How far would we go to defend public schools ? Until taking up arms? Who is
seriously considering it today? Yet this is what the teacher, pedagogue and unionactivist, Célestin Freinet, was forced into on April 24, 1933 in the smallvillage of Saint-Paul de Vence. ---- Laurence de Cock gives us the story of this" fascist day " and looks back on the events that led a teacher to defend,revolver in hand, his students and his school against an attack led by the mayorof the commune, close to the Patriotic Youth (a far-right league) and some of itsconstituents who are white-hot against public schools.This episode, although exceptional in the turn it took, is part of the broaderphenomenon of fascisation of French society at the start of the 1930s. Freinetwas the victim of a defamation campaign led in particular by the Action française- Charles Maurras will devote no less than forty-two editorials to this affair !- with the complicity of the National Education, which he alerted for months in vain.Laurence De Cock's book, starting from the story of this day, traces, beyond theFreinet myth, a professional, political and educational biography of CélestinFreinet and Élise Freinet. The work giving back to Élise Freinet, the place whichis hers, and which she herself has striven to erase.The Freinet method was not born from the imagination of an exceptional man, butfrom the experiences built and the exchanges born within a couple of publicschool activists, in phase with the educational innovations of their time, whowill be forced to leave the institution to be able to carry out their project ofa school serving the working classes.An essential book for anyone seeking to understand how and against what Freinetpedagogy was built. But also a book that tells us about today's school, a regulartarget of attacks by reactionaries of all stripes.David (UCL Chambery)Laurence De Cock, A Fascist Day. Célestin and Élise Freinet, pedagogues andactivists, Agone editions, November 2022, 224 pages, 19 euros.https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Lire-Laurence-De-Cock-Une-journee-fasciste_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten