The task of working with disadvantaged young people at school puts teaching practice and the identity of teachers to a stern test. It requires a specific form of teacher training. Provision of specific training for those who intend to work with pupils considered difficult does not mean preparation for teaching of an entirely different kind. The abilities and strengths required by those who teach them can be mobilized in all schools. The problems encountered in classes considered difficult and the means to solving them are not peripheral to the system, but central to its transformation in a context where they appear magnified through assuming more explicit forms than in situations elsewhere, in which their presence is less immediately visible. Training teachers for work in schools and/or classes considered difficult is thus a major challenge. Teachers have to be made actively aware of their occupation and their role, while a concerted drive is needed to ensure that no young people, whatever their origins, are left adrift and that all can develop their individual potential. With examples drawn from French, European and North American experience, the author presents an outline of the issues and challenges at stake in ensuring that teacher training becomes the gateway to implementation of appropriate strategies for pupils to do well, and for managing the problems of authority, discipline and aggressive behaviour to which they may be susceptible. He suggests ideas for further consideration, along with proposals for developing the teaching profession and rediscovering the values, ethics and sense of purpose of schools that possess real meaning for young people and their families.
