Richard Picotin - Director Of French Language Debate
Born in Northern Quebec, Richard moved many times with his family all around the province before settling in Lachine, Montreal suburbs. After high school he obtains a baccalaureat in pedagogy and a French teacher’s license and starts a thirty-five years career. After teaching seven years in elementary schools he becomes vice-principal, a job he will be doing for the next twenty-eight years in elementary and secondary high schools of school boards in the Montreal Island west end.
All along this career he will be in charge of welcoming classes for immigrants, supervise groups and special education programs and take charge of all the aspects of students activities including student councils and leadership programs.
In his community, he will be involved in all sorts of comities, working on many different areas, from the integration of disabled children in the school to developing ways to improve the student leadership through a provincial program called <Acti-Jeunes>, locally as well as regionally. This will bring him to get involved as the French director at large for the Canadian Association of Student Activities Advisors (CASAA) for over a decade. During this period of time, he will give workshops on leadership, communication and managing student councils all over Canada. A few years back, he was part of the group who founded the Association l’Association des débats et discours étudiants du Québec (ADDEQ), where he still works as president.
Retired since February 2003, he keeps on working as a volunteer in developing student debating by giving workshops in French schools all over Canada on the many aspects of debating.