The public school has completely Hispanized my children

After the level of Catalan use in Catalonia is about to enter a point of no return, I believe we must definitively open the debate. Is it necessary for the Catalan education system to have a dual network? That is to say, to allow families to choose whether they want their children to be educated in Catalan "immersion" (except for the Spanish subject) or in Spanish (except for the Catalan subject). Many of my colleagues fiercely defend the current model, and until recently I still believed it was the best option because it was only a matter of implementing the law we already had with conviction and courage. But neither before nor after the rulings has a law been followed that theoretically prioritized Catalan, because over all these years, there have been countless interactions in Spanish in classrooms that should have been in Catalan. And this has been the case because no one has controlled it, let alone penalized it. It can therefore be stated that we do not need rulings detrimental to Catalan because Catalan has already been undermined by itself with multiple collaborators, active and passive. In recent years, I have seen how attending public high school has completely Hispanized my children, to the point of unconsciously speaking to us in Spanish at home as a projection of their academic and social routine. This is by no means an isolated case, and therefore, my concern lies in the fact that we have reached a point where Catalan schools are achieving the exact opposite of what they intended in the eighties. Dual network

In the institute where I work, and it is no exception, all students speak Spanish among themselves, also in the street, regardless of the language their parents speak. The reason is complex, but there are clearly determining factors: the poor integration into the Catalan linguistic reality of the sons and grandsons of Spanish immigrants, and the arrival of a very large volume of new arrivals from all over the world (many of them with Spanish as their initial language) who, in a very short period of time, have not been able to integrate into Catalan culture and, therefore, have done so in Spanish as a lingua franca. Also, unfortunately, the lukewarmness (at least in practice) in politically defending the integrating idea of Catalan as the language of those who want to live in Catalonia has harmed us.

What would happen, then, if there were a double system where parents could choose the Catalan option? Well, teachers and families could firmly and unrenounceably demand this linguistic commitment. And it would be protected from interpretations and legal interference. Perhaps then my children would learn many languages. We don't want to give up on that, but at least in high school they would interact in Catalan and we wouldn't lose it at home or with friends. If this generation of Catalan speakers falls, we lose the future. We need young people who naturally take over Catalan, who feel proud of it and who use it in all areas of life. The most ironic thing would be, I am sure, that most families, of different origins and languages, would preferentially choose the Catalan option. Because, no matter how much some may not want it, the idiomatic language of Catalonia is the best for welcoming, integrating, prospering, loving the land and building the country.