Caleb Gattegno: A Personal View - Fabienne Beylier
When I started teaching, I was a "model" teacher!
I spent many hours studying the methods which the National Education had strongly recommended and strictly followed the instructions to prepare my class.
I became "the Queen of class-planning-with-comments-integrated." My files were beautiful to behold and my colleagues were envious of my filing-cabinets! My ill-adjusted roneo often dripped ink (no photocopiers in those days!) Oh, my wonderful lesson plans, but, file after file, the months the months passed ... until ... April.
It was in April that I felt the first wave of insidious discomfort: "... soon the end of the year, still not reading ... " In May, my evenings of preparation were followed by nights filled with nightmares: " ... I don't understand ... the psychologist said it's normal ... this child doesn't know how to read yet ..." As for June, usually heralding light, warmth, laughter, summer dresses and sandals, it was leaden, black and and full of bitter self-criticism: "This child has wasted his year ... failed to teach him to read ... change jobs ... "
In my story, the list of lamentations stops here.
For one day (this was in June), a School Inspector came to my class. Seeing my discouragement because of these failures that I found unbearable at the end of the year, he said in an offhand way: "I can see the way you work. You should go and see what Madame Coquaz does. "
So that's what I did.
With Janine, EVERYTHING amazed me: Words in Color, the coloured rods and work on math, the the way the teacher listened to her students and they to her, the incredible energy and enthusiasm with which all launched into the work, the surprising level reached by the children! All were reading in June, beautifully! All 27 of them! No one left behind, everyone on board and with a smile!
So me too, I jumped on the boat!
Since then, Gattegno's Pedagogical Approach has become the heart of my research. I met Caleb Gattegno and many others who worked with him. I've learned from all of them. A huge amount. Instead of a "filler of empty heads" I have became an "instigator of awarenesses." And it has made my pulse race for 25 years to be able reach out to the learner (child, adolescent or adult) just where they're at in their learning process, to observe, to understand the path their on and to give the necessary support ... and to enjoy the spectacle of their awarenesses like a child at firework display!
Fabienne Beylier
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More information about Caleb Gattegno
For other personal views of Caleb Gattegno and his work written by teachers and pedagogues, you might be interested in The Gattegno Effect - 100 Voices... which can be read on line as a web book.
If you wish to know about Gattegno’s academic and professional credentials and accomplishments, you will find aTimeline of his Life and Works on this site and elsewhere on the Internet.
Dr. Arthur Powell provides a more complete biography: Caleb Gattegno: A famous mathematics educator from Africa (PDF)
Dr. Roslyn Young has written a short introduction to Caleb Gattegno's Pedagogical Approach.
Caleb Gattegno : a personal point of view - Fabienne Beylier is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.