Rereading Oriol Bohigas, I found in his diaries a reference to his time at the mythical Institut-Escola. He recounts an anecdote illustrating the civic spirit of that exemplary institution, which was meant to be the vanguard of republican educational change. The dictatorship destroyed it all. Damned authoritarian intolerance, which is returning... Educational optimism, tinged with an essential veil of naivety, remained buried for decades. But we must also return to it. Urgently.
The anecdote Bohigas tells refers to a boy who, having just joined the institute, one day decided to spit on the ground in the middle of the cemented courtyard. The matter reached the office of the headmaster, the revered Dr. Estalella, who, incidentally, knew the names of all the children and greeted them personally every day, I don't remember now if on arrival or departure. What did Estalella do about that subversive spit? He called the firefighters, whose station was next door, to disinfect the entire courtyard. "I can still see the hoses deployed and a deluge of water flooding everything. The lesson was absolute and, for all the students, of almost eternal efficacy." And from the anecdote, to the category: "A sublimation of a way of understanding pedagogy: to shame for lack of responsibility, instead of scolding for lack of obedience," writes Bohigas.
Today, I feel that neither shame nor scolding is happening. We live in careless and ill-mannered times. Just look at President Trump, a media pundit, a demagogic windbag, the classic schoolyard bully. Now a global geopolitical abuser. If the most powerful man in the world behaves like this, with venomous words and sexist gestures of a neighborhood thug like he did with the NBC journalist, what can we expect?
When we talk about education – and we should talk about it, shouldn't we? – we should go back to the common sense of civility. To recover that kind of loving pedagogical enlightened despotism that permeated the pioneers of a century ago, or of the 60s, when we started from very low down and it seemed that everything was possible. We should return to the intelligent exercise of wise and balanced authority, but authority nonetheless. At school and at home. How do we all get started? It's easier said than done, of course.
Bad education is not only the product of an educational system in crisis, but also of a society that has confused educating with overprotecting, a society with low expectations when it comes to children. It is not about returning to any Spartan harshness, but rather, for example, about being clear about the value of a no.
Two years younger than Bohigas, the pedagogue Jordi Cots (Barcelona, 1927), one of the "magnificent seven" who founded Rosa Sensat – there was also, of course, Marta Mata, whose birth centenary and 20th anniversary of death we are now celebrating – in his memoirs A life dedicated to children recalls his time in different schools. He did not have Bohigas' luck. But he managed, and he did his baccalaureate, already under the dictatorship, at the Institut Balmes, the oldest in Barcelona, where his classmates included Manolo Sacristán and Josep M. Castellet, and professors such as the philosopher Joaquim Carreras Artau and the translator of Plato, Jaume Olives. Not bad. At university he would meet Josep M. Ainaud, Josep M. Espinàs, Antoni Tàpies, Francesc Casares, Carlos Barral, Alberto Oliart, Albert Manent, Enric Jardí... He studied law. Years later, he would tell "teachers and social workers, a majority of idealistic people" that "law helps to understand reality". Down to earth. It suits us.
By the way, Cots and Bohigas, the latter at the wheel of a 600, once went to l'Escala to visit Víctor Català with Joaquim Molas and Joan Triadú, a good friend of Cots, who, before being a pedagogue, was also a poet, with Hölderlin as a reference. Years later, Bohigas (MBM) would design the building for the Thau school, founded by Cots and Triadú. Cots, whom Jaume Bofill – yes, the one from the Bofill Foundation, now Equitat.org –, a professor of metaphysics, pushed towards pedagogy out of the conviction that "poets should be educators". And educators, people who live culture. Like those who founded Rosa Sensat half a century ago. Now it's time to refound education. Good education.
