Pauline Li Gaudefroy
Danna Yoon
This month’s teacher is Saint Maur’s well-renowned biology teacher; Dr. Erard! Having worked here for 14 years, how much do you truly know about him? How come our biology teacher also happens to be a master in Aikido? And what motivated him to come to the tranquil country of Japan? Read more of this article to discover!
1. Where did you grow up?
“I grew up in France, in a city of about 150,000 inhabitants, which is a medium city size in France.” While most people think of Paris as the epicenter of France, miracles can also happen outside of the city of love. For instance, Dr. Erard! And how fun it should be to live in a small city with a small number of people. But it’s “boring,” he says, “it’s a rather old city in Burgundy. So it’s full of old families that come from French nobility and bourgeoisie.”
2. How would you describe your childhood?
So if Dr. Erard lived in a boring city, what would a youngster think?
“I had a pretty normal childhood, I think. My dad was a truck driver, mom was an English teacher. I didn’t really enjoy Middle School. I was not a very sporty person, so not playing soccer when you were in France, you know, it kind of isolated you. At that time, soccer was huge, and there were those who played and those who did not. So I was always part of more outside groups, I was not the popular type. Then I found that in High School, there were a lot more opportunities for one to develop their own interest and identity, and as a consequence, to find some levels of acknowledgment or even respect.”
3. What were some of your favorite childhood memories or activities?
At 7 years old, Lego was a big thing, in which Dr. Erard also enjoyed playing with. He also played video games once in Middle School: “There were the Sega people,” he explains, “and the Nintendo people. And there was war between the two, and I was on the Nintendo team,” he recounted with a reminiscent laugh.
But that stopped in high school, when people moved on to more modern devices. Not being able to afford a computer, video games naturally stopped being a big part of his life, and he turned towards tabletop role-playing. And yes, you guessed it, Dungeons and Dragons. “We set up a club at school, but at the time people were very concerned because the media had made up a few stories about people supposedly performing dark rituals in cellars. When we set up a club in the high school, that raised a few eyebrows. But we had tremendous fun with that and when they figured out that we were just harmless teenagers, who were playing with dice in a classroom on Wednesday afternoons, they stopped being worried.”
Furthermore, high school was also where Dr. Erard found his deep interest and affection towards Aikido. “There was a yearly event on TV, a big demonstration in Paris, with all the top people in the world, and I saw a French gentleman demonstrating Aikido. He was the most senior non-Japanese instructor in the world, and I thought that what he was doing was amazing. It’s funny, come to think of it, because this very month, he has a new book coming out, and he asked me to write a few chapters in it. I would never have thought at the time that I would end up even meeting him, let alone writing with him.”
Before Aikido, he did judo, like every other kid. But Dr. Erard felt weary of being the same as other kids. As a kid, he always sought out eccentric activities which nobody else did.
“I still think to this day that competition is mostly pointless, perhaps even harmful. Nobody needs to “learn” competition, it’s built-in deep in our genomes. What our species needs is to learn to compete less and cooperate more. Besides, on a personal level, not much good can come out of comparing yourself to somebody else who’s different, anyway. What matters is how you are now compared to what you were yesterday. We’re life-long, unique learners.”
Et voilà. That is how we eventually got an aikido master at Saint Maur (this is only the beginning of course!)
4. What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done?
So let’s just take a break, and think about everything we just learned. Dr. Erard was a shy student at school, who was also part of the ‘unpopular’ group, and played Dungeons and Dragons every Wednesday. Wouldn’t it seem unlikely that he would end up in a wheelchair one day? Well, that’s exactly what happened here:
“I had a group of friends, and we used to go scuba diving, climbing, caving, all kinds of stuff. And we had a leader. He used to be an instructor in the army, so he had all that gear. One day, we went mountain climbing in the winter. A plaque of snow broke, took me with it, and I ended up sliding over 300 meters in rocks. I then did a ten meters fall straight down a cliff, and then another one of fifteen meters. I think I probably passed out at that stage. I remember I stood up eventually, but I could feel that there was something wrong in my back. So I could just stand up, but I couldn’t move anymore. I was probably in shock as well. I don’t know how long I stood there. A storm was starting, so the rescue helicopter could not find me, even though I could hear it. The first person who got to me was a guy who worked as a stuntman for Luc Besson’s movies. I remember just before he took me to the ambulance and closed the door, he said to me that if I ever walked again, he told me to contact him, and he would have a job for me. [laughs]”
5. What was your first job?
Times were really different back then, many teachers can agree. When mobile phones, WiFi, and Starbucks didn’t exist yet. So what other part-time jobs would there be? Let alone, in a small, bourgeois city?
6. What made you come to Japan?
Ever since he was a kid, Dr. Erard had the lifelong dream of visiting Japan. “There was no doubt in my mind,” he said. “And I must say that a lot of the things that I did in my life kind of made sure that it led to that. For instance, one of the big reasons why I did my PhD was that I felt it would be a lot easier to find a job in Japan. And turns out, it did. So I had to wait a bit. I wanted to go earlier, but I felt I needed to get my studies done. However, I had some issue“We were not very well-off, so I worked in a silo,” says Dr. Erard, “They’re those big, big towers full of grain. And we did some interesting stuff. I took my license to drive a forklift truck there. Other times, we had to jump into the silo to clean it up. Once you had jumped in from the top, the only way out was to push all the grain in the big screw pump at the bottom, so that it would reveal the exit of the silo a few meters down. With all the dust, that would be completely forbidden now due to the risk of lung disease, but also explosion. We also operated cereal trains. I remember one time, I was supposed to push one of those huge train wagons with a truck, I got a little bit carried away, and I went a bit too far; too fast. And the wagon bumped into the other one so hard that it fell in on its side off the tracks. So we had to rent a big crane. Can you imagine the size? To put that thing back on the track. And from that point on they called me the “Station Master” [laughs].”
Unfortunately, the project itself closed a few doors for him. Originally, he was going to apply to become a patent, however, that meant he couldn’t publish anything. But if he couldn’t publish, he couldn’t find a job either. So because of that, he explained, “I thought that my options were closing. There was no obvious path for me to go to. And you know, when the doors closed on me, suddenly, that one possibility of going to Japan didn’t sound as unreasonable anymore. So in a way, difficulties and things happening to you that don’t go according to plan, sometimes highlight a path that may be important to you.”
The story of a man who fulfilled his childhood dream.
7. Why did you become a teacher?
Dr. Erard didn’t really see himself becoming a professor of plant molecular biology. Therefore, as soon as he finished his lab work he came to Japan and worked in a French restaurant in Ginza for a while, and during breaks, he wrote his thesis. After looking for a slightly easier job, he was hired at Saint Maur.
“There was a biology teacher here who went on maternity leave. I had taught at universities, so I had some experience teaching. I became a teacher because Ms. Thomas (the former head of school) and Mrs. Endo gave me a chance very early in my career. I was only planning to stay here for a few months, finish my thesis, and then go back to academia, but I just realized quite quickly that for the first time in my life, I was actually happy to go to work. So I thought, ‘Well, man, if you can find an activity in your life that you have to do 8 hours per day, and you’re happy doing it, that must be something.”
After many years of toil, Dr. Erard is glad that he didn’t leave his job because, unlike many people who don’t enjoy their jobs, he actually finds enjoyment in his. In summary, his life was a whirlwind that eventually brought him here, and he doesn’t regret it; not one bit!
8. What is your favorite memory while working here?
He mentioned that one of his favorite memories is a fantastic interaction with students who were doing their IAs. He liked to see the students that were so motivated and he and his students looked at ways to fix things and to get things going.
“One thing that I remember–I don’t know if it’s the best memory, but it’s a significant memory–is I never really used to see plays and games. But I remember one year, I went to the talent show for the first time. And I used to perceive the students through the lens of biology only. So, you know, you are either a good biologist or a bad biologist. And therefore, a good student or a bad student, in my narrow view, right? And then I turned up to the Talent Show and I saw those students who I didn’t really have high regard for, academically. It hit me in the face, I saw talent and competence, and a completely different aspect of them that made me realize, ‘Oh man, I missed a lot of things about that person’.”
Dr. Erard’s first Talent Show actually taught him to deal with students in a more holistic manner, not only zeroing in on biology. That is why he turns up to the Talent Show every single year because that keeps him in that state of mind that there is a lot more talent within students apart from their talent in Biology class.
9. What advice would you like to give to students?
Finally…the most important part of this article! So listen up folks; you’re about to hear some words of wisdom.
“You have to be able to define what it is you’re about. And what the non-negotiable things are that make you happy. That’s what is going to give you the energy to get things done. And then, you do what you have to do to pursue those goals. It can be something big, like a professional career, or it can be a place you want to visit or a person you want to meet. And reflect on what a happy life is for you. Find what intrinsically motivates you and don’t mind the smaller things that tend to make you unhappy. Focus on where you spend your energy. And ideally, you want to use your energy to build things, not break them. That’s why I don’t like competition, because like the geneticist Albert Jacquard said: ‘The moment I become a “winner” in a competition, I have automatically created many “losers”.’My life cannot boil down to creating losers around me, I’d rather work with you than against you.
“And another thing, within that, is to find intrinsic motivation. Whatever you’re learning, you have to become interested in that particular aspect of the curriculum. Is there something in there that’s hitting a little closer to home, something that you can connect to? Having that will make it easier to spend the time and make it more enjoyable. It’s going to be easier with IB and afterward because you’re going to start to select your courses and therefore, you’ll get a bit more agency over what you do, but at the moment, there are many things you have to do. So get the taste for knowledge for its own sake, it will serve you well.”
Pauline Li Gaudefroy, Danna Yoon