I feel sorry for myself when a 15-year-old boy tells me in the hallways of the school: “I’ve already lost everything.” I try to change his perspective and tell him that it is the other way around, that he has everything ahead of him and that in any case an 85-year-old man could say that.
This situation has occurred to me in a more or less similar way more than once, and it usually coincides with the fact that this kid is in the second year of ESO, about 14 years old (or 15, if he has repeated). The old eighth of EGB, for those of us who like me have gray hair. Worrying, since we are talking about kids who had not even left their schools decades ago.
Over time, one realizes that in these types of forums we tend to talk in generalities, at least from education, and we do not start from real cases like the one I just told you about. The cast of experts who dare to touch the educational system to give their opinion are usually located at the top of their respective positions, often from the university level or external consultancies. But they never talk about an uncomfortable case like this, which everyone tries to avoid: the second ESO case and what this level is becoming.
Second of ESO is, for many teachers, the reflection of the persistent feeling that something does not fit us and we do not know what it is. It is not an “important” course according to the official story. Here no one graduates or finishes a cycle, it is a year of continuity in a mandatory stage that began when they were still excited to go to school with us. Now many mothers don’t even recognize those children who don’t even remotely want to set foot in a school and, when they go to class, everything explodes around them. It is contradictory that the system barely looks at this decisive moment in the disengagement so studied from educational sociology.
The second ESO case represents the confluence of realities that are rarely put into dialogue. To this course, supported by support measures that, although insufficient, at least existed. Or, simply, you miss the course, because in the end almost everyone passes. A significant percentage finish Primary school with many deficiencies but, even so, they face the summer knowing that their journey at school has ended and in September a new stage at the institute begins.
ESO requires a certain autonomy, a progressive abstraction and the capacity for self-regulation, and that is why the . There are no significant organizational solutions to alleviate this gap: there are still no curricular diversification programs, there are no initial professional qualification programs, there is no support other than just enough for students with specific educational support needs.
Anyone who has been in a second-grade classroom recognizes it immediately. It is the course where the students who “get lost” appear. These are not isolated cases, but a pattern that repeats itself year after year. And the hardest thing is that, when it is analyzed, there is a tendency to hold the student responsible—“he doesn’t make an effort,” “he doesn’t want to,” “he isn’t interested”—without looking into the origin of the disengagement.
In the second year of ESO, the system continues to function as if the students were a straight and predictable line. Maturity, responsibility and motivation are required, without having created conditions for it. And when the student does not respond, it is interpreted as an individual failure, not as a lack of structural support.
Second is the star course in heterogeneity, in the lack of resources and the pressure to advance in the curriculum, even if the group is not prepared. And that tension, maintained over time, wears out. From a critical and honest pedagogical perspective, it occurs to me that this is where the system has to focus on reinforcing tutoring and educational guidance. Second, it requires more time for effective accompaniment and more presence of counselors and support teams.
A more lax curricular organization would help: instrumental workshops, interdisciplinary projects, support within the classroom and flexible groupings would allow those who arrive with gaps to be attended to. The key is to offer different paths to the same objectives.
It would also be necessary to anticipate measures that today only appear in higher courses. Practical learning spaces, activities linked to the students’ real interests, reinforcement programs as there were in the past, for example alternatives to learning a second language.
It is necessary to study the case of the second year of ESO as that critical course that no one talks about. Because putting it at the center of the debate implies providing it with resources, but also with a meaningful story: being next to those who need it most at the moment they need it most.
There may be questions left to ask that cannot be addressed in a newspaper column. Why many boys and girls have reached the age of 14 like this would be, perhaps, the main one.
But, in the meantime, recognizing the second year of ESO as one of the priorities of the educational system would not hurt. Every student who is saved at 14 years old to continue trusting that he is still beginning to live and that he has a long way to go, will have been worth it.
