For his retirement, the teacher wants to gather all his former students in Dieppe.

Passionate about sports, when he was young, he wanted to be gym teacher. We are in the late 1970s, “but it was under the presidency of Giscard d’Estaing and there were no gym teacher positions at the time”. Philippe Charpentier. No matter what, he passes the normal school entrance exam to become a teacher. Because school is his whole life. So there is no question of retiring without partying with the kids.

At the age of 65, Philippe Charpentier has set himself some crazy challenge: he wants to gather all his former students around him. Saturday, June 17, 2023 To celebrate this great moment. The program will take place from 3pm to 6pm at the Louis-de-Broglie Kindergarten in Dieppe (Seine-Maritime), of which he is the director.

Three generations of one family.

And in 44 years of teaching, the number of guests can exceed a thousand!

I had three generations of the same family: grandmother, mother and grandson.

It must be said that Philippe Charpentier started teaching at a very young age. And that he spent most of his career at Depay. First at Jules-Ferry, Sévigné, Boudier, before working in the region for some time at Offranville and Hautot-sur-Mer.

But it was at the De Broglie School in the Janwal district, where he spent most of his career without securing a tenured position there, before taking over the management of the nursery school.

mutual respect

It must be said that in the 80s and 90s, being a teacher at this school was “at the top. There was no school card and the children were from privileged backgrounds,” recalls Philippe Charpentier. Hence the working conditions. are pleasant, “but I also have fond memories of Baudair School, which was mainly attended by children from the Brewers district”, he admits.

“It was a good time. The kids were very curious to learn, very demanding. And there was mutual respect between the kids, the parents, the teachers and the academy,” he says.

Times have changed a lot. Academy inspectors hardly ever go out, classes are overcrowded, human and financial resources are lacking. Philippe Charpentier “without forgetting the loss of values ​​and the impoverishment of the population in Dieppe with the new generations of child kings”.

“My life was school”

Many degrading working conditions have made the teaching profession no longer a dream. “But I’ve always loved working with children,” smiles Diepois. Moreover, despite all these “sides”, he has done three more years, always taking his students abroad, going on bike trips and being active, playing sports on Wednesdays in his spare time. Activities Space’s Associations, Sports Union for Primary Education.

“My life was school,” says the director. And if the time comes to leave, Philippe Charpentier knows it will be very difficult psychologically as well. This is why he wants to reunite his students. “Just celebrating my departure with my colleagues, it means nothing to me,” he continues.

And next September, at the start of the school year, he plans to be away from Dieppe. “I’m going to cycle in Ireland with my wife, then we’ll go to Norway, still on the bike. “Because he knows that, if he stays in Dieppe for one month of September with the kids, without going back to school. , so it will be difficult”.

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