ABSTRACT
A t the beginning of my career as a teacher, I worked in the village of Meaulne, the name of which corresponds to the title of the Alain-Fournier book Le Grand Meaulnes.1 As a teacher, my aim was to improve the knowledge of my students, usually around 25 and 30 per school year, about facts (e.g., historical dates, geographical facts), procedures (e.g., addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division with carrying; subject-verb agreement), concepts (e.g., proportions, fractions), problem solving (e.g., arithmetic problems, some of which were very complicated), and composing (e.g., narrative and descriptive texts). I quickly realized that I was rather successful regarding the three fi rst goals, but that I failed concerning the last two. More precisely, the students did not progress as much as I had expected, especially in composing.
