The course begins with the eternal puzzle of what to do with the children while they have to work. And the debate about whether a continuous day or a split day, defended by Isabel Díaz Ayuso, is a deception to hide the segregation of classes.
“Impossible” reconciliation during school adaptation: “I took two weeks of vacation”
When we were 13, the children of the 8th year of the EGB (now the 2nd year of the ESO) of my school were selected to participate in a school debate in the Parliament of Andalusia with two or three other centers of the community. The idea was that we would propose, debate and, if necessary, approve the measures that interested us. We were clear: we wanted to stop having classes in the afternoon, to be able to rest, to play in the neighborhood, to watch TV, to be with our family. I was the spokesperson for the proposal. We got it approved. But it was a symbolic victory because in reality we still have classes in the afternoon and suffer from drowsiness in the office after eating, especially during the hot months that last so long in the south and then that interminable bus journey. I remember that when I returned home, neither the time nor the energy was enough for anything.
Since I became a mother, this year for the first time without children in Primary, I have been faced with the question of whether a continuous day (morning only) or a split day (morning and afternoon), the subject of exhaustive analyses like this one in elDiario.es, as a true personal dilemma. Because the girl who survives in me is horrified that the obligation to have classes in the afternoon imposed by President Ayuso, such a champion of freedom (of drinking beers and millionaires paying less and less taxes), is back, and even the mother I prefer a thousand times sports, linguistic and creative extracurricular activities to which, having become a taxi driver, I have been taking my children for years. But my situation of socio-economic privilege does not prevent me from noting that there are many families, for the most part, in which it is not possible for the mother, and even less for the father!, to reduce her evening work hours to take care of the children and pay for activities and activities in private academies.
Time and money are not enough. Then, or, with a bit of luck, they will be able to leave them first in that canteen granted to companies that are suspended year after year by the management and the School Council (CE) of the school but that win the public competition to present the cheapest offer, and immediately afterwards, they enroll them in “affordable” activities, almost always simple entertainment, which are offered, subcontracted, in the playgrounds, or the grandparents come to pick up the children or they have to stay home alone. In any case, in a school and health disadvantage, physical and mental, compared to the daughters and sons whose afternoons we fill with paid experiences, keeping them away from the vultures that hide in a sedentary lifestyle and social networks.
What is hidden behind the false debate
So, afternoon school yes or no? Well, to me, it’s a false debate that seeks to obscure what we should really be talking about, demanding and achieving, especially when a progressive coalition is in government, namely: money for public schools or tax cuts for the rich and, on top of that, payment to the agreed party?
Let me explain. I am a staunch defender of public schools, not only in words, not only in my articles, but above all in educating my children and, in addition, in being for years secretary of the board of directors of the AMPA, vindictive representative of families of the CE, and active in negotiations with the Administration and in demonstrations.
The debate over morning or morning and afternoon classes is a trap that obscures the real key problem: the increasing diversion of public money to charter schools, so that public schools cannot offer attractive evening activities compared to separately paid private extracurricular activities.
Even so, I know that forcing all students to stay in public schools in the afternoon in the current context of disinvestment in them would be a punishment for those who today benefit from chosen extracurricular activities. Perhaps in exchange for a certain homogenization with those currently excluded, it is true, which explains my dilemma. But in any case, it would disadvantage both groups of students in public schools compared to those in subsidized and private schools who receive afternoon training paid for with the sum of increasing public subsidies and the resources of families who pay additional fees of more than €. 1,500.
More public schools are urgently needed, but investments are being made in a concerted manner
In the face of unjust and harmful realities that urgently need to be changed, it is always claimed that this is a “complex issue”. That is how people become paralyzed, they give up and everything continues as it suits the elites who benefit from it, right?
To move the solution forward, the first thing is to stop them from creating problems, to X-ray reality, to diagnose it and to get to work. And on this issue, there are two specific lines of action:
The first is to increase investment in public schools, by increasing taxes on multinationals and billionaires to pay for them and by increasing the education budget (because this course begins with the promoted “Plan for Strengthening Languages and Mathematics”, decaffeinated by having only 95 million euros. 500 million euros promised).
And of course, also take advantage of the drop in the birth rate to close unnecessary concerted classrooms and direct students to public classes. Will someone ring the cat? I hope so, but I doubt it. At least in Andalusia, with the PP Council exercising educational powers, we are going to be more concerted and not less with the risk that even the secondary school diplomas that until now can only be public or private are about to materialize. Why doesn’t the left stand up to reduce and close concerts? Aren’t they afraid of electoral sanctions and is therefore also our social responsibility, all of us?
With more money for the public, more teachers would be hired and with these human and material resources, attractive linguistic, sports and creative activities could be offered in the afternoon, from the public system, with other teaching teams, which would make it unnecessary to pay for extracurricular activities outside of school.
Shorten and streamline the workday
Finally, we must not forget a second line of action that is necessary not only with children in mind but also with families and society in mind. I am referring to the inevitable reduction and rationalisation of working hours for workers.
To claim that forcing children to go to school in the morning and afternoon helps mothers to reconcile their work is a misleading half-truth. What is urgent is to reduce and rationalize the working hours of fathers and mothers, which are today the main cause of the epidemic of mental illness.
Because we must realize our right to live without every hour being spent producing, eating and sleeping. Just this week of “back to school”, a study by the Autonomous University of Barcelona presents with data what we collectively know from experience: that the high consumption of anxiolytics in Spain is due above all to the poor organization of work that generates stress and makes it impossible to reconcile.
All of this is exacerbated in women. Because I’m going to share with you something I discovered these days: Children of college-educated mothers are up to 12 times less likely to drop out of school. Knowing this: Who do you see every afternoon with the little ones to supervise homework, moms or dads?
Let us not get distracted and talk about what needs to be transformed to improve the lives of the social majority.
