Lors d’une session de formation à l’intention de volontaires pour le travail social, j’ai fait une observation qui me semble assez symptomatique de notre incapacité à faire émerger des jeunes dynamiques, intelligents, créatifs…
Il me semble, en effet, que dans la majorité des cas, nos jeunes qui ont traversé 6 années de scolarité au niveau primaire et 7 ans au secondaire (soit 13 années de leur vie) n’ont probablement jamais eu l’opportunité de faire une présentation orale sur un sujet qui les intéresse! Et je ne parle pas ici de ces débats hautement artificiels que l’on organise parfois pour les ‘best speakers’… Lorsqu’ils arrivent sur les bancs de l’université, on voit bien qu’ils sont décontenancés si la parole leur est donnée de manière libre et adulte!
Un jeune habitué au savoir livresque, soumis au monopole de la parole par le ou la prof, souvent brimé ou frustré… voilà ce que nous produisons dans nos écoles et collèges!
Exactement. Il n’ont pas assez confiance en eux pour prendre la parole en public. Dire que l’ecole est censee former les jeunes a la vie adulte…
100% d’accord. Ce sera plutot dans des ‘job interviews’ qu’ils seront les plus incapacites.
Have you heard of toastmaters? With some friends we started a Toastmasters international chapter in Mauritius. If you are interested to do something about this mauritian educational lacuna,I shall be glad to introduce you. An avid toastmaster would like to start a Toastmaster club @ the U O M.Do contact him:Dharamjeet Bucktowar 7627411. Fortunately presenting skills and public speaking skills can be taught & learned.
I have heard of it through the media. Although I think it is a good initiative, I tend to think that it has a limited effect (I might be wrong). Clubs are good ideas, but they remain that, i.e. clubs with limited access (though they may be advertised as ‘open to all’. Only a few people will elect to join clubs, with a natural Darwinian selection of ‘cliques’…
My point is that ´communication skills’, the acquisition of self-confidence & the ability to produce independent critical thinking have got to be fully integrated within our pedagogy right from pre-primary and primary levels of education and on to secondary & tertiary levels.
Communication skills is the first stage towards real-life learning, problem-solving abilities, decision-making and collaborative work, all so vital today.
I think our teachers need to be convinced and given the possibility and right conditions for creating and nurturing communication skills in our young people.
True, it would have been ideal if it was inscribed in the curriculum of our school.Since this is not the case right now,to run it as an extra curriculum could be only be a second best alternative.Just like in my secondary school days( early 60’s), I had the chance to do a number of extra curriculum with enthusiatic & devoted teachers who took the pain of organizing Debates, photographic,drama,poetry writing, handicraft & pottery clubs and speech & quiz contests..Alas devoted & enthusiatic teachers are now a rare breed..Even in my primary I had story telling competition…and poems. Those were the days..
I don’t know about that golden era… but have heard of it.
I partly agree with your statement about the breed being rare nowadays. In fact, I think that the lack of dedication and ‘vocation’ permeates through our society. People choose careers not necessarily according to their potential abilities and talent (which in any case, they haven’t even been allowed to explore), rather according to perceived benefits or under external pressure.
However, they are not to bear the entire blame. The system (and the ones who have imagined it, as well as the ones who do everything in their power not to change it) must be blamed.
In my case, I have been relatively lucky in attending a star school and having a good peer environment as compared with the rest. Yet, I feel entirely dissatisfied when I look back at how the education we were provided with was unimaginative. The British Council reports are but telling us what we all knew ages ago: the system is repressing young minds instead of unleashing them…
I so agree with that statement. I myself attended one of those so called star schools and considered myself well versed in the language of Shakespeare… only to find out that when I was actually given the liberty to use my brain and free speech, the words did not flow so easily. In fact looking back at my years in the star school I get quite depressed to think of all the missed opportunities that would have shaped me into a more eloquent person… I am appalled at the quality of education in mauritius…it is simply just destroying free minds!