They passed their barely adolescent nice bac: what has become of these children with high intellectual potential (HPI)?

Each year, the youngest students find themselves in the spotlight during the baccalaureate period. How did they get there? What happens to the HPI afterwards? Are their journeys really exceptional? We met Nice graduates to answer them.

"Zebras", intellectually precocious child (EIP), gifted, high intellectual potential (HPI), the names to qualify them vary but the problem remains the same. These different children whose abilities should allow easy success often find themselves suffering: boredom in class, relationship problems, discrepancy between their emotional age and their intellectual age.

For Françoise Astolfi, a psychologist specializing in people with high potential, “intellectual and cognitive intelligence is very difficult to verbalize in France. institutional unlike young athletes or precocious musicians; it's very Franco-French to have to correspond to what is expected of you."

This former school head in Provence-Alpes Côte d'Azur, teacher trainer, and finally went to the "other side" by becoming a specialized psychologist. She knows what she is talking about: her son had his baccalaureate at the age of 13.

She describes how the behavior of these children is inappropriate in the ordinary school context and how much the interpretation made of this behavior (lack of maturity, badly brought up, child king) is false.

Laura Giraud is a former precocious child. At 31, this Niçoise passed her baccalaureate at 16, became a post-doctoral research engineer in political science in Reunion for a year and a half.

Screened at the age of 8 “by the essential Jean-Charles Terrassier” as she explains with a great laugh, the little girl follows a decent course apart from an untimely fidgeting that her teachers regularly noted.

His mother, a pediatrician, reacts immediately and registers him at the Lycée Michelet in Nice. With her baccalaureate in hand, she enrolled in law school in the capital of the Côte d'Azur.

“I was doing well but nothing more, no particular brilliance but after the Master I I discovered political science and the construction of society. There, I was taken with passion and I really started to work at that time. Besides, I was a student and at the same time I had a teaching contract at the university. My last diplomas, I worked a lot and it started to make me proud of myself. Because I dragged a monstrous feeling of guilt for years telling myself that I didn't work hard enough... That I didn't give myself any trouble and I was 12 but I wasn't going to get 18! In Masters II to present the competition for obtaining a doctoral contract (11 positions for 800 students) I had to be valedictorian and there I tore myself off! ".

In Reunion where she left with her companion, she is already considering, in view of the job restrictions, to reorient herself: "I spotted an association that does citizen participation on the island. I would like establish a bridge between practitioners and academic research. I want my research to serve the good, to improve society."

She remembers very well this discomfort mentioned by Françoise Astolfi: "I always felt a shift due to my hypersensitivity. I had the impression of being different. I found the behavior of others not nice I felt, even today, more strongly things that hurt me and that generated a great sadness in me.

Françoise Astolfi has been repeating this for almost 30 years without much change in the school system. She tells of children who are not more intelligent but who have a different intelligence and therefore, not the same centers of interest as children of their age.

The speed of operation

"We confuse intelligence and brilliance. If the child does not shine it is that he is not as intelligent as that. Outside it is exactly like a rough diamond spotted by an expert eye who will have it cut." She adds: "When I spend time with an HP child, in truth I spend more time talking to adults (parents, teachers, school psychologists) to explain than talking to the child."

Apart from academic performance, five categories of intelligence have been listed: verbal intelligence, visio-spatial intelligence, reasoning intelligence, memory intelligence and information processing speed intelligence. These children operate at high speed and one of the big problems is their perfectionism.

The World Health Organization estimates at 2.3 the rate of intellectually gifted children (EIP) attending school from 6 to 16 years old, i.e. one to two children per class.

1 out of 3 precocious children does not reach the baccalaureate

Stephan Bousquet, former HP child and director of the Cyrano private course which welcomes precocious children in Nice, gives worrying figures "1 precocious child out of 3 doesn't make it to the baccalaureate". He explains and gives examples, such as that of repetition which is truly unbearable for these children for whom nothing is more boring. “Their memory is absorbing, overwhelming,” he says.

Françoise Astolfi adds that they are children like any other, with the same weaknesses but that everything is played out at an exponential intensity. Joy or sadness for example are overdrive. "I usually say that they are stateless people. When they are rejected from everywhere, they have to find welcoming lands such as private schools where they will meet people who look like them because otherwise they are very quickly misunderstood. and isolated."

Detect quickly

Olivier Rippoll, 38, from Varois, is also a former student of Lycée Michelet. He arrived there at 16 after a chaotic school career in the classic circuit. "I had two choices, a CAP or leaving the school system, I was so rebellious and unmanageable. My mother, who passed her baccalaureate at 14, tried a third option. I took tests and exercises with Mr. Terrassier, without wanting to know the results. I joined this school where I felt good because I was always stimulated. On the day of the baccalaureate I did not go there so I did not pass it, but the former director gave me the results of my tests at that time: I was in the high range of the gifted. This allowed me to situate myself and move forward. I joined the navy. "

As he says: “I am 38 years old and I have done about thirty different jobs because as soon as I see that there is no rapid evolution, I get bored and I change. »

Pilot, actor, jeweler...

Everything happens quickly for Olivier. BTS in international trade, 1st marriage, in 4 months he catches up with the maths sup/maths spé level as an autodidact and goes on to two years of airline pilot studies but a sudden auricular incapacity stops him in mid-flight. Depression. He left for Los Angeles to attend acting school, quickly finding small roles. To save his marriage he returns to France but divorces despite everything. Change of course: jewellery, gemology, then the security sector followed by the creation of a business setting up companies abroad!

Re-marriage and a baby. He is 32 years old and multiplies food jobs, especially at night to be able to look after his son during the day while his wife works. At the turn of a seasonal job in a hotel, he has a revelation: he is oriented on a short training course to become a hotel manager.

He likes luxury, travel, the absence of routine and the possibility of evolution "it's an intellectual deliverance", he says. I finally found what I like and suits me.

He is doing an internship in a five-star hotel in Marseille. He was offered a position in Bali, one in Thailand. He would see himself as well in Australia or in the USA. While waiting for this new beginning, he emphasizes:

And to add: "Everything was different afterwards. For me, a gifted person should not be centered on himself but transmit his knowledge to others. I like to instruct and share when people are active listeners."

A man: Jean-Charles Terrassier

In their journey and about a name comes up. On the Côte d'Azur, a man started the process of identifying these "HPIs" very early on. Jean-Charles Terrassier belongs to Mensa, an international association for gifted adults, of which he created a branch in Nice in 1968. He is a psychologist and will be the first to specialize in France with gifted children (he will follow more than 5,000 during his career that still continues).

He is also the founder of the first French association dedicated to these children. It is under his leadership that experimental classes are created to support them as best as possible.

First in the Las Planas public school in 1987, then permanently in the Michelet school the following year. In view of the success encountered, the high school cycle is set up but the establishment remains open to ordinary children.

Today, there are 110 students. Xave Schorter, director of Michelet since 2014, was first a chemical engineer, then an insurer and finally a school principal. She recognizes that her own journey is an example:

"You have to have vast and diverse paths and be able to go from one path to another. This is essential with these children because it reassures them that a choice is not necessarily final. It is more important to 'learn to think and take a step back than to accumulate knowledge,' she says.

A 21-year-old student in second

A third of girls. Two thirds of boys in this school. The percentage, everywhere the same, can be explained: "girls take more on themselves, less opponents, less turbulent, they show up less with their parents so they are more difficult to be detected HP. Their symptoms are more discreet, more internalized."

In this school, a young boy of 13 and a half will pass his baccalaureate this year. He is aiming for the TB mention and, according to his director, has a good chance of having it, before going to preparatory classes. However, she specifies: “There is a 21-year-old student in second this year because he was not detected and not taken care of before. It is not the age of our students when they arrive in terminale that matters to us, but that they are well in their heads and ready for higher education."

Polytechnicians and dancers

Xave Schorter, who has embarked on research into the paths of former students of the Michelet school, certifies that of the 197 members already registered in the private group of former , there are polytechnicians as well as dancers or hockey players!

Antonin Chiberches, 30, is a financial engineer. He was the youngest graduate in Midi-Pyrénées with his sesame obtained at 15 years old.

He says: "in 4th grade, I became unmanageable for the teachers who explained that the national education system could no longer do anything for me. That's when I arrived at this specialized school in Nice. At the end of the second, I was 12 years old. I left for a year with a host family in Australia to take a break."

Upon his return, Antonin resumed his activities: “Since I was little, ice hockey has allowed me to exercise intense physical effort and to rationalize my emotions. In addition, I have always had a large build, and, since there was no physical difference, my age was not a problem. When I'm on the ice, all my potential can be exploited. I play WITH others. It's a team sport. I always felt different from the others, but not there."

He graduated in Toulouse where his parents moved. Two years in applied foreign languages, English, Chinese, then a new course in economics-management. At the end of his degree he went to San Francisco and discovered finance.

The next step will be a master's degree in market finance at Paris Dauphine. He studies and works. “The Covid period is not favorable for finance. It is quiet. I have just returned to Annecy. I am reactivating my financial network and I am contacting recruitment firms to find a job by the end of the summer, otherwise I would create my own business."

"It was expensive, but I'm quite proud of my journey"

We find this same desire in Judith Chachoua, 37, Parisian, veterinarian and canine psychiatrist in Eure.

Identified early at 5 and a half years old, the young girl spent seven years at the Michelet school (like her two brothers), in a host family, and obtained her baccalaureate at 15 and a half after having failed the last year.

Because the faculty is prohibited for at least 16 years in France, it is oriented on an HEC preparation in Paris.

Depression. A young puppy that she covers with tenderness helps her through the ordeal. Then direction the faculty of Assas in economy-management. With her Masters II in hand, she went on an internship as part of the chartered accountancy course. The cabinet where she arrives is not of absolute rigour. The internship ends with a procedure at the Prudhommes at 23 and a deep disgust.

"I always wanted to be a veterinarian but I was told that I was not good at math. I lacked the information to go through anything other than a new prep class of which I kept a traumatic memory."

She went to university and obtained a degree in biology to prepare for the veterinary school competition. At the second attempt she succeeds and marries, in the process, a former student of Michelet. Five years of training in Nantes and a divorce later, she is 32 years old and has her veto diploma in her pocket. She moved to Gisors with her new companion and specialized in animal psychiatry.

"I was no longer at all ahead and even behind the others, even if I know that few vetoes have a double role. Accounting helps me in my work" she admits with a smile. "It was expensive even, but I'm quite proud of my career. But I don't like the word gifted. It's simplistic and too easy. We talked about emotional intelligence. It's a little better. I was DNA tested, hypersensitive. I understand better why, after Michelet's innovative cocoon, I took a big slap in the head."

Psychologist Françoise Astolfi is very clear about the paths of EIP: "these are individuals who sometimes avoid situations where they do not have control and excel in what they know how to do. It all depends on their childhood and of their adolescence. If their career has gone normally, there is no reason to consult further because there is no additional risk. But everything depends on how they arrive at the baccalaureate. In general, they live better after this examination because they are finally taken for adults. "

This is exactly the case of Salomé Fontaine-Garcia, 36, winemaker. Detected at 13, she obtained her baccalaureate at 16.

"School, in my village in Aube where my dad is a farmer, went well, but college was a disaster."

In 8th grade she developed a real phobia of the system and spoke of a descent into hell. The trauma is such that at this time, as soon as she enters the course of the establishment she feels in danger.

Attacks of tetany, spasmophilia, anxiety. Depression and drug treatment. The teenager has permission to no longer go to class but still remains first in the class. Her parents are looking for solutions and arrive at a psychologist in the Paris region who considers Salomé a precocious child and tells them about a school in Nice.

"Michelet saved my life. My parents and I were so desperate that it would have ended in tragedy. I would not have reached adulthood. This school gave me confidence. Mr Pinder, the director-founder, everyone called him the Boss. All ages, backgrounds, were mixed and there weren't just precocious ones. I had teachers who still mark me today in my way to think and act. They taught me rigor, precision, hard work and excellence. And I also met my husband there, who graduated from high school at 15."

"My life as an adult is 100 times more pleasant and fulfilling than my life as a child"

With sesame in hand, she studied medicine for two years in a row and realized that it was not is not what she wants. Direction sociology and the faculty. The year of the license, she stops everything after the suicide of one of her close friends, and this, the day before the start of the school year.

"Devastated, I stopped everything, I returned with my husband, to my parents and I stayed there."

She projected her life as a socio-psycho-criminologist. She became a winemaker.

“My adult life is 100 times more enjoyable and fulfilling than my childhood life. very good in my job. I am a UFO in the area but I am a farm manager, I have employees, associative responsibilities. I am married to a man who does the same job as me and we have three children. The eldest, Lucien, who refuses to be detected despite the request of the school psychologist, will return to college in two years. The same as me. Despite the psychotherapies I have followed, the trauma remains. I am worried about him ."

Psychologist Françoise Astolfi is very clear about the future of EIP: “These are individuals who sometimes avoid situations where they do not have control and excel in what they know how to do. It all depends on their childhood and adolescence. If their course has gone normally, there is no reason to consult further because there is no additional risk. But it all depends on how they get to the ferry. In general, they live better after this examination because they are finally taken for adults."

As the life stories are told by each of the former students contacted, common denominators emerge:

Schools like Cyrano or Michelet, which support them in Nice, allow them to study while being happy in their learning. It's not because they are HPI that everything will be easier for them.

Finally, the adults they are now all have an incredible ability to bounce back professionally. They also admit that they do not necessarily recognize themselves in the character of the HPI series on TF1 currently broadcast. She stages an extraordinary detective comedy embodied by Audrey Fleurot, displaying a high intellectual potential, a little crazy.