Civic school

Strategic model, civic school, democratic school, charter, law, positive communication, socialisation, active pedagogy, conflict management, training

School project

School actors

Movement of Civic Institutions and Schools (M.I.E.C.).

Belgium

English

Parents, Policy Makers, Teachers, Researchers, School Directors.

« Movement of Civic Institutions and Schools » (M.I.E.C.).

Created in August 2007, following a training organised by Jean-Luc Tilman aimed to provide all the school and non-school actors with tools in order to reduce, or even to stop, violence in schools.

The participants have done this training so enthusiastically that it was unanimously agreed to create an association that respects children’s rights and school collaborators’ rights.

The M.I.E.C. was born (formerly the GED, “Democratic School Group”).

This movement concerns all the actors of the institutions and schools that wish to change the pyramids based on power into collectives centred on authority.

Its motto is: “Let’s resist resistances!!!”

Its President and initiator, Jean-Luc Tilman, is teacher, psycho-pedagogue and specialized trainer.

The strategic model that he proposes in order to channel school violence starts from the statement that these institutions are in contact with different systems that generate violence through numerous variables.

It is advisable to treat first the variables and the strategies that affect the classroom or the different meeting environments of the microsystem as well as the variables and strategies of the endosystem, that is to say the school. So we find: the school headmaster and his/her staff, the teachers, the educators, the pupils…

Beside the endosystem, the mesosystem contains the institutions, all the groups that can interact with school: the families, the bands, the Public Centres of Social Help (CPAS), the Psycho-Medico-Social Centres (CPMS)….

Then, the exosystem called decision system of the policy makers who have to organise education or to manage the society: governments, union trades…. This intervention, with immediate effects on the ground actors, has an important responsibility in the field of school.

Finally, some elements of the macrosystem influence the every day life, such as ideologies, archetypes, societal variables, pedagogues and History.

The M.I.E.C. has created  a « Charter » : ten articles evaluated and updated each year according to the ground realities, which constitute the fundaments of its action :

1.Human rights and child’s rights constitute the ethic guide of our ground action.




2. We place the pupil, or more widely the youth, in the centre of our professional preoccupations. We use methodologies and pedagogies adapted to his/her fundamental needs. We propose the schools and institutions to train critical-citizen able to integrate the society and to blossom.

3. In the democratic school, we are all educators because we respect and make respect the law, which has been negotiated and built with all the actors. We don’t give in to societal permissiveness.

4. The implementation of a pedagogical team ensures the coherence and the efficiency within the school.

5. The pedagogical project is built with all the actors of the institution. This one has to be clear in the management and projects. The pyramidal system has to let place for a circular system where all the actors become an engine for citizenship. The responsibilities are different but each one is taken into account in the democratic assembly.

6. The school and institution are built in partnership with the psycho-social and cultural actors in the framework of networks focused on the integration of critical-citizens.

7. The positive communication fosters a good relationship with the pupil and the youth. This approach can be individual or institutionalised (listening airlock, decompression airlock). The verbal or non-verbal conflict can make grow up and become a basis of progress in the relationship. The contact with nature and the opening to the environment foster socialisation and integration.

8. The evaluation is under no circumstances a tool for sanction or segregation.

9. Social sciences constitute a breeding ground of resources and strategies for a constant research-action.

10. Each year, the charter is evaluated and updated according to the ground realities.




On this basis, the M.I.E.C. proposes trainings shared in several axes :






1. Basic training




Two trainings propose different strategies to be implemented in order to channel violence at school.




These trainings are joined with two publications :





• “Thirteen strategies to prevent violence at school”





First part of the strategic model that J.L. Tilman proposes to channel violence in our schools.

An approach both theoretical and practical of the strategies to be implemented in the schools. For the professionals and the actors, a “portfolio” of research-action and concrete answers day by day.





• « Helping the schools to prevent violence » Twelve strategies.





Second part of the J.L. Tilman’s strategic model.

These institutions are in contact with different systems that generate, through numerous variables, violence. Here an approach of the other systems that can influence violence in school is proposed.






2. Institutional trainings






 




The MIEC proposes the implementation of the following devices :





• “The Harpocrate syndrome or the democratic school”. This training provides the ethical principles that subtend the setting of the “LAW” (see Charter) in an institution.





It also states the whole concrete axes to build up the « LAW » with the beneficiaries and it proposes the different means to build up the council of law and citizenship.

It comes together with a work with the same name. In this book dedicated to violence at school, J.L. Tilman tries to break down the wall of silence that separates school and society. School can change by emphasising internal democracy, collectives, active pedagogies: it is about to recover values, to manage conflicts and emotions, to restore the institution.





• To institutionalise a decompression “airlock” (room)


• To institutionalise a listening “airlock”


• To institutionalise an “absenteeism” cell


• To institutionalise an “addictions” cell


• ….





 






3. Other specialised trainings






• Pedagogic trainings





« Changing one’s evaluation practice », « Preventing violence by the differentiated pedagogy”,…





• Sociological trainings





“Violence and societal variables”, “Violence and medias”, …





• Psychological trainings





“The helping interview”, “The Boaf pupils”, “Detecting mistreatment”…





• Trainings to communication





“Communication within the classroom”, Detection and prevention of conflict in the class”, “ Workshop of swearwords”

Currently, about thirty schools have implemented one of the devices proposed by the MIEC.

Detection protocol, Intervention protocol, Playground supervision, Disciplinary methods, Classroom management, Teacher training, Classroom rules, Duration for teachers (4 days or more).

Bruno Derbaix, co-responsible of the « civic school » project at the “Institut de la Sainte-famille d’Helmet” of Schaerbeek.

In his article « Les valeurs démocratiques à l’épreuve de l’école. Récit d’une première année d’école citoyenne », he describes the setting of the device in his school, according to the model proposed by the MIEC « the Harpocrate syndrome or the civic school ».

He concludes: « When looking at the numerous difficulties that school faces currently, at all the answers that a project as the « Civic school » project can bring and at the big adequacy of this project with the priorities of the “mission decree”, I can’t end this article without “shouting” my incomprehension regarding the few means currently proposed to the schools which have the courage to undertake such a project”.

http://www.resoj.be/resoj_PDF/resolument_jeunes_31_web.pdf
pages

MIEC website: http://g-e-d.eu/index.html

Martine PRIGNON

INFOREF

Projects realization