François Muller: "When you sweep a staircase, you start at the top".

Taking advantage of the release of his latest book, we met (remotely!) with François Muller to gather his views on the state of innovation in the French school system.
The interview is long, but well worth a moment of your time.

François Muller, you are in charge of the "innovation and experimentation" academic mission for the Paris education authority. What does your mission involve?

At the academy level, I support educational teams wishing to set up or consolidate innovative systems in schools and establishments, within the framework of article 34 of the 2005 Law (right to educational experimentation). With them, we question the concepts, organization and choices made in relation to the objective pursued, while developing a keen awareness of the results produced.
I am also often called upon, at national level, to supervise the training of trainers and school instructors; finally, for the past four years, I have been leading a mission on behalf of the French Embassy in Bucharest (Romania) under the fine title of "innovating in French".

Why do you think it's so difficult for innovative teaching methods to spread?

Innovation acts as a "strange attractor": attractive to some, repellent to others; its value is not necessarily positive in the educational world; there is even a certain suspicion when Education is historically organized around tradition, transmission and conformity.

Those who want to do something new, if indeed innovation is "new" - we need to come back to this term - sometimes have to make a mental, conceptual and sometimes professional break with this dominant conception. The French education system has been content to reproduce old models - think of the bac, the lycée, the Ecole d'application, the professional status (from 1950!). It resists updating, even if European pressure should push it to do so.

All the more so as, in a climate of crisis, the tendency to take refuge in old values is strong; don't we hear "it was better before", but before what? It's a disservice to our young people to devalue what their society is and will be; it would be far more effective for them if we could help them to understand it, to grasp it, to have a grip on it.

And yet, there are many innovative practices in the field?

Yes, we certainly need to point this out; effective practices exist in the field, often hidden; they show the room for manoeuvre and freedom that professionals take on with full responsibility, but at what price? We need to ask ourselves what the fundamental role of innovation is: should it enhance the existing system, like a "plug-in", or reconfigure it? As long as innovation brings one-off improvements, within the framework of a class, it doesn't bother anyone. Innovative teachers work better, but they saturate their time and energy, and can quickly burn out without institutional support. Clearly, there is no political will to value the players and support innovative practices that would affect the system itself. In speeches, innovation shines. But it illuminates nothing! It can play the role of an alibi for better preserving a system that has been shown to be losing performance.

Why is it so difficult to change the overall system?

Education is still organized as a hierarchical, relatively compartmentalized pyramid system; in a way, if it works at all, it's thanks to the quality of its members; we see this at the start of every new school year.

However, as long as the decision-making centers are not affected by the desire for reform, nothing will change. All the major government departments have undergone a systemic and managerial revolution, even the army! In fact, it was in the army that I heard this very apt phrase about change management: "when you sweep a staircase, you start at the top". If we don't also tackle rigidities from the top down, nothing will fundamentally change in the education system. In France, the bottom doesn't have the power to change the top. Or else, it's called a "Revolution".

Having said that, France has changed over the last twenty years; it has become both regionalized and Europeanized, the académies have taken particular options, and establishments are faced with real choices, but are the players capable of taking them on?

What are the main areas of innovation in schools?

Innovation takes a variety of kaleidoscopic forms, including education for sustainable development, individualized pathways, scientific training and European openness, personal development, skills-based approaches....

All of these axes intersect at a nodal point: the establishment of genuine teaching teams. People need to learn to work together to build collective skills. This implies that everyone is competent at their job (which is not always the case...) and that organized work modes, methods, times and spaces can go beyond the Taylorian organization of our schools. In a very "ICT" metaphor, we would say that we have all the components, but not necessarily the right interfaces or cables!

This collective culture is not what dominates when we observe teachers... How can we change things?

That's a bit of an exaggeration, but it still seems to be a matter of good will, when the job's frame of reference now prescribes it. Obligatory, but also necessary, collective work should be interesting; it should show what there is to gain, for the students, for oneself. It requires patience, persuasion, training and negotiation.

There are ways of stimulating creativity and the desire for change. For example, we could encourage staff mobility: when a teacher moves from the suburbs to an inner-city school, it's a breath of fresh air! How do you explain 20 years' stability in one position?

We'd also do well to recognize teachers' various commitments to networks. Teachers make up the bulk of the associative battalions, but today they are also involved in exciting virtual and highly professional networks: just think of Clionautes, Webttres, Sésamaths... These are highly stimulating disciplinary networks, which help to renew teaching practices. How is the institution (inspection and training) positioning itself in this area?

We could consider taking the time to "go and see elsewhere" what's going on: there's nothing like a visit to a different establishment to stimulate the imagination. For example, secondary school teachers have everything to gain from observing what's going on in an adult education center, or in the organization of kindergarten classes!

All of this, and this is crucial, cannot be achieved without the head teacher. Nothing lasting can be achieved without him. He or she is responsible for the pedagogical direction of the college or lycée, and organizes its reflection with, by and for the other members of the educational community. How do you stimulate the exchange of ideas, fuel debate and create working groups? Symbolically, and sometimes formally, it's up to the Board to promote initiatives that are heading in the right direction, by making decisions that will enable them to function, rather than indiscriminately, which destroys the meaning and commitment of the players involved. This is very clear in the choice of departments, teams, groups and disciplines. The variety required, the flexibility of organizations and the management of interfaces are all areas of management still to be explored.

For example?

For example, if two or three teachers want to develop group practices in the classes they teach, it's up to the headteacher to adapt the timetable to make this collaboration possible. This is where we really see innovation in action, linking practices, time organization and skills development.

But it's a bit complicated, isn't it?

Not really, because it's a matter of pedagogical engineering... But a break with "custom", yes. That's why it's important to stress the imperative need to support teams in translating their desire for change into action. Unfortunately, this support system does not exist, or does not exist sufficiently, in all académies across France. Some, like Lyon, Paris, Nantes, Poitiers and Nancy, are very much in the vanguard. Others have decided that it's not a priority, and teaching teams feel very isolated.

What triggers the introduction of innovative practices?

Problems, in 70% of cases! For example, if a group of students is making life impossible for the teachers, is it better to pretend nothing's happened, or to face up to the problem? This is where the headteacher's determination comes into play: he or she can bring together all the teachers concerned, organize a confrontation of analyses of the situation, and help develop collective practices that will make everyone feel stronger, and prouder too, for not having remained passive. This professional solidarity will provide a framework and meaning for the students, all the students.

Now let's talk about ICTE. They are perceived differently by teachers. In your opinion, do they in themselves bring about change?

With ICTE, you can do the very classic, or the very innovative. But the uses they enable call into question elements that make up school culture and the teacher's identity, such as the logic of the class group, the position of sole transmitter, and the classic uniqueness of place and time, as in classical theater. That's why they are so widely regarded and used. And their most fervent advocates, fascinated by technological "power", have probably not taken sufficient account of this destabilizing power in organizations as complex as ours.

What's that supposed tomean?

Quite simply, ICTE calls into question the majority view, dating back to the Middle Ages, of what a school is: a circumscribed place in which pupils are grouped together, under the authority of a teacher, for a predetermined period of time. ICTE explodes time and space, and breaks up the class group. Few teachers are prepared to abandon the class group. So the problem is not one of technical training or equipment. It's a problem of culture and professional identity, often expressed by a feeling of loss of mastery; it's a "mourning" that needs to take place, an apprehension of complexity and empowerment that is still lacking; in a way, teachers recognize this when they lament that students are not autonomous enough! And with good reason.

But aren't teachers going to have to use ICT in a different way, under pressure from students who have been living with it since birth?

It's likely. Pressure from students will undoubtedly be more effective than injunctions from on high. We're already seeing students getting bored and making a mess of classes, demonstrating their weariness with an obsolete model. And this is happening everywhere, including in so-called "elite" classes (the famous S classes in high schools); more explicitly, and also more positively, students are demonstrating every day their high level of mastery of digital tools, the latter mobilizing complex skills (the ability to research, structure and synthesize information, to communicate with diverse groups, to divide up tasks in a team...). How can we ensure that "formal" education incorporates these "informal" skills, which are just as powerful and useful in society?

Does the school system as it exists in France today have a long future ahead of it?

It's hard to say. I often use the metaphor of plate tectonics; everyone knows that the San Andrea fault will wipe out California, but no one can say when; and California is thriving. The less it moves, the more it will move.

Today, I don't meet anyone who is really satisfied with their teaching conditions. But a lot of people think it's impossible to change anything... My colleagues and I are working to show, with evidence and experiments, that this isn't true, that the system can be changed, that schools have a lot of room to maneuver, and that they should seize it for the benefit of their students.

What would you like to say in closing?

Like Bachelard, an invitation to dream. In the 1st century, Lucretius explained that, in the beginning, in chaos, atoms rained down like rain; it took a slight angular variation of an atom (known as a "clinamen") for the encounter to take place and for matter to come into being.

Transposed to the world of education, what would the clinamen be for you, the teacher, the head of a school, the small drift, the small shift, that would enable great things to happen through interactions?

Find out more:

Innovation website, Paris education authority

Diversify, François Muller's website

Chroniques parisiennes en innovation et en formation, blog, in the Pedagogical Web space

Find all F. Muller's publications on his website. Latest publication:

Mille et une propositions pédagogiques pour animer son cours et innover en classe, with André de Peretti, ed. ESF, Paris, 2008. Interviews with François Muller and André de Peretti about this book are available in MP3 format on the blog mentioned above.