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DERVILA COOKE
well at school if given the chance. He grows in self-confidence and the ability
to vocalize his thoughts in French with the help of the committed teacher, the
eponymous Québécoise, Madame Lise. His progress is at risk of being hampered
by the decision of his parents to take him to their country for extended periods
during the school year. A different case is the little Black girl who is highly
gifted academically, but who gets bored easily and is therefore vulnerable to not
achieving her potential (and perhaps dropping out at some point, particularly
if her giftedness is not recognized and encouraged in her home environment).
As with La Génération 101, and like Philippe Falardeau’s 2011 film, Monsieur
Lazhar, this Québec documentary from almost the same date emphasizes the
enormous impact of good teachers on children’s lives in noting their needs,
building their self-confidence and drawing out their potential."
A stellar teacher is also in focus in La Cour de Babel by French director
Bertuccelli. As in Godbout’s film, it focuses on a classe d'accueil, in this case
in the tenth district in Paris, and their committed teacher Brigitte Servoni,
of whom the Nouvel Observateur made a striking written portrait in 2014.”
Some of the children and teenagers it focuses on are slightly younger than
those in Godbout’s film, aged between 11 and 15. Servoni makes a strong
effort to make the children feel included, and to encourage them to bring
their cultural and linguistic heritage into the classroom (and onto the
blackboard), along with their individual talents, for example singing or
playing an instrument. The children seem at ease and validated, and are
willing to attempt to express themselves and to endorse each other’s abilities.
Servoni must nonetheless attempt to negotiate a multitude of vulnerabilities
the children have, without allowing these difficulties to dominate the class.
A clever girl who dreams of being a doctor must move from the school and leave
behind the excellent support she is being given there, as her parents’ social
and economic circumstances mean they must move to an apartment far away.
Generous living spaces in the home country have been traded for cramped
accommodation and inadequate homework facilities in small apartments
in Paris. As with Godbout’s film, contexts of war, familial separation and
political persecution are also part of some of the children’s backgrounds.
We also see the vulnerabilities of the parents, some of whom cannot speak
French and who rely on their children as mediators and translators in parent¬
teacher discussion. The classes d'accueil sequences of Godbout's film need to
be considered in this light too, as similar circumstances are present in the
Québec immigrant classroom.
18 Philippe Falardeau, Monsieur Lazhar, Montreal, Les films Séville, 2011.
© Marie-Elisabeth Rouchy, La Cour de Babel: l’enseignante sans laquelle le documentaire
naurait pas été possible, Le Nouvel Observateur, 23 October 2014,
https://www.nouvelobs.com/cinema/20140312.CIN0630/la-cour-de-babel-l-enseignante¬
sans-laquelle-le-documentaire-n-aurait-pas-ete-possible.html (accessed 22 April 2020).
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