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Discours d'ouverture de la RIDEF par Philip LAVIS, président de l'IDEM 44

 In the fifties, Celestin Freinet wrote already “ Don’t try to build independently of underground ideas. One must build with and in life. Excuses are many and often good. The gardener, too, whose beautiful peaches are nevertheless bad, has his human excuses. It is because too many people accept these excuses that the world is heading to where hazard and misguided genius leads it. Teachers, above all, must see clearly and try to ensure that at least a little light of truth breaks through.” 

Today the universal understanding and fear of ecological menaces are due to scientific discoveries in the field of biodiversity, the ozone layer and resulting temperature increase. That is not to say that ecology be left in the hands of experts, scientists are not to decide on the political use of their discoveries. It is urgent to repoliticize the debates before sinking into bureaucratic chaos. It means inventing a new approach to knowledge and engagement, political and not moral, in our daily lives.
That is why, we, followers of Freinet, believe that our modern ideas, are a reply to the new challenges facing the world, and, by education, mankind and nature can continue to live in harmony. We must stop destroying nature, but also mankind and perhaps, in a better future, our material world will become one dominated by the thought.
I will not give a complete list of our many partners who have helped and supported us (you already have a list in which they are all mentioned). The grant from the “Conseil Regional” was used mainly to bring over our African colleagues , despite numerous problems with different Consulates in Africa, highlighting the differences of free circulation in many parts of the world.
I declare open the twenty-eighth RIDEF 
Philip LAVIS, président of the IDEM 44 association