The Call
PrestaShop was a partner of Label École, a school affiliated with Emmaüs, that trained people in web project management. One day, the question came up: anyone willing to teach an HTML/CSS/JS module? Three full days.
I said yes.
Without really knowing what I was getting into.
The Crowd
That was three years ago. A very diverse room. People in their 30s, 40s, and older, in career transition, sometimes far from tech in their daily lives. And younger ones, fresh out of school, who used the internet all the time, but mostly for “fun”. Varied motivations, varied levels, varied expectations.
Three days to give them enough HTML, CSS, and JS to build their “portfolio site” (the goal of those 3 days), enough to understand how a web page works.
On paper, it sounds simple.
The First Morning
I arrive early. I set up the projector. I plug in my laptop. I check my slides. I check them again.
I pace around.
Knot in my stomach. Not fear exactly, more like that particular tension before something you’ve never done. How do I break the ice? What do I say first? What’s the opener that doesn’t blow the first impression?
People arrive. I smile, shyly, I greet them, I introduce myself. I go for it.
And in the end, it flows. I find my footing pretty fast. I’ve got my slides, my examples, my exercises. It just flows, almost naturally.
The Split
The real challenge wasn’t in the slides. It was in the translation.
Explaining what JavaScript does on a page isn’t done the same way depending on who you’re talking to. Someone who spends their day on websites will get an analogy that the other, who barely uses the internet, won’t see at all. You have to find another image. Another angle. Sometimes several. Sometimes 18.
I went around to each person. I adapted, on the fly. I looked for concrete examples, because nothing beats concrete to land a theoretical concept.
I also had surprises both ways. Some told me on day one, “I checked some stuff beforehand, I started tinkering,” and those people, sometimes, got stuck, found it harder than expected. Others, who seemed less motivated at the start, got hooked. Started asking questions. Trying stuff. Explaining things to their neighbor when they’d figured something out first.
Seeing that was exhilarating.
What I Didn’t See Coming
The exhaustion.
9 to 5, a short morning break, lunch, another afternoon break. On paper, a normal workday. I’d told myself I’d take the chance to play tourist in Paris in the evening, walk around, eat out…
I did none of it.
I’d get back to the hotel and collapse. Mentally fried. A full day of constantly splitting your brain, twisting the same concepts five different ways so everyone walks away with something, it’s exhausting in a way I’d never known.
I thought to myself: being a teacher is a real job. Not just a calling. A job.
The Bonus
End of the second day, I ask them if there’s anything else they’d like to understand “on top of that”. Not from the curriculum, but stuff they use without knowing how it works.
Questions fly. What’s a server? How does a domain name work? Why does a site show up on Google?
I add a few slides that evening. Simple analogies, the domain name as a giant phone book. The big picture, nothing technical.
The next day, I feel it landing differently. Not because it’s better explained, but because they asked. They picked the subject.
What I Found
I came home with something I hadn’t expected.
Explaining something to someone who knows nothing forces you to revisit what you think you know. You take a concept you’ve been using for ten years without thinking about it, and you have to break it down. Rephrase it. Find the angle that makes it real for someone else.
Nine times out of ten, you discover you understood it less than you thought.
And then there are the questions you didn’t anticipate. The ones where you end up saying, “I don’t know, I’ll look into it.” It’s uncomfortable the first time. You’re standing there, at the board, admitting your ignorance in front of twenty people.
Then you realize it doesn’t break anything. Quite the opposite.
It makes the whole thing human. It puts everyone back at the same table. And it teaches you humility in a pretty direct way.
Three Years Later
These last few months, at work, I started something.
The idea came from an observation: some concepts we use every day remain vague. We know it works like that, without really knowing why or how. And sometimes, understanding the how helps you anticipate, work better with it.
The format is simple. Fifteen minutes to an hour, on a specific topic. HTTP status codes. How an LLM works. Docker. Git merge versus rebase. Nothing overwhelming. Just enough to spark curiosity, make you want to dig deeper if it speaks to you.
I first proposed this to the juniors on the team. To refresh basics, or shine a light on new things for them. They gave me the list of topics. I didn’t impose anything.
Since they were in, I brought it up with the rest of the team. Whoever wants to, comes. Nothing mandatory.
In the end, everyone comes. And even beyond, PMs, QAs joined in.
I insist on one thing: I don’t want to be the knowing professor rolling through slides. It’s participatory. If someone has a topic to lead, they can. If someone has details to add, they can too. The best moments are when the discussion goes further than planned, one thing leading to another, we dig deeper, and everyone learns together.
The Thread
I didn’t make the connection right away between Label École and these sessions. And then, thinking back, it’s obvious.
I’ve always loved passing things on. Interns, onboardings… It was often me handling those, naturally. Label École was a more intense, more front-facing version. These regular sessions are yet another approach.
Same drive. Different forms.
I stopped coding day to day. I (almost) no longer touch my team’s PRs. But tech, I don’t want to let it go. I come back to it through this door too. The door of explaining, of sharing.
And along the way, I brush up my own skills. Because to explain “what Docker is” or “what the architecture of a site/app looks like” to my team, it has to hold up.
It’s a win-win. Them, and me.
And above all, I love it. Seeing faces light up when something clicks. Hearing the question no one anticipated. The moment when someone explains something to someone else.
The Label École classroom was bigger. The whiteboard was wider. But the joy is the same.
These sessions continue, week after week. I learn something every time. And who knows, maybe one day I’ll go back into a real classroom, facing a real class.