Today was Rocky’s oral exam for the brevet. The brevet, or Diplôme National du Brevet, is a French national exam taken at the end of collège (middle school). It consists of written tests and an oral exam, which itself has two parts: a 5-minute presentation followed by 10 minutes of questions.
The topic? An interdisciplinary project the student worked on during the year, tied to an educational pathway: citizenship, health, arts, etc. The student had to explain their work, demonstrate what they learned, and share their personal engagement. The goal: to assess their mastery of the subject, their ability to express themselves clearly, and their personal investment in the project.
That’s the framework. But the story begins elsewhere.
A Family Story
Rocky chose to talk about his great-grandfather and his adventures during World War II. My uncle—Rocky’s great-uncle—had sent us his self-published memoirs at the beginning of the year, and Rocky was very interested in this life story.
It’s easy to see why: the memoirs contain plenty to fuel a 15-year-old’s imagination. A young man passionate about literature, corresponding with the great authors of his time, whose life was suddenly upended by war. Because he was Jewish, he lived in constant fear of roundups.
With three friends, he decided to join General de Gaulle after his call to resistance. They boarded a ship as volunteer stokers. But the ship was forced to change course, his companions were scattered, and they had to hide. My grandfather ended up disembarking in a new country—but not the one they had intended: Algeria.
Meanwhile, his family was being hunted. Some were rounded up or killed. But new bonds were also formed, and the survivors found love.
Naturally, this story is close to my heart, too. This narrative is part of our shared history.
The Dead End: When Preparing Together Became Difficult
So we began preparing for his oral exam, using the section of the book dedicated to my grandfather. But I wasn’t up to the task, and we ended up arguing.
In my view, he had misread the book, didn’t grasp the stakes, and—given his neurodivergence—we struggled to communicate. He was stuck in his initial understanding, I was frustrated, and so was he. We kept clashing.
Yet, I tried to apply everything I knew about communicating with him: rephrasing, asking closed questions. But sticking to those methods was hard. I read everything I could find on the subject. And I learned the hard way that knowing the right resources and knowing how to apply them are two very different things. Our communication often felt forced, and my frustration grew—not toward him, but toward my own inability to meet him where he was.
We needed another approach.
DaNuBe: A Tool to Avoid Feeling Alone
So I equipped myself. I created the first and only personal agent of my life to date: DaNuBe, an agent to help me communicate with Rocky.
The agent is prompted on Mistral, based on resources I found about communicating with neurodivergent children and the expectations of the brevet oral exam. It breaks questions into small steps, rephrases and summarizes at each stage, and revisits the same question at different times to check for consistency. It never creates content for him—it only helps him find and structure his own words.
You can find its full definition here: DaNuBe.
At first, I used it myself, discreetly, on my phone, to guide our conversations. Having a pocket mediator was practical. I could be present for him without the emotional investment that made me lose patience.
He quickly noticed and asked what I was doing. I told him the truth:
I couldn’t do it. I behaved poorly with you. I needed something to help me help you, so I created it.
He thought for a moment, then said:
Can I use it? I’ll tell you what to write, and you type it?
And we began.
The Agent as a Mediator in Our Relationship
Soon, he wanted to type for himself. He’s taking keyboarding classes, so it was good practice.
He started interacting with DaNuBe using a dedicated LeChat Mistral account, which I also kept open on my computer so I could track what he was writing. He asked the agent questions, rephrased his ideas, and made connections between different pieces of information. It was fascinating to watch him take ownership of the tool, but even more so to see him gradually structure his thoughts.
Quickly, I updated the agent to be aware of my presence as a parent, so it could occasionally ask me for progress updates or clarification when something wasn’t clear. It wasn’t necessary for the work itself, but Rocky liked knowing I was still involved and engaged with him.
When he reached milestones, he was proud to see the tool synthesize his progress.
He kept working like this for several weeks, in 20- to 30-minute sessions, interspersed with conversations and joint online research. He wrote long, often unstructured but rich responses. The entire conversation—including my own interventions—only totals 48 messages. But each interaction helped him take another step toward his goal.
Above all, the agent acted as a mediator in our parent-child relationship, allowing us to communicate in a way that was more accessible for him—and that helped me understand him better.
A Project That Grew
The project began to expand on its own. Rocky made connections between different parts of the book, researched historical events, found archival images, and listened to songs from the era.
He read Philippe Grumberg’s short story “The Most Precious of Merchandise” and incorporated it into his presentation. He studied Jean Ferrat’s “Nuit et Brouillard” in class and included that, too. He realized he could present his problem statement and conclusion in Spanish—so he did.
Over the weeks, his oral exam grew richer and deeper. But it also started to slip out of his control. There was just too much content. The tool raised a parental alert: it was time to cut things down.
Trimming, Repeating, Embodying
First rehearsal: he spoke for over an hour. He had so much to say. So we began the process of trimming—cutting, cutting, until only the essential remained.
To simulate the real exam, I organized rehearsals under test conditions, playing the role of the jury. I made him wait at the end of the hallway, then called him by his last name. I explained the exercise’s basics, then gave him the floor without a word, taking notes as he spoke.
At first, he was very uncomfortable. Role-playing was difficult for him. He didn’t understand how to pretend and kept breaking the fourth wall, addressing me directly. But after several tries, he created a character for himself and gained confidence. He began to understand the purpose of the simulation.
To keep things fair, we also reversed roles. He played the jury, and I delivered his presentation. It was fun, and it helped him better grasp the jury’s expectations and put himself in their shoes.
Next came the digital presentation. I was comfortable helping with this—my professional practices align with the guidelines: if the presentation isn’t meant to be shared, prioritize few slides, minimal text, and strong visuals. We spent two hours together, discussing copyright law as we searched for Creative Commons or public domain images. Five or six visuals in an OnlyOffice presentation, with a dedicated slide for sources if asked. Done.
Two days before the exam, we were still over 20 minutes, even with a tightly edited script. The culprits: a few hesitations, verbal tics.
Since auditory learning works well for him, his mother recorded herself reading the script. He listened to it several times to internalize the structure, rhythm, intonations, and pauses.
The Big Day
He isn’t entirely ready, but he has a plan.
Summoned at 1:15 PM, he wakes up at 7 AM. Starting at 8 AM, he locks himself in his room with his presentation, his Time Timer, and begins an intensive optimization phase. He rehearses, rehearses, rehearses for four hours. I bring him a thyme and honey herbal tea to soothe his voice. He keeps going. He modifies, cuts up small pieces of paper to reconstruct notes for the trickiest parts.
At noon, we have lunch together. He takes a shower, puts on his freshly ironed white shirt, and heads to the school.
Everything went very well. With the stress of the exam, he ended up finishing his presentation in 7 minutes. He tells us he felt at ease, answered a few of the jury’s questions, and was happy with his performance.
What It All Means
We have no idea what grade he’ll receive. But we know he did an incredible job.
Despite his neurodivergence, he managed to take ownership of a complex subject, deepen it, structure his thoughts and speech, all while following the formal constraints of the exam. And this didn’t happen in spite of the obstacles—it happened because we accepted the need to find different ways to navigate them together: the agent, the role-playing, the audio recording, etc. These “good” tools didn’t replace our relationship with him. They created the space for that relationship to breathe.
It’s a beautiful victory. For him, and for us.