the desk, which I would sometimes pick up to capture these moments of learning, these smiles, these children's antics through which they expressed their joy of learning and their joy of life. Because what mattered most to me was that they were happy. And it still matters to me that all children and young people around the world should be happy. It may seem crazy to write this, given the state of the world and human societies, but I stand by it.
In the day-to-day life of the classroom, knowing that they were allowed to do so—something they never abused—some of them would occasionally pick up the camera and take a picture, sometimes with me as the subject.
These photographs, printed on paper and of which I gave them copies, adorned the pages of a collective annual album that circulated among them. They were completely free to write whatever they wanted in their native language and/or in French. Those who wished to could also copy out a very simple little poem that we had studied in class, along with their own translation into their original language.
They were happy, just as I was.
And throughout my entire "career" as a teacher, I heard only one minister publicly say: "A child must first and foremost be happy at school."
This minister was called Alain Savary. During the video, we will also see again the photograph shown above, taken by one of my students at the opening of one of the first Expo-Langues fairs at the Grand Palais, where I was able to display my students' work in a youth section: picture-words in French and in their native languages. It shows the traditional handshake when I was introduced to him, which gave me the opportunity to speak with him for a few moments and advocate for an education that takes into account the cultures of children from migrant backgrounds.
"Come up with some proposals for us!" he told me. I hardly had time to do so before he left the ministry, and then passed away only a few years later.
I should also mention that this video originally took the form of a slideshow that I produced myself, and that a former student later turned it into a video*. The arrangement of the photographs and the editing of the video follow no particular chronological order. The audio in the various native languages is a montage of excerpts from recordings of their voices reciting the short poems we had studied in class, which each of them had translated individually.
Finally, it should be made clear that all these faces belong to human beings who, in 2026, are between 34 and 60 years old, or even older, since time inexorably moves on. As for the human being who was their "teacher" , he is now entering his ninth decade of life... A life that he still hopes will be long enough to carry Holistic Éduc forward with other human beings, of all origins, all ages, and all cultures, who, like him, are convinced that we must begin at the beginning if we want to see humanity's consciousness evolve. Perhaps they will wish to join forces with Holistic Éduc and, through their contributions and cooperation, help safeguard the world's children and bring about the ultimate expression of human unity.
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