Brest

Their names are Leo, Jonathan, Enora, Lowen, Albane, Léna, Noé, Lilian… They are students at the Evariste Gallois college in Montauban-de-Bretagne, in Ille-et-Vilaine, and their video against school harassment has just received the Prix Coup de Coeur from the Rennes Academy. Particularity: these middle school students have for the most part suffered bullying themselves, and wanted to get involved in this project: “for us, this video was important to try to raise awareness, to move people about harassment. We have to show that it’s something that is dangerous. We have to make it an important subject and for that, we have to raise awareness and that what have we tried to do…

You have to dare to speak: if you don’t dare to speak, and after a while you’re fed up… and either you’ll ask your parents to take you out of school, or even go to the top of a bridge and committing suicide…. This takes up a place in our life which is nevertheless very large. We live that in this world where we are harassed because of a person or a group, it destroys a life, a person who did not ask for anything. It’s still pretty crazy that we can let that pass. There are still cases where people say it and there is nothing following behind, there is no follow-up.”

Spotlight on the “PHARE” device

The videos and posters produced as part of this award serve as support for the “School anti-bullying program“, the program “HEADLIGHT“, the deployment of which is continuing, in schools and colleges. A deployment that required several years to obtain an effective system, as Emmanuel Ethis, rector of the Academy of Rennes, points out: “cis a device which implies that we are with trained people, able to identify situations of harassment, to react in good conditions when faced with a situation of harassment… which implies a whole chain of cooperation within even our establishments. This implies that we can involve everyone, that is to say a training that is done gradually in a fairly massive way, including in video in our academy. Today, we are rather in a situation where practically all establishments have received this training and are implementing the “Phare” system.“

An hour of awareness raising on school bullying, in all colleges, starting this week: this is what the Minister of National Education requested, after several dramatic cases, and in particular the suicide of the young Lindsay, there is a month.

Bullying is a group phenomenon

Substantive work has already begun, with a little head start in the Rennes Academy, a test academy for the anti-harassment program, the program “HEADLIGHT“. It is a question of forming teams of 5 staff per establishment, specially trained staff, at the rate of 8 days spread over two years. An essential training, as explained by Cécile Humbert Mohammedi and Olivier Le Magoarou, harassment referents of Rennes Academy: “on talks about school bullying and school bullying, it is above all a group phenomenon. There is therefore a whole work of knowledge to be developed around the psychology of the child, the teenager, the functioning of the group and the place that the group takes, especially among teenagers…

It is a real training to be able to adapt the gestures and the words, which are in agreement with the interviews that they must carry out at the same time with the target pupil and then with the harassers. For the prevention part, we integrate parents with parent workshops, we integrate awareness campaigns for all staff in the establishment… it’s a long-term job. “

Do not minimize the suffering!

The objective of the PHARE program is to train teachers to identify and manage situations of bullying, but also to raise awareness among pupils and parents. For Cécile Humbert Mohammedi, academic harassment co-referent, awareness is at work, among adults, even if certain prejudices persist: “to us it seems like bickering and that is often what they are told. It’ll pass, they’ll grow, they’re immature, but why don’t you fight back? That’s a very unfortunate word because the victim is already in pain and what’s more, it makes them feel guilty because in the end, it’s their fault if they’re harassed because they don’t defend themselves.…

We are so used to pronouncing and minimizing this suffering: some young people do not know or are not used to expressing their emotions and we have to work on this expression of emotions. It’s something that’s fairly new, but it’s spreading more and more in school.”

The anti-harassment program should be deployed in all the schools and colleges of the Rennes Academy by June 2024. The high schools will in turn enter the system from the start of the school year in September.

The two toll-free numbers for use by students, parents and professionals: 3020 for harassment, and 3018 for specific cases of cyberviolence.