A new private school has just opened in Mont-Saint-Guibert: the “Smile School”. Its goal: to welcome students who have dropped out of school. More practice, less theory and a partnership with the business world. The establishment is also located in an industrial zone. However, the course has a cost: 10,000 euros per year paid by the parents.
Disgusted by traditional teaching, students find in a new school in Mont-Saint-Guibert another educational approach. The establishment is called the “Smile School” (note: school of the smile in French). “If there are specific topics you want to see in maths, humanities, you put it too, one idea per post-it“, launches a teacher to his class. Here, part of the program is imposed to allow students to obtain their diploma from the central jury. But they can also suggest points of the subject. Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, shares, management of the rent: here is an overview of the themes proposed by the students.
“General school education is not suitable for everyone. It’s a mold and not everyone fits the mold. It either went too slowly or the material wasn’t pushed enough. There were times when I was in fourth and I felt like I was doing the same calculations as in second, which is not normal“, confides to us Virgile, 18 years old. “I really never liked school. It’s more than not loving, it’s really a disgust for school. It’s like a relief to finally have a different school that offers other things“, explains Théo, 16 years old.
Less theory and a lot more practical experiences
Some young people have high intellectual potential. Others suffer from attention deficit disorder. All were school dropouts. “They no longer have any motivation, they no longer have the will to move forward in the traditional system. Here, we bring an approach with less theory and a lot more practical experiences“, indicates Grégory De Hoe, professor of mathematics and sciences.
We are just attending one of the practical workshops. “These 10,000, we cannot invest them in many things. We can invest them in a start-up“: here is an example of a sentence declared by a student. We guess a subject far removed from the themes addressed in traditional schools. During economics, we already talk about how to invest your money.
Study alongside entrepreneurs at work
Another particularity: the thirteen students share their work space with companies. “It’s important for us to create a school in a coworking space, because it allows young people to be in contact with other entrepreneurs. If you look around you, you see that there are entrepreneurs working. It is important for us that young people interact“, explains Stéphane Biron, professor of economics.
“It obviously changes from a usual school. Because in a regular school, I don’t think there are entrepreneurs who regularly come to work in the school offices. You can make contact with a lot of people who work in a lot of different fields.“, rejoices Virgil.
I was sad to see that it no longer fascinated him
We interview Julie, the mother of a student. She says she is seduced by the educational project despite its annual cost: 10,000 euros paid by the parents. “I was afraid that he would lose his taste for teaching. My parents are teachers. Me, I always liked to study. And there I was sad to see that it no longer fascinated him. Here, we find precisely a desire to learn“, she confides to us.
If the year of learning represents a certain cost, the establishment does not want to have the image of a school of “daddy’s boy”. “We’re not interested. What we want are students who are actors in their learning. Students who know why they come to us. And they have to move to come to us. They have a CV to do. They have a cover letter. They have to work to pay their school fees“, specifies Anne-France Pottier, language teacher and co-founder of the school.
In official education, a secondary school student costs almost 8,000 euros to the community. For the management of this private school, the fees claimed are therefore not exaggerated.