Men in Early Childhood Education: My Interview With School Owner Sebastien Donio From France by Mike Prochaska

I have been looking high and low for a man in Early Childhood Education in France. I was excited when I found Sebastien Donio. Not only does he live in France, but he has opened up his own school. Sebastien has lived most of his life in Paris. "I have been working a few years in in the U.K. (London, Edinburgh) and now I live to Montpellier, south of France, where I first started to found my own school before merging with another one that had just been opened for six months." Read on to learn more about Sebastien... 

Q. How did you get into this field?

"I started as an electric engineer working in the energy industry. As the years were passing by, my desire to change my career path grew bigger. I was more and more interested in education, ecology, yoga, philosophy and new way of communicating, like Nonviolent Communication (process created by Marshall Rosenberg). I was 25, spent most of my life at school and I realized I knew nothing. I wanted to spend more time discovering all these fields and share it with others, especially children. I also wanted to live in an environment that corresponds to my values and my aspirations and enables me to connect all this fields together."

Q. Where do you work and what age group?

"I have been working with children from 3 to 19. I taught Physics and Mathematics in a secondary school in 2016 and 2017 and I decided one year to create a private school with one of my long-time friends in the south of France. [My] 'democratic school' provides an alternative environment for children that don’t fit the conventional schools or [who are] just looking for different ways of learning and experiencing their freedom.  

"In 2018 I joined a democratic school called L'Ecole Pétillante ('The Bubbly School'), which is inspired in particular from the Sudbury Valley School created in 1968 in Framingham, Mass. I have worked since 2017 in different democratic schools in different parts of France, in which kids from different parts of the world are the authors of their learning by carrying the activities that fit their centers of interest and in which they are equally responsible with the adults of the school management and all kinds of decision making."

Q. What are the advantages of being a man in Early Childhood Education?

"I have been traveling in different parts of France to work in schools where there usually were a great number of 4- to 6-year-old children and that was awesome. I have spent some times wrestling, playing soccer or the 'chicken, fox, snake' game, jumping on a trampoline, imitating animal cries in a board game, showing children how to make a node to keep some prisoners (it was a game, don’t worry) and so many other activities. I remember a female colleague who had been working in one of those schools telling me she had never seen the children playing these kinds of game before. I realized children don’t interact the same way with men [as they do] with woman. I also tried to cook a vegan 'mousse au chocolat." It was awful!" 

Q. Why is play important for children?

"Two years ago, I read a book written by Peter Gray entitled 'Free to Learn' that provided me with great inspiration for the future educator I wanted to become. The author explained how play has always been the best way children in ancient cultures learned to hunt, to make a fire or to create tools. The book also shows that it is the same in the rest of the animal reign, where play is the only way you learn if you want to survive. My brother and I learned to read thanks to playing cards and I am sure I learned some negotiation skills thanks to Monopoly or The Settlers of Catan.

"When you look at children playing [and] they are motivated, they are strongly focused, they are content and therefore can repeat the same games over and over. That is precisely the best way to learn, according to most recent research in neuroscience. I strongly believe that plays should find its way back to schools and should be given a greater place if we aim at an authentic learning from children."

Q. What about outside play? Is it important?

"I believe outside play, and more generally a close link to nature, is of the most importance for children. Having the opportunity to climb trees, cultivate a vegetable garden, practice sports and enjoy all the wealth and discoveries nature can provide is formidable for anybody, including kids. Outside play is known to improve children’s focus, memory and help them relax.

"Recently I have discovered a phenomenon called the 'Nature Deficit-Disorder' that is amplifying due to to children spending more time locked up and lacking the opportunity to go outside. Studies have shown that a lot of medical disorders like obesity, diabetes, asthma, myopia, attention deficit disorder, are linked to the lack of nature. It is, for me, of the most importance to bring children outside so that they can play, learn or even relax beyond the walls."

Q. Anything inspiring to tell anyone thinking of going into this field?

"I want to finish with a Confucius quote: 'We each have two lives. The second one begins, when we realize we have only one.' That has even greater value when you are around kids. Children are sponges and you will be a model to them. There's no way you can teach them anything if you cannot apply what you teach to yourself. I will try, as an educator, to remain curious and open to any questions the kids might have. 

"I want to be sure of myself, but keep being critical to my beliefs and knowledge. Paulo Freire mentioned that a pedagogue, like any other human being, is 'uncompleted.' The challenge is to be conscious of this while [you] keep trying to inspire kids and give them the opportunity to challenge themselves."

Q. Anything else you would like to share about working with kids?

"Kids are a perpetual source of amazement and happiness and they will never stop surprising you. They have given me energy every day I have spent with them ... I think it is also the best way to keep in touch with technologies, new trends and, more globally, to keep a young spirit. The hope and enthusiasm you get at the end of the day is the best fuel I have found so far to drive my life. And it is a renewable energy."

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