This column appears in “The world of education”. If you are a Le Monde subscriber, you can subscribe to this weekly letter by following this link.
French youth are going through a real crisis of confidence: 8 out of 10 young people give up some of their aspirations due to lack of self-confidence and more than one in 2 young people do not trust that the education system will help them develop their own confidence (according to the 2023 barometer published by the VersLeHaut think tank, in collaboration with the Opinionway survey institute). However, confidence is not a luxury, it is at the heart of educational success. Committed on the ground to meet the needs of children and young people, we ask that this issue be high among our priorities.
Firstly, because without trust learning becomes difficult, if not impossible. This is what allows the child to feel legitimate, participate in learning and face challenges without fear of failure. Nurtures the desire for new experiences and perseverance in the face of difficulties. In this sense, we cannot transmit without creating conditions of trust, instructing while ignoring what develops in the relationship.
In this sense, the role of adults is fundamental. Teachers, parents, early childhood professionals, educators, their presence and availability is a precondition for the trust that children place in them, from a very young age. However, they still often feel insufficiently supported and encouraged: only one in two children feels, for example, that they can trust an adult they like at school (according to a Unicef report published in 2021).
Furthermore, the French education system continues to rely too much on selection for failure, which undermines the confidence of a portion of young people, particularly children from the working classes, three times more likely to finish their studies prematurely (according to a report from France Stratégie published in September 2023). Let’s not forget that equal opportunities rhymes with confidence!
Promote the mobilization of adults.
What’s more, the significant suffering of young people demands that we act. Discomfort, anxiety, and depression are signs that we collectively have difficulty maintaining this trust. In many cases, the frailties of young people are maintained by our difficulty in establishing an educational climate capable of avoiding isolation, loss of meaning and social pressure.
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