History behind the website Pôle Education
The website “Pôle Education” was created in 2015, the brain child of Jean-Claude Brès, who at the time was the head of an organization in Geneva that offers pedagogical workshops and training for the private schools in Geneva.
The Foundation Montes Alti approached Jean-Claude seeking assistance in offering training and assistance to the educational community to the private schools in Geneva. In response, Jean-Claude suggested ,to the Foundation committee, the creation of a website to address this need.
Jean-Claude had been dreaming of the creation of a pedagogical website, for awhile, that would have very clear characteristics:
Free for users
No need for registration
No advertising
Open to all
Bilingual (French-English)
Rich and varied, offering opportunities for innovations and avenues
Offering a broad panorama of pedagogical culture for professional educators
Articles from recognized researchers and educators, as universities researchers
Regularly updated, maintained and enriched with testimonials, success stories and new proposals for reflection.
As soon as the approval was given, Jean-Claude Brès contacted a second pedagogue and educator, Martine Auvergne, who was with the DIP, and who is known as an university teacher and researcher; he also reached out to a highly qualified computer scientist, Ronald Beetschen, for his knowledge and expertise in digitally “shaping” such a site.
The three, Jean-Claude Brès, Martine Auvergne, and Ronald Beetschen outlined the project and created a network of occasional collaborators that helped give the “lepole.education” its first form.
A committee of five was created (Jean-Claude Brès, Martine Auvergne, Ronald Beetshen, Mélie Genêt, Margaux Rosset) and with a number of contributors writing and validating articles, this site was publishing and then presented at the closing of the Pedagogical Day, “ La pédagogie, quelle histoire!” May 17, 2016, a day that welcomed over 1800 teachers.
Since that opening day for our site, the “Pôle” has continued to evolve, to grow, to innovate, while rigorously respecting its initial guidelines.
Today, January 2021, under the responsibility of Martine Auvergne, the Pôles’s committee is made up of Martine Auvergne, Marcia Banks, Ronald Beetschen, Jean-Claude Brès, Carine Bruni, Margaux Rosset, and Yves Zieba (in alphabetical order).
At a time when distance learning and telework are becoming an important part of today’s world, a world where the economic, ecological and societal reflections have a very direct impact on our teaching, our pedagogy and our education, the “lepole.education” website makes sense and is becoming an important tool in Geneva as it is, internationally.
*Jean-Claude, retired, began his career as a teacher at the Moser school. (The director of Moser, Mr. Henri Moser, was a member of the Montes Alti Foundation committee at the time when the website “Le Pôle” was created.) In 1972 Jean-Claude Brès participated in the creation of the Ecole Active de Malagnou, where he headed the school for 27 years, before becoming responsible within the Centre d’Echanges Pédagogiques (CEP) and the Institut de Formation Pédagogique (IFP) for the training of teachers in the Genevan private schools. He has been a part of the creation of several schools and continues today to participate in pedagogical innovations.