Philosopher Alain Etchegoyen asserts that “one is not responsible for everything. One is first and foremost responsible before others for one’s personal actions and designs.”Responsibility is like a loop: it starts with our closest relatives, then comprises our community, our entire society and finally extends to our universe.

One is not born responsible but learns to become responsible. One of the fundamental missions in education is to prepare young people to be responsible adults, is it not ? So, how should we proceed ?

Educating young persons into responsibility does not mean providing students with good behaviour receipes but showing them what this means on a daily basis. Therefore, any pedagogical and educational project should imply the apprenticeship of what I call « responsibility awareness ». In the responsibility domain, what is crucial is the notion of progress. In our society, everyone should be aware that each of us has a role to play and that each of our personal acts has an impact on the collectivity.

Becoming responsible therefore means: willing to have a thoughtful approach, acquiring an autonomous attitude, behaving as a citizen of the world, developping self-awareness further and further…

Our Education Mission should enable the student to progressively reach self-responsibility and autonomy. By taking initiatives and by being dynamic, by displaying an analytic spirit and by having a pro-active approach, the student will be capable to make responsible and sensible choices. Let us recall Saint-Exupéry: "Every single one of us is responsible for us all" .

Educating responsibility is very special to me. It is this particular aspect of education that I wish to develop with the students and their families at the lycée Notre-Dame.

Philippe BERTHOMÉ, Principal

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