There are schools where the committed teaching staff goes to great lengths to ensure their students move forward, to provide them with the best possible education and ensure they leave with the necessary basic training. This is their will and the main goal that guides their work (I am talking about the vocational and involved ones, not those who land in the system because they want to be civil servants or because the degree they studied has no other outlets). Let us imagine today one of these young teachers full of illusions landing in the real world. What will they find? To begin with, until they have a permanent position, they will be wandering through different educational centers and the first thing they will discover is the enormous “diversity” that characterizes the Catalan school system. And I am not talking about the diversity of the student body, which is what is talked about most when discussing problems in education (sometimes, as an immigrant, I am tempted to take out my report cards and those of my children to show that no, no, I swear, I have done nothing to lower the level).
The first major difference is marked by a classic: the income of the neighborhood and the families. A difference that becomes notorious between public and charter schools but, at times, also between public schools located in different neighborhoods. A school in Gràcia with a majority of Catalan-speaking parents sensitized to numerous causes, organized through the PTA and with the capacity to mobilize when they believe the center is not acting as it should (even though it was in such a center where, many years ago, my eldest son was called a "fucking Moor" for the first time in his life) is not the same as some portables on the periphery of the periphery with families living as best they can in a tiny and dilapidated apartment, with deficient public transport and difficulties accessing all kinds of basic services, with parents who not only do not help their children with homework but who need these children to understand the society in which they live.
In one neighborhood, environmentalism is the dominant religion and you will be in trouble if they discover you with a sandwich wrapped in aluminum foil or giving sugar to the children, which is worse than cocaine, or using the wrong pronoun when addressing a student or, even worse, making a joke that could be considered sexist or racist. And if you raise your voice, or are too vehement in your way of treating any youngster, prepare yourself for a long meeting in the principal's office, where teachers are now called more often than students. In another neighborhood, you will find fundamentalist families who would never dream of setting foot in their children's school, but they will stage a protest at the door if you decide that the girl has to do swimming, or you teach the sex education class established in the curriculum, or you express some idea in the classroom that might go against the values of the "diverse" creature to whom you have to say no, that she does not need to learn that respect for democratic values is above respect for the values of her particular and sacred family tradition.
A separate chapter is the diversity of pedagogical systems: traditional classic, project-based, cooperative learning, with computers, without computers, with mandatory readings from thirty years ago or on the latest trendy topic. All interdisciplinary, intercultural, and all the inters you want. And inclusive, the most important thing. The school must be inclusive. Which does not mean raising the salaries of the parents of poor students so that they can "self-include" in the middle class, but rather that in the same classroom, with the same number of teachers (one, and there are days not even that, taking into account their perpetual exhaustion), there can be autistic students, disabled students without an aide, ADHD, dyslexic, dyscalculic, special or specific educational needs, and diagnoses of all kinds. Those who still think that teachers have too many holidays should spend a week in one of these classrooms, just one, to see how long they last.
