The Role of the Specialized Educateur in Society

Abstract

I would be faithful to neither the content nor the tone of the discussions if I presented a report of a scientific nature. The participants working in the group sessions spoke with profound conviction; and to be entirely fair to them, I must speak with equal conviction. This choice is made easier because I share most of the views expressed in the various reports submitted to me. Everyone agrees about his ultimate role, that is, the direct and explicit educational involvement of all educateurs, of all their teams and all their associations, at all levels of society. This involvement implies that educateurs should support, clarify, and often initiate the movement toward development and progress that we must at all costs find again at all social levels, as much in terms of individuals as of the present structures or assemblies of structures of which those individuals are a part. By definition an educateur or a group of educateurs, as a work team or as a professional association, must necessarily be in the avant-garde of social evolution. For this reason our national associations and our international association are asked, in the same way the single educateur is asked to involve himself in his daily work, to concern themselves as clearly and as deeply as possible with the questions that touch their field of action. Bitter reproaches are addressed to those who, using reeducational methods based on conformity and imitation, do not go beyond reintegrating into static and archaic structures people who have no autonomy or hope, who are thus conditioned to passive acceptance of the scraps of subsistence that are granted them. At the same time, we admire those who know how to use their action and their presence to enable the young to achieve a level of maturity that makes their social integration a creative participation at every level of their society. We also readily agree in recognizing that only real competence, a harmonious combination of theory and practice, will permit us to achieve such a level of participation in the role of specialized educateur. We are aware of the fact that it is