Professor defines self-time

Maxime Travert, a professor at Aix Marseille University, argues that "Self-time is not the time that begins when education ends. It is one of the times where it continues." This perspective comes from an article titled "When high school students demand self-time," published on Le Café pédagogique.

Student mobilization highlights schedule concerns

High school students have been mobilizing for several days, raising concerns about absent teachers, overcrowded classes, deteriorated buildings, and issues with Parcoursup. However, a significant demand centers on their schedules, which often begin at eight o'clock and end at seventeen or eighteen o'clock, with long waits between classes and added make-up sessions.

School time extends beyond the classroom

The issue is not confined to the hours spent in school. After classes, students must return home, often after long journeys, and engage in homework, prepare for evaluations, and complete presentations. The school day is followed by its domestic extension. While considerable attention is given to the time students must devote to school, less attention is paid to the time they have left once they meet its requirements.

Self-time is a space for alternative learning

This remaining time is not necessarily empty or to be filled quickly. It is not subtracted from learning either. It can be one of the moments where teenagers continue their education in another way. By trying to fill their days to ensure their success, there is a risk of depriving them of part of what they need to build themselves.

Self-time fosters personal growth and confidence

Self-time is first and foremost time to be trained in another way. It can involve continuing an activity or discovering a new one, such as doing sports, playing an instrument, drawing, cooking, tinkering, reading, dancing, visiting a museum, going to the cinema, joining an association, or a club. These moments of exploration allow teenagers to become the author of part of their own education.

Self-time builds relationships and social skills

Self-time is also time to gain confidence in oneself. A voluntary and regular practice allows one to discover what one can do and what one can learn. By engaging in it, one encounters difficulties, makes efforts, seeks solutions, and notices one's progress. One learns to persevere, to accept trial and error, and to recognize one's abilities.

Self-time fosters meaningful connections

Self-time is also time to choose those with whom one is close. Sharing a taste, an activity, or a project gives the opportunity to build relationships with people one wants to meet again. These encounters can mix ages, backgrounds, and paths. One learns to take the first step, to find one's place in a group, and to maintain relationships that one values.

Self-time gives meaning to learning

Self-time is finally time to give meaning to what one learns. The knowledge and skills acquired in high school allow one to better understand the world, question the information that circulates, and form an opinion. Outside of school, a reading, a discussion, a meeting, or an engagement gives the opportunity to mobilize and deepen them.

The paradox of education and time

These four dimensions lead to the same paradox. We ask school to prepare young people to live outside of it, while sometimes organizing their daily lives in such a way that they have little time to practice it. A school that claims to prepare for life must also allow time to live it.

A call for rethinking educational priorities

The current demand by high school students regarding their schedules therefore deserves more than alarmed speeches about the value of work, fears of a lowering of program requirements, or the falsely conciliatory proposal to lighten days provided that the school year is extended. It forces us to pose a much deeper educational question. We have thought a lot about the time necessary to learn. We must now ask ourselves what time we need to allow them to become something other than students.