W
L
Interview with Joël Bianco
S
ince September at the start of each school day a tall man stands quietly on the Lycée campus. His presence conveys a message to the surge of students moving towards waiting classrooms: “I am present; I am interested in your lives. I want you to see me and know who I am.” He’s also observing, and signalling without words that it’s time for class, time to work. The man in question is the new Proviseur of the Lycée International, Joël Bianco. “You can’t do this job sitting in your office,” he says simply. Since the beginning of the school year, he’s visited all 75 classes on campus from Maternelle through to Terminale to introduce himself to the pupils, and he thinks it’s essential to walk the corridors and feel the atmosphere of a school. He’s a man who believes that, while a school needs rules and respect, it doesn’t do to be too austere and rigid. And he believes strongly that children should be encouraged: “It’s fine to be demanding but not negative. Although children need to have a serious approach to their work, they also need to be supported and to have fun. I don’t believe in trying to trap them; the approach should rather be in trying to find out what they know so you can help them with any problems.” M. Bianco describes himself as a classical product of the French educational system: after Prépa in Toulouse he studied at the prestigious École Normale Supérieure in Saint-Cloud (including a year in Munich as part of his degree) and began his career as a professeur agrégé of German. After teaching for more than eight years, including a two-year stint in Belgium, he wanted more responsibility, and passed the concours chef d’établissement to enable him to move into a leadership role. By this point he had met and married his wife Sylvie who comes from Brittany, so he asked to be posted in the region and was based in Rennes, where he has worked with a wide range of schools, from a rural middle school to a technical high school specializing in the building trade. In the nine years before he joined the L.I. he ran the well-respected Lycée Chateaubriand, a school of 1750 pupils offering classes from Seconde through to Prépa. The school has a European Section in English, and a section called Abibac which enables pupils to take a double diploma in French and German. It’s a sizeable school: like the L.I., it has seven classes per level from Seconde onwards, and in the Prépa, 26 different classes, accommodating 1100 students, are offered in science, literature, and economics.
30
C O M PA S S M A G A Z I N E
V I TA L S TAT I S T I C S : J O Ë L B I A N CO Age: 53 Status: married to Sylvie, three sons: Antoine (19), Nicolas (17), Pierre (14) From: South-West of France Management style: professional but approachable, no excessive formalities, always seeks to maintain an equilibrium Keywords: teamwork, negotiation, optimistic and involved Music: ‘70s rock music Likes: singing in a choir, rugby (supports Toulouse), fine wine Regrets: not continuing with piano lessons Surprising facts: 1) cooks for his family, does his own ironing (“I’m not handicapped, and I’ve raised my kids to be independent too”) 2) has a magic wand – given to him by a teacher at Chateaubriand One thing not many people know about him: “I think I have the image of a technocrat but I’m not really like that. I think I appear cold to people who don’t know me.”