Mindfulness-Based Education – A Profile of Stéphane Justeau
Pedagogy—a little-recognized aspect of higher education in France—is the guiding principle of Professor Stéphane Justeau. The director of the Institute for Advanced Pedagogy at the ESSCA business school in Angers spoke at a CSIP MUSE workshop focused on student engagement.
A few minutes of meditation at the beginning and end of each class. This practice isn’t something you’d find at a California yoga center, but rather in a classroom at the École supérieure des sciences commerciales d’Angers (ESSCA). It takes place in the class taught by Professor Stéphane Justeau, director of the school’s Institute of Advanced Pedagogy. The dean of the faculty thus came to present mindfulness meditation in a workshop on “strengthening students’ attention” offered by MUSE’s Center for Support of Pedagogical Innovations (CSIP) in mid-December 2020.“This unconventional session is part of our strategy to prioritize experimental approaches,” explains Patrizia Tavormina, an instructional designer at the CSIP, “but I admit I was a little worried about how the invitation to meditate with their students would be received by the participating teachers.”
A mandatory certificate
“In addition to the lack of pedagogical training, teaching isn’t valuedamong ‘ Professors,’” laments Stéphane Justeau. Peers—and, more broadly, the institution—recognize a good publication but not a good course. This state of affairs began to bother the economist very early on—especially since a culture of teaching exists elsewhere, particularly in Anglo-Saxon countries.“In the United Kingdom, a teaching certificate is required to teach in higher education,” explains the ESSCA professor. “This is changing very gradually in France; doctoral programs are beginning to offer teaching courses to their doctoral students.”
He quickly discovered he had a knack for teaching, starting with his part-time work as a graduate student at the university. This was especially true since his research on the impact of migration flows on wages and employment complicated his relationships with some colleagues.“Under the pretext that my topic was supposedly reactionary, when in fact I just wanted to provide scientific insights on these issues. It was a difficult accusation to bear,” he says. After earning his Ph.D. in economics in 1998, he landed a position as aProfessor at ESSCA. His affinity for teaching was confirmed: “I’ve always loved explaining and sharing knowledge, but also interacting with young people.”
He was quickly appointed head of the department—where he coordinates courses in economics, law, and mathematics—and is in a prime position to hear his colleagues’ complaints about students who are “not as good as they used to be,” “unable to concentrate,” and so on. These complaints exasperated him and prompted him to open his classroom to them so he could share his approach—one that “was already working pretty well,”he says with quiet satisfaction.
Students are asking for more
Little by little, his commitment to education earned him an offer from the administration to lead an educational center within the school. So off he went to train at the educational center in Lausanne, a leading institution in Europe. As a champion of education at his school, he returned to take on his new responsibilities. His role involved providing training in pedagogy—particularly online—as well as offering individualized pedagogical guidance. Regarding distance learning, he remarked in passing,“It offers fantastic opportunities, especially thanks to its international reach. But it certainly isn’t the future of education, because it lacks a socio-emotional dimension that is essential to learning.”
This is an aspect he incorporates into his teaching. For him, the ultimate goal of a teacher is to capture students’ attention:“It’s a fundamental pillar. Without it, there’s no learning.” This is a challenge in the age of connected devices and social media, where students face constant and multiple distractions. Since he practices meditation—and since it is recognized in scientific literature for improving attention—he has begun incorporating it into his classes (seearticle). “Mindfulness meditation is listed in the Vidal, the doctors’ bible,” points out the teacher, who doesn’t want to come across as a crackpot.
“The first step isn’t easy,” he readily admits. At a time when the prevailing ethos is all about efficiency and speed, try convincing students to close their eyes and listen to their breathing. But the practice is well received, and his students keep asking for more. And he takes the experiment further by sharing it in his teacher training workshops, which he organizes around the exchange of best practices.
Laurence Weil, a professor at the Montpellier School of Law and a participant in the MUSE workshop, makes no secret of her disbelief: “This proposal struck me as unbelievable, as if it came from a parallel universe or the22nd century. There’s also a certain lack of decency in intruding on young people’s privacy—it’s very out of step with the times. But at the same time, it makes me reflect on my own practice and opens up new horizons that bring a renewed sense of wonder to our profession!”