Du voyage des aliments à l'impression 3D : pour une pédagogie active des disciplines non linguistiques.

We defined 3 objectives at the time of the bid. In consultation with our partner, we prioritised them. We have focused our project on peer training. This teaching practice encourages the developme...

We defined 3 objectives at the time of the bid. In consultation with our partner, we prioritised them. We have focused our project on peer training. This teaching practice encourages the development of new ideas and new knowledge, particularly among young people like ours, who are not very receptive to traditional school teaching. This method requires a system that encourages ‘frequent’ exchanges between students and, in the case of our project, between teachers too. These formal and informal exchanges, conducive to the construction of new knowledge, enabled the pupils to react actively to the teaching offered. This system, as the backbone, led to the second objective and encouraged the discovery of others. Meetings and exchanges as part of common activities have contributed to the knowledge of foreign professional and cultural knowledge and facilitated encounters with the Other. Finally, we have gradually emphasised the need to consider other ways of producing food and to raise awareness of the challenges of sustainable food production at local, national and international level, by highlighting the link between practices here and practices there.

Two activities were at the heart of this project: the creation of two menus open to the public, based on key products that have come down to us through the ages and the different journeys of the ‘conquistadores’ and the colonists who returned from America. The first menu in France, ‘Les Semeurs de plaisir’, and the menu in Spain, ‘Pan y chocolate’, brought the 2 teams together. In the run-up to the event, meticulous preparation was required. Setting up training activities, discovering each other's geographical, cultural and culinary environment, and experimental workshops based around the selected products were essential steps in the success of the project. It is this set of activities that we have called ‘inter-culinary’ teaching. Cooperation between the two teams of French and Spanish students and teachers was therefore an essential part of the process. By announcing to our students that they would be making these menus together, in France and in Spain, and that they would be offered to invited guests, there was no longer any possibility of competition. There was only one option, and that was to rely on each other to rise to the challenge. Once committed, no one could back out or back down.

The first ‘Sowers of Pleasure’ menu in France and the ‘Pan y Chocolate’ menu in Spain are the two results of this project. They brought together local producers, institutions, elected representatives and staff from our schools to create dishes that were devised, tested, prepared and served by our students. Serving the dishes and matching the wines was possible in both languages, thanks to a process of mutual translation and explanation. Visits to workshops, wine cellars and selected producers gave our pupils a better understanding of the origins of food and how it is processed, right through to the menus served. This part of the project was particularly important, because it was through these visits that we gave the target groups a better understanding of the links between food and culture, and built ‘inter-culinary’ as an active teaching method. It was also a way of discovering new ways of producing, consuming, eating and even disposing of our waste. The documentary that we produced showed the importance of cooperation between learners and teachers, and serves as a communication tool to showcase the work that has been done.