Before every announcement of a new day of educational strike there are always those who roll their eyes. The archetype of the lazy, self-paid teacher comes to mind, complaining all day that he doesn’t get enough vacation time or who knows what. The miniature one he has installed in his ear whispers that he is right to be irritated. Nothing justifies “such an angry response” to a reasonable agreement that three unions have already signed with the Department of Education – and which raises their salary by 400 euros in four years -, and nothing justifies complicating the lives of families in this way, nor trampling on the right to learn of students, who have had their calendars cut off for more than a month.
I have spoken to people of this opinion. They usually have in common that they have not looked into the eyes of the abyss in which they find themselves, and therefore the abyss has not looked back at them. Perhaps they have seen news about the decline in educational skills, some reference to catastrophic PISA reports. But knowing is not the same as knowing. If you haven’t looked the abyss in the eye, a subconscious residue of institutional, social-democratic trust can make you believe that the bulk of the chain of knowledge continues to be transmitted normally, and that at the top of the educational pyramid are qualified adults who plan for the long term and look out for the common interest. That there is someone behind the wheel, oh well, and that the system, with its imperfections and ups and downs, works.
The truth is that the system is running wild and there is no one behind the wheel. At least that’s what you conclude every time you integrate a new detail regarding the “educational methods” in vogue, the continuous and arbitrary changes in legislation, the conditions in which teachers work, the overcrowded classrooms, the decay of school materials (not to mention the titanic bureaucracy they have to face to implement any improvement: a black comedy based on the true story of an AFA trying to reform the toilets in the playground is needed, hygienic facilities like a Sónar polyclinic at six in the morning, but which only gets technicians from the City Council to come and give talks about inclusive bathrooms). Another day we calmly talk about other monsters that inhabit the abyss, such as the murky Innovamat, or about the functional illiteracy of students who are one step away from entering university.
The Catalan public school is that memory of a half-fallen building, precariously supported by three perpendicular beams. The beams in this metaphor are the teachers—or, rather, the implicit understanding that the teachers will pay for the system’s shortcomings with their free time and their mental health, that they will be able to split by mitosis in order to provide personalized attention to a growing number of students with special educational needs, or who don’t speak the language, or who have nowhere to do their homework because they don’t have a home. For now, humans are not capable of reproducing by mitosis. That teachers stand up is good news, because the only possible alternative is a horror story.
