From Pr V. Baumfield definition, we wished to explore “Working together to find an agreed solution to a common problem or problematic situation”. The situation comes from the students disengagement in a French highschool belonging to the French Agricultural Training System in Bretagne. The We was made of teachers, the direction of the lycée, and a study-engineer of Agro Campus Ouest-Rennes. The diagnostic (2019-2020) lead to the creation of a students/teachers theatre practice so as to develop the relationships, a shared common situation and non violent communication. The action, with the theatre company Après le mur, had already started in sept 2020, when a research engineer of SupAgro in Montpellier-Florac joined the partnership. On the meanwhile, the collaborative group was showing some difficulties that increased with the re-confinements (2020-2021).

The partnership aim was defined within the frame work of Ancrochage which is a major concept coming from a national action-research in the FATS that refers to different ingredients such as social relationships, socio-cultural insertion, and collective projects, in order to respond to disengagement (Audenet-Verrier 2017). The theatre practice nevertheless brought à slightly different feeling and then understanding of the situation. It enlightened the basis was not that shared and the practice was not only matter or language. It also meant, all together creativity, facing others, sharing ideas equally positioned, risks of unbalance and self exposition, difficulties of making a group… Finally it came to awareness that theatre practice was a bit more complex and tend to approach one’s own sensitivity and individuation. (Kerlan 2004). This impacted the partnership as most of teachers felt not to participate on. These risks belonging to partnership (Otrel-Cass, K & Masson, P.TBP) were increased because of confinements.

The question was “Does a theatre practice partnership contribute to ancrochage ?”. Actually the theatre practice within educational system is often thought as responding to a need: of improving expression, writing, foreign language...but more rarely “in itself”. Our point of view is to bring back to the knowledge that artistic practice belong to humanity and has an impact on the individual, the group, and the partnership. A deepen understanding of its issues such as “new skills desire”, “self construction or realisation” or “projection on the future” has been studied (Hugon & alii 2011) as well as the sensitive impact of a classical music orchestra on partnership (Covez 2015).

The first hypothesis was that artistic partnership represents a situation for educational change. The second hypothesis was that students/teachers activity can represent a shared experience creating common space of discovering and understandings. A situation of co-learning if not co-educating.

The confinement context lead teachers, artists, direction, engineers to adapt themselves and save the project within only 8 sessions. Besides, the research-engineer mission involved after the start of the project mission was a bit risky to co-create, co-organise and co-evaluate the theatre project partnership, far from Bretagne without being able to be physically present during the practice and meetings. So the troubled time created a tense situation, that adults had to deal with. On the contrary, the students felt rather well in the theatre activity and kept on practising. The research then has focused on a comprehensive approach to understand the process in partnership that lead to the situation. One of the issue was to accept the sensitive process inside people, enriches but also provokes some unbalance that was not so easy to live in front of and with others. An other was to accept to be on the same basis as the students and co-create. Finally some issues that had not been thought before, had to be faced.

The methodological approach is exploratory and a first step as we are submitting a national project based on students/teachers theatre practice organised on regional levels (Bretagne and Grand-Est), within the national IA accompaniment. Actually the National Support Disposal represented by the IA engineers lives an institutional change since 2022, that stimulates inter-agencies partnerships and will allow new national collaborative groups to develop experiments in highschools, on regional or national scales. Therefore a national formation proposal has been made on students/teachers theatre practice in the aim of developing new practices for agroecological transitions. The action-reseach belonged to an “artistic support territory mission” disposal based on a partnership between the agricultural highschool, the municipality, an artistic company and engineers support The regional agricultural authority was also part of the project, following the experiment from diagnostic to evaluation. The action objective was to improve the students ancrochage in facilitating teachers work, social climate and semi-professional inclusion. The partnership has been mostly structured on meetings and debriefings, interviews and personal diaries, but also video recordings and e-journal notes. This range of elements (one meeting every two weeks) were trying to observe as much as possible the action and to keep the flow alive. Meanwhile, the écoute sensible (Barbier 1997) has been developed through action. Such a dynamic allows the partner to meet up with the other with empathy so as to feel the presence of the other and make the process of sense emerging possible (Berger 2009) taking also into account the ethical sensitivity (Hall E. & alii 2015). Besides, the “circle-times” allowed taking notes from sessions that lasted from 2 hours to a day long. These sessions benefited to 20 students and finally 3 teachers. Of course the final representation of the work had not been achieved because the theatre practice was based on funny and creative exercises to make people meet and authorise them selves to act on a different way. So the practice was more emotionally and socially axis developed, without any script. The methods could observe the practice and the whole process understanding how and to which conditions such a project can occur, through meetings, minutes, interviews and the artistic report. Finally, the interviews with teachers, artists, administrative staff and students participate to better understand their disposal evaluation, its complexity, affects or effects. It enabled exploring and developing social, sensitive and cognitive effects.

The partnership between artists, teachers and engineers has been qualified as indispensable to co-organise and evaluate the experimentation. The most difficult points were the trouble time of confinement and the lack of coordination between teachers and direction. It also showed that teachers did not measure the need of engagement that such an activity can demand, beyond the only capacity of language. So most of them became afraid of the practice and finally did not show on. In fact it seems that they felt difficulties to pass from the ancrochage written project to actively participate to it. The danger of loosing their authority image in front of students, let them out of the common game. The two teachers who participated actually discovered the practice and improved their students relationships and classroom ambiance. Better knowing each other and experiencing together developed a sense of learning together. They accepted the sensitive dimensions experienced through physical movement, voice or drama interactions. They found out that it leads to a more human way “which is what the students wish to create: a relationship to study”. This means that teachers could benefit from this action in empowering themselves and their professionalité. They consider they benefited of the situation, reviving their sensitive part in the process. The students seem to have benefited the most of the action, as their “why not” position was part of the process. The sensitive artistic practice partnership contributed to apprenticeship youth and deepen their ancrochage within time of confinement, which meant a big deal! Finally we found out that not taking into consideration the sensitive part of the artistic practice could put in danger the partnership, the educational comprehension, but also encourage the teachers disengagement ! So the partnership allowed discovering the sensitivity as a relevant part of education and ancrochage process.

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