Arrogance, dismissiveness, and haughtiness are terrible tools in any negotiation. They can give a false sense of security, but they often backfire on those who use them. Both Generalities, the Catalan and the Valencian, can apply this to the standoff they are having with teachers. Also —in the case of Catalonia— unions that thought they had a representation of the teaching collective that has been proven they did not. It also applies to journalists who present a fundamental civil right —the right to strike— as little less than an antisocial act. All of them —certain politicians, certain unions, certain journalists— have fallen into the error of taking for granted that the strong, deep mobilization of teachers in public schools and in Catalan (two things that go together) was reduced to a salary increase. There are variables that certain people in power do not take into account because they do not know them. For example, the vocation for public service. For example, dignity.Be that as it may, the reactivation of protests in Catalonia, and the continuation of the indefinite strike in the Valencian Country, have shattered the plans of the rulers to whom, in the first instance, the demands of teachers and professors were addressed. Fragile and inconsistent plans, as demonstrated by the fact that the rulers in question —consellera Niubó in Catalonia, president Pérez Llorca in the Valencian Country— have fallen into the error of saying, or implying, that the teachers were actually seeking “other objectives” than those that in theory had led them to strike. Hidden, veiled, unconfessed objectives. Who knows if unconfessable.Pérez Llorca, who as the successor of the unfortunate Mazón is a loudmouth and a reckless person, accused teachers of going on strike which had "a political component": the strike —with its corresponding loss of job and salary, as they like to talk about salaries— is always one of the most profoundly political acts a citizen can undertake in a democracy, an act as committed, conscious, and decisive as voting. Of course a strike has "a political component". Niubó, for his part, spoke of these suspicious "other objectives", as if what teachers really wanted was to destabilize the government. Mistaking the adversary and their objectives is a fatal error.Of the tasks that fall to those who assume government responsibilities, few —or none— are more important than taking care of public pensions, healthcare, and schools, which in the case of Catalonia, the Valencian Country, and the Balearic Islands are in Catalan (we should also applaud the gesture of the teachers in the Balearic Islands, who have donated one hundred thousand euros from their common fund in support of their Valencian and Catalan colleagues). Many years of bad decisions, abandonments, non-compliance, and partisan and/or ideological manipulation maneuvers have accumulated in public schools. Intelligent and audacious elites would see an opportunity to roll up their sleeves and shine with good work planned in the short, medium, and long term. Mediocre ones see a war against an enemy that seems incomprehensible to them.

It's time to talk seriously about school. There is a lot of work to be done. In fact, the important task begins now. If, indeed, as the teachers who demonstrated said on Friday, the protests "were not about money", it is time to delve deeply into the problems of the system. Today in the newspaper we give voice to the experts. They all advocate for bold changes. For a new educational pact. To restore hope to school. And it is clear that money doesn't fix everything.

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.

The Generalitat signs a pre-agreement with the unions representing the majority of the sector and, on the other hand, a very broad majority of teachers who participated in the consultation reject it. It is not the first time something similar has happened. In December 2023, the Department of Health reached an agreement with the majority unions, also in nursing, and on the other hand there was an indefinite strike that lasted more than 40 days, led by organizations that until then were very minority. The major farmers' mobilizations in February 2024 were not led by the majority union Unió de Pagesos nor any other agricultural union, but by a new organization called Revolta Pagesa which operated outside the established representation.

The indefinite strike of teachers in the Valencian Community is heading into its fourth week with growing tension and almost blocked negotiations. Also with a standoff with the Spanish government delegation, which has initiated the procedure to open disciplinary proceedings against the National Police officer who this Sunday assaulted a teacher who was demonstrating at the gates of the Ministry of Education to ask the regional government to accept the teachers' demands. In the video shared on social media, the woman, a 68-year-old retired teacher, is seen walking down the street amidst the protests. Then, an officer, whose head is covered with a helmet, runs towards her, pushes her violently from behind, and knocks her to the ground.

In the worrying and complex educational crisis that the country is suffering –inclusion, knowledge level, debate on methods, school dropout, student diversity, risk of segregation, insecurity in some centers, etc.–, a crisis, on the other hand, very general around the world, for weeks the element that has taken on maximum relevance and centrality in Catalonia is the salary issue. It is not a minor element. And it is absolutely a legitimate demand. Any professional group has the right to demand salary improvements, of course. Teachers too, who, in fact, like the bulk of Catalan workers, have lost purchasing power in recent years.

No agreement. The second meeting between the Ministry of Education and Valencian unions will end with positions still far apart and will not serve to end an indefinite strike that already totals six days and continues to enjoy broad support, as demonstrated by the fact that this Monday, according to Generalitat data, 39.7% of teachers have joined it.

Finally, the Minister of the Interior, Núria Parlon, has acknowledged the error of plainclothes officers infiltrating a teachers' assembly and has apologized. Parlon described the incident as a "poorly planned operational maneuver" that has resulted in a breakdown of trust between educational unions and the Government at a time of maximum labor tension, and has committed to ending the inertia of the corps that caused it. The ministry has, therefore, completed the U-turn that was glimpsed in the early moments of the crisis, ruling out, however, any political responsibility or "bad faith" on the part of the corps.

The Minister of the Interior, Núria Parlon, has said that they will assess the appropriateness and proportionality of having infiltrated Mossos agents into a teachers' assembly. That the action was not opportune, because they were in full negotiation with the unions, has already been assessed. And that it may be proportionate is frightening: if the police infiltrate a meeting of teachers (peaceful people, even if they are raising a labor dispute), how many other meetings of struggling groups are they not infiltrating?

The education sector launches a new cycle of mobilizations in defense of public education. On the eve of Thursday's strike day in early childhood education (0-3) –the first of seventeen called for next month across all educational stages–, teachers have staged various traffic disruptions, protests, and actions in schools since early this morning.

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).

Last Wednesday, Joan Coscubiela published in ARA the article “Teacher Malaise and Unionism”. An alternative title could have been “70,000 strikers are wrong; I am right!”, but the paternalism would be too obvious.Questioning the 50,000 education workers who have signed the manifesto Let's Dignify or the 40,000 teachers who have voted against the agreement between CCOO, UGT, and the Government is a rather pathetic role. That is why the author chose to attack USTEC. Not their specific actions in the current conflict, but the model of “malestar unionism” – opposed to a supposed “responsible” unionism – and its “tone”. With this, he tried to shift the conflict to the ground of moral delegitimization in order not to address either the content of the agreement – manifestly insufficient – or the gestation of its signing, outside the legitimate space of negotiation, in which CCOO and UGT do not reach 25% of the representation. Coscubiela speaks with an argumentation in hand. Therefore, the best response is to go to the things themselves.Without conflict, there is nothing to agree on. Fortunately, the usual strategy of concertation unionism of picking fruits sown by others when they are still green and presenting them as their own victories has ended in bankruptcy. What caused the formula to fail this time? Two years of organization in which the campaign Let's Dignify the Profession has contributed significantly. How did we approach it?Defining demands collectively. To politicize malaise, diagnosis is first needed. Therefore, we conducted the study of educational malaise with 12,000 surveys followed by 6,000 interviews to determine the real demands of educational staff and incorporate them into the manifesto: recover purchasing power, reduce ratios, create resources for inclusive education, and eliminate bureaucracy.Achieving the majority. We collected 50,000 signatures to build legitimacy for transversal and clear demands, promoting assemblies in each center and mapping grassroots organization. Also planning: nine months in advance, the massive educational strike of February 11 was on the calendar within a structured plan, with tests of strength like the massive demonstration on November 15.Negotiating until the end. For six months and over thirty hours, we have not left the table and have led the negotiation, contributing a large part of the measures included in the agreement. And we have done so with transparency, broadcasting the meetings live to the Dignifiquemos Forum, which has over 4,000 followers.This has been our task until the department has given up convincing and has abruptly cut off dialogue to close the agreement with the leadership of CCOO and UGT in a political operation to save the Government and pressure for budget approval. A crude demobilization maneuver on the eve of the March strikes.At the March 9 meeting, everything was already cooked: news about the signing of the agreement published while we were still “negotiating”, videos selling its virtues within a minute, signing ceremony at Palau in the afternoon. Amateur theater. That is why it is especially cynical to claim that there are unions that “never sign”, when CCOO's tactic involves delaying so that signing cannot happen at the optimal point. Otherwise, victories would be collective and could not be sold as “useful unionism”.

Perhaps the worst move by the Isla administration so far is the phantom agreement reached with the teachers' unions. This agreement, which only involved the minority unions in the sector—UGT and Comisiones Obreras—was nevertheless announced with great fanfare, hailed as "historic," and given extraordinary publicity. This left teachers feeling not only neglected but also mocked, thrown to the wolves by a public opinion all too receptive to the caricature of the teacher who takes two months of vacation and then complains. It was a tactically disastrous move because it left the major unions no option but to demonstrate their strength in the streets, in the most forceful way possible.

I cross Barcelona's Gran Vía amidst the flood of teachers. A teacher asks me if it's clear that they haven't taken to the streets solely because of salaries. I think so, that it's been clear for some time now (especially since this week of nationwide mobilizations) that they can't take it anymore, that they lack manpower and resources, that they suffer from a host of grievances, including financial ones, just like the doctors, with whom, incidentally, they've shared for years the sentiment that they're fed up with bureaucracy without anything changing.

The Catalan education law (LEC) has been in force for just over fifteen years. This is a good time to move away from nostalgia and instead make useful reference to the debates and concerns of the present. It is certainly worth recalling that, together with Francesc Colomé, we accounted for what had been accomplished during that period and shaped it in the book New school, free townPublished in 2013, we explained what, in our understanding, it meant to govern a system with over a million students and nearly 100,000 teachers.

I am a teacher. I have worked in public schools for many years, and throughout my career, I have been involved with different schools, teams, and educational projects. I write from my personal experience, knowing that not all situations are the same, but with the need to put words to an experience that has been repeated far too often over the years.

Catalonia is experiencing strange days that are dragging on longer than expected, if such a thing as strange days even has a time limit. It feels like we're living in a disaster movie, with everything unfolding in a chain reaction, like those lives that can't seem to get back on their feet. All we needed was the wind. It arrived with a warning, though, complete with an alarm, and when you hear it in the street amidst all the other alarms, it feels like a contemporary concert. It's come to assert itself amidst so much inclement weather, as if we'd been missing it. The wind, a bothersome phenomenon when it's just a breeze. The wind, which brings no answers and bursts forth with the force of someone who has no arguments. This aggressive wind, like an authoritarian leader around the world. The wind, which doesn't love trees. The noise of the wind, which keeps us awake and seeps into our brains as if a ghost wanted to speak to us. No, not that wind now. We're all too tired. But we're pinning our hopes for calm on the anticyclone that's about to arrive, they say, and that will bring a weather respite. Because you can't please everyone, and too much rain is usually harmful. They say there will be days of sunshine in a row. Perhaps we should also set an alarm to help us get all the vitamin D we're lacking. Although it's also on sunny days that everything is laid bare and the disaster becomes clearer. Just in case someone is unaware that Catalonia has been paralyzed for years and that the wind is the last thing to enter through the door. This is what happens when you leave it open. They already told us that it's wise to be careful with the draftsIn any case, you don't need to be particularly esoteric to see that everything is a sign, not very subtly, warning us that we're at the limit of too many things and that it's time to start moving in the right direction. With the wind, we must wait for it to stop, but many other situations are within human control and can be resolved.