How to rebuild the educational dialogue

The educational situation in Catalonia is complex, generating intense emotions, firm positions, and frustration. In this context, it is important to remember a key idea. When emotional tension increases, the capacity for reflection and the quality of decisions decrease. In conflict situations, the brain's amygdala, responsible for emotional reactions, activates defensive responses, while the prefrontal regions, responsible for critical thinking, planning, and complex decision-making, reduce their effectiveness. In other words, when we feel threatened or neglected, we listen worse, nuance less, and find less space to build agreements. Therefore, reducing tension is not weakness, but a possibility for dialogue. Stable agreements are not usually born from emotional escalation, but from the recovery of a minimum of trust that allows us to listen to the other without giving up our own positions.However, it would be a mistake to reduce the current debate to issues of ratios, salaries, or resources for diversity support, even though their importance is undeniable. These elements are essential for a quality education, but they do not, on their own, explain the complexity of the current moment or resolve all its tensions. Collective humility is needed to recognize that education is a living system where pedagogical, social, cultural, economic, technological, and emotional factors interact. There are no single causes or simple solutions.In this context, the curricular debate should also become a central element. We live in a dynamic and changing world, and education must serve to empower society in its leading role in these changes. We often simplistically, and too often partisanly, oppose memory and skills, knowledge and creativity, content and motivation. But the human brain does not work like that. Scientific evidence shows that creativity requires prior knowledge, that critical thinking requires information, and that problem-solving depends on mental schemes built through learning. Therefore, mnemonic learning remains relevant. The problem is not memorizing, but doing so without understanding. The great challenge is to place knowledge in meaningful contexts, connected with current reality and the interests of the students. Creativity does not replace knowledge, but it is key to reorganizing it and making it operational. That is why it is equally essential.

However, critical understanding and creativity require time and effort, often in tension with the current immediacy, which goes in the opposite direction. This demands rethinking the curriculum so that it allows for the integration and consolidation of learning by having sufficient time for reflection. Planning very well what needs to be known at each stage, what the essential reference points should be on which we can combine rigor and meaning, effort and understanding, critical reflectivity and creativity. We must face a reform that allows students and teachers to enjoy the act of understanding what they are learning.Another less visible but equally crucial dimension is the social one, including the situation of Catalan. In recent decades, formative functions that were previously shared with families and the environment have been transferred to the educational system: emotional education, coexistence, habits, technology, risk prevention, or social inclusion. This evolution responds to real needs and has often been positive, but it has increased the responsibilities of educational centers. This process has not been accompanied by an honest social reflection on the necessary limits and conditions, nor by an equivalent reinforcement of the role of families. The result is a progressive overload of teachers. Sustained stress increases cognitive fatigue, reduces self-efficacy, and limits the capacity for innovation and adaptation, which is precisely what is most demanded of them.

In parallel, the demands on teachers have increased significantly. This is not negative in itself. A complex society requires trained and flexible professionals. The problem is not the demand itself, but that it is often not accompanied by the necessary resources, time, and recognition. We cannot ask for more personalization, inclusion, innovation, technology, and emotional support without reviewing the real working conditions.In this scenario, no actor has a complete answer: not the administration, not teachers, not unions, not families, nor experts. Therefore, we must avoid simplifications and calmly embrace complexity. Education is the most decisive social investment, but it needs less confrontation and more listening; less reaction and more deliberation; less blame and more shared responsibility; and less partisanship and more of a national pact. When the brain feels safe, it learns better. And when a society calmly discusses education, it also learns about itself. The challenge is to move towards stable spaces for dialogue that allow this complexity to be addressed with rigor. We urgently need a plural table that makes this possible with hope, courage, and serenity.