First, we would like to consider this action-research in the post-Covid pandemic time, during which relations within or out of schools have suffered (Franck & Haesebaert, 2023) and the climate change time which both stimulate us to think of where we want to land ! (Latour 2017). The specific aim of this proposal is to consider the documentary theatre practice experienced through a workshop on the aim of Agro-Ecological Transition (AET). It took place a week in December 2023 in the National Support Disposal in charge of experiencing and educators’ formation. Benefitting from last year experience mixing 2 teachers and 5 students, this experiment has been realized with 8 teachers of the French Agricultural Training System and organised in the InstitutAgro (Montpellier, Florac campus). This theatre practice was chosen in order to teach AET differenty (out of traditional sessions) and understand the skills development. Its capacity of embodying the AET through artistic sensitive practices (Covez, 2023, 2018) has been shown. But, the French Agricultural Education encounters some difficulties to transform the written AET priority into reality, as this means not only technical but also professional posture changes. This can be observed when the Otherwise Producing Teaching program n°2 is being reconsidered and evolving into what should be a more efficient plan on transitions. Besides, the Institut Agro has recognized the quality of the documentary theatre practice (ecoanxiety and bifurcation decline, empowerment in transformative actions) and expressed the wish to realize it at a national level towards engineers students. We also notice that the higher education school uses the Socio-Ecological Transition as a major concern which enlarges the approach. Therefore, the evolutions showed on both sides encourage us to take into consideration the transition notion as at the centre of concerns, practices and praxis. The European Green Transition skills and knowledge concepts and Sharon Todd thoughts (2016) helps us move on our action-research. It seems important now to question transition itself in relation to education, formation and transformation. Therefore, we refer to her work on the fragility of transition (if related only to a link between past and future) and rather consider it as a process that relies on the present. Finally, when transition, education and transformation seem so much layered, the documentary theatre practice by teachers represents an educational and pedagogical opportunity to experiment in order to question their relationships. A nationwide project has then been proposed and is waiting for subsidiary to study the documentary theatre practices carried out by teachers on a voluntary basis with their students. As Michèle (one of last year’s workshop teachers) has received a regional creativity prize for her students’ performance on textile transition, this encourages us to consider it on a long term in the reality of the agricultural highschools, where the project is spreading.

So: does a documentary theatre practice contribute to teachers’transition? This workshop based on the previous experience is to consider learning it as an emotionally, bodily, individual and collective creating activity put to the service of the understanding and communication of transition. The hypothesis is that it represents a tool for educational change in respect to transition, regarding the educators’ status and professional identity. As, we learnt that the coherent mix way of cognitive and bodily activities brought an improvement in well-being and empowerment, we wish to understand what the impacts of this active pedagogy are, relaunching the arts education value first in aim of teachers. The coherent form that the documentary theatre practice represents, would help teachers

move their personal and professional posture spreading the transition education capabilities within the highschools towards other educators and students.

The ethnographic action-research methodological approach consists in interviews with the 8 adults and the artist Théo actor, dramatist and director, with whom we prepared this renewed project, so as to adapt to the adults participants. The approach is also nourished with participative observation, meetings minutes, field journals, and small filmed interviews. To analyse and better understand the whole process, from exchanging to performing, we also have to take into consideration the artist/trainer partnership. The trainer was participating to activities as any participant and would also intervene in groups so as to bring new ideas, calm down the tension/stress or stimulate the creation. While Théo was concentrating on the artistic forms of creation, legitimizing and assuring the ideas, the research-trainer would help accompanying the sensitive change (Barbier, 1997) demanding change of posture. Both of these positions are valuable to understand the formation process. The research is not finished yet, as the interviews and analysis are going on. On the theatre perspective, it is very important to specify the methodology used by the documentary theatre. Different types exist (Magris & Ali, 2019), and this one is defined by its designer, in Florac, Théo as a récit fictionnel type. This means that creation made of debates from personal experiences and documents, growing shared concepts and problematics leads to the definition and conception of scenes (through mise à plat methodology enriched by theatre and improvisation exercises). Subjects that emerged from reflexions and postures were: patriarchy, symbiotic relationships, traditional farmers, living creatures, hyper-consuming postures and countryside exile in the mountains! The last point is very much assumed by the Institut Agro, as trainees like to come to the mountains of southern France, in the middle of nowhere so as to get some physical and psychological fresh air! Quality research is used so as to get a comprehensive view on the expectations/representations at work from drama, cultural, life skills, psycho-social competencies, to eight core competencies (Robinson & al, 2022) or green transversal competencies (ESCO, 2022). None of the competencies were predefined as the field journals were used to express oneself freely. The formation in the mountains was conceived as a tense and demanding experience (Jeffrey & al, 2004). The interconnected materials intend to embrace the context, process and participants position, and is to be interpreted at best as a living experience in transition education.

The workshop lasted 4 days. We saw a strong need for each of the participants to express oneself, on the cognitive, socio-economical, agricultural, but also political point of view in the field of transition. Eco-anxiety emotion was expressed, mostly by the youngest ones. Their participation came from the wish to discover a new way that would be useful to make the complex transition lived by their students (stuck to ecoanxiety or anger and who feel unable to apply this transition in their agricultural context) back to their own highschool. The running analysis shows several turning points : accepting and expressing one’s point of view in front of others; exposing oneself on the scene for exercises and representation; opening and accepting other’s status and concerns (technical/general/intellectual matters); accepting living emotions when coming out of the self; working and agreeing together for the creation (subject and theatre style). To put it into a shell, they had to stick strongly to the necessity of performing which means, not fixing to the self but accepting co-creating in emergency. So they found that situation quite stimulating and quite coherent with the climate society change context. Moreover, this workshop has been lived as a personal transformation as all these dimensions stimulate the self and professional efficiency back to work. As each of the highschool has an agricultural exploitation (pets, livestock farming, landscaping…), it represents an encouraging impact. Transformation was put to the service of transition which is still a non-stable notion for them going from a never ending transition, passing by a cycle, to a paradigmatic change, including feminism. Embodying their imagined story allowed them getting out of a kind of confusion. Feeling reassured, they affirmed that only an active pedagogy, such as the theatre practice, can achieve making living the transition education.

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