How are you doing? I don’t know if it will cheer you up if I tell you that Christmas is coming (I don’t like the idea), but at least I hope you have a few days off.
Those of you who frequent this little corner every Tuesday know that in educational centers (especially high schools) a lively debate has taken place in recent years between teachers with fairly strong positions and a certain irreconcilable appearance. But just in case this isn’t familiar to you, I’m going to explain in summary everything that a space like this requires.
Some teachers argue that the standard of education has fallen significantly in recent years and that diplomas are awarded with excessive glee. They are supporters of the “culture of effort” and, let’s say, of traditional education, with specific content to memorize and a defense of knowledge for knowledge’s sake.
Others often respond that what happened was that before only a select few studied and it was easier to teach that way. This “effort” is a trap because the situation of each person matters much more and they defend the new pedagogies, the skills which appear in the new law and the “know-how” more than the knowledge itself.
This very superficial description leaves out nuance, not everyone who belongs to one group or another defends everything that group says, but it helps.
In this bulletin, I admit, you gave more votes to the second group. Visions like those of Jesús Rogero and Dani Turienzo or that of director Toni Solano, who have already passed through here in previous months, would enter here.
We owed a small debt to the former – there aren’t a few – and this week we started to remedy that with an interview with Carlos Fernández Liria and Javier Mestre. Two high school teachers wrote with four hands School and freedom (Akal), a book “halfway between pamphlet and manifesto” which makes a declaration of intention from the subtitle: “Arguments to defend teaching against educational policies and insane educational discourses”.
Mestre and Liria accuse Lomloe, against competitive exams, against the “ideological totalitarianism” of parents who take their children to charter schools to instill in them their way of thinking (right and left). They believe that the level has fallen, that teachers are a disgrace to education, that anti-repetition measures are a fraud. Here is the full talk and of course in the book everything is explained better.
I encourage you to read everyone’s interviews, I think that together, they give you an idea of the direction this sometimes very bitter debate is taking. Much better argued by its protagonists, in any case, than I was able to do.
This week we talked about…
- The UPV/EHU elects the rector. This Tuesday, the University of the Basque Country will vote on whether Eva Ferreira, professor of economics, will reaffirm her presidency or if Joserra Bengoetxea, professor of philosophy, will replace her, after a campaign marked by a strange incident in which a vice-president President The rector of Ferreira dedicated himself to insulting his opponent with an anonymous account on social networks. We interviewed them both taking advantage of the opportunity. Find the rector’s proposals here, and those of her opponent here.
- Almost a lifetime of occupying positions without minimum qualifications at UCLM. This is the current director of research at the University of Castilla, Antonio Alfaro, whose entire academic career is under suspicion. He began his career in positions of responsibility for which he did not have the necessary category in 2012, under the direction of the current rector, Julián Garde, when he was vice-rector and he appointed him head of office although he is a laboratory technician. (you must be an administrative person). From there he moved to his current position, for which he should be A1 (he wasn’t). It also has an open process for multiple jobs without a permit (it’s mandatory and one of its occupations is already full-time). We asked the university and the ministry and, as is usual in these cases, no one said anything. Sometimes academic autonomy is this: No one demands accountability that I don’t intend to offer. I leave you the entire article.
- The Piarists of Catalonia recognize more abuses. The Piarist Josep Maria Canet committed abuse against children between the ages of 8 and 12 during his period as a missionary and director of a boarding school in Senegal, between 1992 and 2005, as the Pía school now admits, which limited itself at the time to removing him from the country and then gave him positions of responsibility. This is the second case of abuse admitted in the African country due to scalopias after that of Manel Sales.
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- Families report that 33,000 children are still not in school in Valencia. The (educational) fronts are multiplying in Valencia. The most important one happened because on Sunday, a worker died when a structure of a school being rehabilitated fell on him. This is not one of the usual themes of this bulletin, it is an accident (even if we will have to see if there are responsibilities), but beyond the tragedy it represents, it has given rise to caution increased in other centers where actions are also underway these days.
- This makes sense, but at the same time, the reality is that four weeks after DANA, thousands of children have not yet received an educational solution. According to the main AMPA association in the province, there are still 32,800 children without classes. The ministry speaks of 24,272. Regardless, many boys and girls have had their routines interrupted and still don’t see anything resembling a return to normal. The educational community has had enough and took to the streets on Saturday to demand the resignation of Councilor Antonio Rovira, whom they accuse of being “incapable”.
- Goyache. The rector of Complutense notes that the prize he so insisted on awarding to Ayuso against everyone’s opinion did not help the Madrid president to have him in better esteem. The president responded yesterday to Ayuso, who said that at Complutense “we give out diplomas like churros”, he reminded her that she graduated from this university and asked for respect.
With that, I say goodbye, thank you for reading.
Next Tuesday, no more.
Have a nice week!
