There are shelves of books in Michel Stringer’s class. Literary classics and other works address current social issues. His secondary school 4 students are turning their backs on the electronic board. This French teacher prefers to write with chalk on a green board.
In his extended program groups, Michel Stringer still does what he previously did with his students in the regular area, that is, he imposes on them some readings and allows them to choose between other works according to their interests.
The Quebec Ministry of Education’s only requirement is that high school students read at least five literary works per year. The MEES gives teachers the privilege of selecting the works that young people should read.
Should we impose the same reading requirement on all secondary school students or not? There is always a debate between supporters of the classics of literature and those who want to give every teacher carte blanche. The fact that the program is set to change in the run-up to fall 2025 brings to the fore the whole issue of teacher autonomy and the need or lack thereof for ministerial directives.
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The first novel Dany Laferrière read no longer had a cover. “For a long time I didn’t know who I was reading,” he says.
Photo: Radio-Canada / Anne-Louise Despatie
Far from interfering in overhauling Quebec’s education program, author and French Academy member Dany Laferrière says the best way to ignite the spark and get young people reading is to ban them from reading ! A joke, yes, but perhaps even more so in a time when distractions abound.
Dany Laferrière believes that these works, considered classics, must be connected to the presence of young Quebec readers.
We have to bring the classic into everyday life. […] For humans, only the present counts. If you tell them that Villon is a rapper, what he really is in the way he writes, says and speaks… If you want them to read Rabelais, you have to introduce Rabelais today and today.
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The students were engrossed in their reading.
Photo: Radio-Canada / Anne-Louise Despatie
This is what the teacher Michel Stringer seeks by offering his students works by Balzac or Baudelaire, who find in them very current concerns. Although they knew nothing about the real estate crisis in Montreal today, these authors described poverty in Paris and social inequalities.
Alexandra Pharand, vice-president of the Quebec Association of French Teachers and a teacher at Collège Charles-Lemoyne, believes that all teachers want to make their students enjoy reading. If this is the starting point, she also knows that it is also necessary to find a balance between what interests young people and what needs to be taught in the program, while transmitting to them a literary culture.
On my list are not only “The Three Musketeers” by Alexandre Dumas, but also “Manuel de la vie sauvage” by Jean-Philippe Baril-Guérard, which deals with a topic that resonates with my students: artificial intelligence, and which is written in a rich language.
Alexandra Pharand believes the current framework allows her to make the right decisions for her students. No strict guidelines are required.
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Part of Alexandra Pharand’s books.
Photo: Radio-Canada / Anne-Louise Despatie
However, teachers and parents alike would like to see more precise guidelines from the ministry or even a list of compulsory reading that is offered to all secondary school students. This list would include classics of French and Quebec literature.
We must question the value of the works we present. This is a real debate that teachers should have among themselves. Should we commit ourselves at all costs to a logic in which the ministry decides for us? Absolutely not. “We have to define what a literary work is, especially what is a classic,” claims Michel Stringer, who has taught at the Sophie Barat School for more than 20 years.
He belongs to this generation of teachers who have a bachelor’s degree in literature and then a teaching degree (and who are passionate about literature). In addition, Michel Stringer’s students will soon have to write an argumentative text about what a classic is.
Your deliberations are in full swing.
It is something that has endured over time, is still important and also represents a bit of an era, remembers Sandrine Auger, a 4th secondary school student at Sophie-Barat, for example.
I read “1984” by George Orwell and I really enjoyed it. “It’s a classic dystopia,” continues Anouck De Sulzer Wart.
A classic is a work that has taken a while to be recognized as a classic. “It is still something that needs to change our perception, I think,” concludes Eudes Houssou.