Reflections on the teachers' strike

It was evident that the pressure cooker would explode. And it has done so with a bang, as expected. Now the doubt is whether, as things stand, teachers will return to classrooms with more or less frustration than they felt when they started the protests.The Department of Education has not lived up to the situation and it seems that the opportunity for a quid pro quo has been lost. At first, and in declarations surprising for their naivety, the minister Esther Niubó (she knows that I personally appreciate her) declared that she shared the teachers' demands and that she extended her hand to the unions to negotiate. In a message on X, she remarked that the strike was a "call for recognition of a profession that requires all the support of the Government".Even so, it was decided to reach an agreement with two minority education unions, CCOO and UGT, leaving out the two majority ones, USTEC and ASPEPC-SPS. Now the minister finds herself in a deadlock, because if she reforms the agreement reached with the former, she will put them in a bad light, and if she does not reform it, the soufflé of teacher discontent will not go down.Many families are wondering what teachers want now. Well, they want, to begin with, the same as them: a salary increase and an improvement in their working conditions.The school cannot survive without optimism or self-confidence, and a basic law of human affairs tells us that the images we project (rightly or wrongly) of ourselves are true in their consequences. Some years ago, a Singaporean politician, to whom I asked what the keys to his country's educational success were, immediately replied: "That all those involved know why they do what they do and that they are convinced that what they do is the best they can do."If we listen to our teachers, we soon realize that we are not Singapore. This does not mean that there are no teachers and educational centers of great quality. It means something more important: that the key to Catalonia's educational progress is not in their hands. Who has it is the perplexity of teacher 60,001 (accepting that there are 120,000 teachers in Catalonia in round numbers).

Since the beginning of the year, I have collected a good number of press headlines about teacher discontent. I have some examples because I believe they are reliable indicators of the state of mind of our average teacher: "Burned-out teachers: there is an overprotection of the student that leaves the teacher tied hand and foot"; “The percentage of teachers requesting help for depression due to the conflict in schools is increasing”; “Aggressions, threats, and pressure on teachers are increasing”; “There is a brutal lack of discipline"; It is true that there is a global education crisis, but students in Catalonia are showing the greatest rejection of school in all of Spain. As for teachers, their situation is paradoxical. According to the latest TALIS report, 95% declare themselves satisfied with their work; however, 50% of secondary school teachers state that they suffer a lot or a great deal of stress, a percentage that reaches 58% among new teachers. A study by USTEC ("The great teacher resignation") reveals that 36% are willing to abandon the profession.However this strike ends, one thing is certain: we have a serious problem brewing in education...The causes are multiple, but there are a couple that seem more determining to me.The first: as Tina Boogren, who has written extensively on this issue, points out, “teachers make more minute-by-minute decisions than neurosurgeons... and that's why they go home so exhausted every day." Teaching is an emotionally and cognitively demanding job, a fact that is not always socially appreciated, although studies assure that teachers' exposure to the risk of work-related stress is today higher than that suffered by miners, paratroopers, test pilots, and circus trapezists.

The second: commenting on Finland's dramatic fall in PISA results, Andreas Schleicher stated (Financial Times, 12-5-2023) that “in rich countries, students have become consumers and teachers service providers”. It is no coincidence that teacher strikes coincide with those of doctors. These also attend to an increasing number of patients in their consultations who already have the diagnosis and treatment they need, because they found it on ChatGPT. The doctor should limit himself to signing the prescription and remaining unconditionally at their service. Teachers already understand me.