Education: step by step

It will not be easy to turn around the strained climate into which the educational world has fallen. The atmosphere has degraded too much. The good offices of the president of the Council of Education, Joan Manuel del Pozo, who is tasked with redirecting the situation by seeking the pacification of the sector and a great country agreement, give reasons for hope. But beyond good words and a good temperament, facts, clear priorities, and sensible and brave decisions will be needed. Above all, a lot of common sense: because what is needed is to change course, but without great inventions and, also, with a little patience when it comes to obtaining results. There will not be, like in football, magical comebacks.

That said, the measure presented by the Department of Education this Thursday, consisting of recovering mandatory readings in high school, promoting center reading plans, and returning to paper – to the paper book, also including, if necessary, the textbook – is on the right track. It is, moreover, because it is presented as an objective without being an imposition, respecting the autonomy of each school, of each team of teachers. But the guideline serves to address a key issue: attentive reading, reading comprehension. A crucial aspect because it is at the base of everything. Reading well and truly understanding the text reverberates later in each and every one of the tasks in the classroom and at home, whatever the subject matter, including mathematics and the harder sciences. It often happens that students, in level tests, simply do not fully assimilate the meaning of the questions. The loss of reading capacity, which is often linked to the capacity for concentration, is at the root of the vast majority of the problems we are dragging.

Therefore, this first indication is welcome, which is undoubtedly not a surprising turn. But the fact is that right now, as things stand, what is needed is to keep our feet firmly on the ground: in classroom strategies, in general dialogue, and in negotiations. In this sense, it will also be key to have a shared willingness to start from scratch, without prejudices, without pointing fingers at those to blame.

Is everyone willing? The first signals given by the unions do not point in this direction: they maintain the dialectic of confrontation. Perhaps that is no longer what is called for now. The labor gains from the complicated end of last school year –regarding salary, ratios, more staff– have been significant, and there is a government commitment to move towards an investment in education that reaches 6% of the GDP. Agreeing to even a limited period of respite from protests would surely be a gesture welcomed by the community as a whole: surely by the teachers themselves, by the parents, the students, the other professionals who have been joining the centers, the leisure monitors, the people from the world of culture affected by the halt in school trips...

We must think about all the groups that, inside and outside of school, participate in the education of the boys and girls. Everyone must be heard. It is necessary, of course, to continue increasing resources, but it is also important that the decisions being made are well-focused, well-accepted by everyone, and, therefore, well-executed. Now is not the time for new experiments or new confrontations.