House of children of Sevres

the House of children of Sevres was founded in 1941 in a great property without style which, to the war, sheltered a religious community. Under the aegis of the national Help (French Mutual aid), it was, at the origin, intended to lodge children of the Paris region victims of the food restrictions. But it evolved/moved under the influence of its director, Yvonne Hagnauer (Seagull), in refuge for the children victims of the war and political persecutions.

History

During years 1942, 1943, 1944, it sheltered until more than sixty clandestinely admitted children, however that their parents underwent the proscription and the Déportation. The House was attached to the services of the teaching of the Seine in 1949.

In 1951, it on average counted a hundred and thirty children, boys from 3 to 12 years, girls from 3 to 17 years (Children of racial and political deportees - orphans of war; Orphans of father and mother - of father or mother: Children of abandoned mothers; Children of disaster victims families; Children of dissociated households; Children in moral danger in their family; Children of working-class families whose material conditions of existence oppose the normal development (large families, with insufficient housing, for example); Children presenting of the disorders of emotivity caused by the events of war. The House of Sevres “was not specialized”, like was the majority of the centers created for the rescue of the victims of the war.

In November 1958, the House moved in with the Castle of Bussières. Yvonne Hagnauer directed it during 29 years, until September 1970. The House continued under the direction of Orchis (of 1970 to 1990). During this period the boarding school and the college were attached to the department of the Hauts-de-Seine.

Pedagogy

The team responsible for the House, animated by Seagull, wanted to apply new formulas of management and education by creating a favorable climate to the intellectual, physical readjustment and morals of children who had grown in the deprivations, misfortune and hatred. Being a boarding school, beside the teachers, the role of the instructresses and the personnel of service was particularly important.

These children were divided into: Kindergarten (from 3 to 5 years) - childish Team (from 6 to 8 years); - Average Teams (of 9 to L years) - Large teams, with two junctions: one for the modern studies (6th, 5th, 4th and 3rd modern); the other for the E.C.P., and professional training (seam, weaving).

The majority of the members of the team of teachers had already tried out the “new Méthodes” within the framework of their former school life, but in Sevres, they were decided to reduce the constraints, as much as possible to release their children in the family setting of the home: immediately the difficulty of the choice of the methods arose. the French Nursery school , with its flexibility, its knowledge of the child, the keen work of its members, was used as a basis for teaching of the toddlers.

By the place given to the observation, with the activity, the team felt very near to Ovide Decroly whose work was known and who frequently inspired the material organization even of the House, On the other hand, the centers of interest suggested by the adults and chosen by the children were always enough flexible to remain in the field of the programs of primary school education.

The techniques which are specific to all the new schools: printing works, pipeau, choir singing, weaving, dance, turning, decoration, drawing, modelling, linogravure, puppets, etc, regarded not as a “end”, but as clean “means of expression” has to maintain in the child the direction of creation and the desire of the free expression, were used.

But also puppets, remarkable means of expression and escape. Small class with the 6°moderne, it acts to choose the topic, to draw the decorations, to carry out and animate the puppets. Protected from the public by the “castelet”, the most timid child, more being wary, most hostile even, delivers himself, is discovered, played his own game by the “intermediary” of his puppet.

In the workshop of printing works of the House, one composes the newspaper: Veil with the Wind. In the workshop of weaving, the pupils learn how to weave, document, interpret, often imagine and weave their own compositions, scarves, tablecloths, measuring of fabric. In the ceramics workshop, one turns, enamels, decorates and cooks potteries which, thanks to the assistance of a craftsman potter, marry the requirements of the modern art to the traditions of the Great close Manufacture.

These activities are an invaluable support with the methods of “New School” insofar as they become a factor of education and not a result. Speaking, working, dancing or playing, the children escape the automatism from erudite raising and learn exactitude, the rigor and the intellectual curiosity in practice of their activities. Their spontaneousness radiates and bursts in the joy of conquered freedom.

The boarding school and the life in “community” made it possible to develop by the action, the direction of freedom and it direction of the individual responsibilities and collective. The school fund, managed and managed by the children, constitutes an important component of this moral and social education.

But to Sevres, the collective life is not limited to the school activity; it is all the House which is the common property, it is rising with sleeping, a multitude of services which condition the operation of the House and the movements of all the community. The children have the load of these services, under their responsibility, and lists it in is rather long: the children are in charge of the maintenance of the animals (Perruche S, Pigeon S, Tourterelle S, Guinea-pigs, tortoise S, rabbits, Colombe S of Australia, cricket S, tadpoles, etc), whose observation is the base of initiation to the natural science, whose breeding develops this basic element of social morals: the respect of the life and love of the work of nature. Thus the girls and the boys collaborate in the toilet of “small”, prepare slices of bread and butter of the breakfast, carry out the washing of the crockery, the cleaning of the dining rooms, when they do not supplement the meals by the products of their own garden.

All the teams organize these services by bearing, elect delegates. But the two larger teams, boys and girls from 12 to 18 years, constituted true a “self-government” with payment worked out jointly, elected council, police chiefs with the various loads. the council meets regularly for all that interests the House and in particular each time a reprehensible act was made by one of the children, and proposes to the adults of the House sanctions and repairs. Here the decision comprises obligatorily an action for immediate purposes and the sanction forms part of the collective life like a natural repair.

At the House of children of Sevres, “the New School” with license to reach the examinations and contests in good time, provided that the child has a normal school attendance: the system of the individualization of work and the cards allows most gifted, to burn the stages and to succeed more quickly than the others.

Within a company where the man is crushed than released more by the progress of the techniques, it is important not to still make unsuitable it estimated its director. It is necessary to give him, at the beginning, the means of forming part of the social category to which its cultural level and professional give him right. the public school, layman, from “the House of Sevres” followed the official programs and was to introduce the pupils to the corresponding examinations, C.E.P., Brevet, C.A.P. The teachers étaients inspected like any their colleagues of the public schools, complementary and technical courses.

Strong personalities many “large friends” of the House of Sevres: MIME Marceau, Madeleine Carroll, Lotta Hitschmanova, Paul-Emile Victor, Raymond Pédrot, Justin Godart, supplemented, like model of adult, those of Victor Gambau, M.Marie, M.Noël, and as well of others, as the children attended with the daily newspaper. It is also necessary to note the effective presence of the first at the last day of Roger Hagnauer (Penguin), him even complementary professor de Cours.

External bonds

the House of children of Sevres
Sevres Practices

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