Teachers lack confidence in the training they have received. This is one of the main conclusions of the TALIS (Teaching and Learning International Survey) 2024 report, published by the OECD every five years and analyzing the state of education systems in more than 50 countries. According to this study, only 57% of secondary school teachers in Spain consider the initial training provided to future teachers—and, therefore, the training they themselves received—to be adequate. The international study admits that the proportion of Spanish teachers who hold this opinion "is well below" the OECD average (77%) and the European Union average (71%). The inevitable flip side of the percentage in Spain implies that almost half of secondary school teachers do not consider initial teacher training to be adequate.

A few days ago, the results of the basic skills tests for sixth grade primary school and fourth year secondary school were released. As usual, the focus has been on the decline or stagnation in results. But perhaps we should go beyond the numbers. Not to minimize them, but to understand what lies behind them. Because student results are not only their responsibility. They also speak to the education system we have built—or that we have allowed to develop.

Teachers are pondering what to do in the face of the emergence of artificial intelligence, ChatGPT, and other devices that have quickly become a kind of phantom arm for students who are increasingly distracted and inattentive, unable to grasp a single stimulus. A simple explanation or a written paragraph-length instruction becomes difficult to assimilate. The impact on attention span and concentration is very evident. Sometimes I think we should conduct memory workshops, like those offered by people suffering from Alzheimer's when they attend day centers. It's astonishing and worrying. The mechanisms for acquiring knowledge and the way we learn have changed to such extremes that it's hard to identify. Keeping the electronic device open while things are happening in the classroom (debates, presentations, collaborative work) has become an automatic habit, without which we seem to lose our bearings. ChatGPT has become a teaching assistant: it explains what they haven't understood in class with the synchronous teacher. It also helps with completing assignments. It replaces reading an article with a summary of the main ideas. Proposes developing topics, prepares presentations.