Assumptions and Motivations

There is an assumption, a set of related assumptions in fact, behind all of these observations, comments, criticisms and proposed solutions, an assumption that may not be shared by all readers. The assumption is that the purpose, the only important purpose, of education, is to prepare young people to make the most of their future in the world.  This view is certainly not shared by most of the people who create and maintain our systems of education. The main aim of this work is to encourage people to consider and come to share that assumption, but those who do not initially share it may well be rather mystified by much of what I have to say.

That assumption, so easily and regularly forgotten, is something I can never forget, because of the other major motivation of this blog, which is not theoretical but personal and practical:

I benefitted enormously, to a degree that can scarcely be overstated, by having parents who understood that hard work brings a better life, and transmitted this idea by their daily example (which is the only way that actually works). This combined with the luck of having a decentish brain, and going to very good schools (in the case of my primary school because we were Catholics, and the Grammar school because it still existed and I found a way through the 11+).

A lot of luck, yes, but that combination of circumstances should be, and could be, much more readily available than it is. Even the example, which cannot always, or even often, come from parents, but there are other people who could give that example. I have seen now a generation of children come and go, and the majority have had to settle for far less than they might have had, for reasons that do not need to exist, and without ever really understanding that things could be different.

John Steinbeck, who I quoted a few days ago, and who came to understand the art of teaching (which most teachers do not possess) said that good teachers do not tell, they catalyze a burning desire to know. An education system should not process and control children, it should inspire them, most of them, to desire and demand a future and an intellectual life which can turn them into something they never imagined they could be.

I have spent many years observing a number of different forms and systems of education, in two different countries, and reading a great deal about others, that once existed, and that exist now in other countries. In the course of those years I have identified many failings, deficiencies so great, so damaging to the people whose lives they affect, that they must be solved, and yet I have seen little or no understanding of that imperative need, or will to seek solutions, in those who are involved and in a position to do something about them.

What should not be taught in schools

The use of schools to solve other social problems that arise when children cannot easily or comfortably be supervised by their parents, causes many more problems in the schools themselves. The need to fill a complete timetable, and to follow to some degree the model of the public boarding schools, coupled, naturally enough, with the desire of government to control growing minds, led fairly quickly to the creation of subjects which should not be taught in schools at all. If they were removed from the timetable, the school day would be much more reasonable, could address its real aims more clearly, and some activities which children learn to hate could be understood as fun.

Much of what schools do is unnecessary. Many subjects should not be taught, some because they are simply a waste of time, like religion, ethics, ciudadanía and the other ways of telling people how they should behave according to some fashion or other, and some because they are far better provided in another way. Churches are always willing to instruct the young in their beliefs and codes, and sport and the plastic arts are far more enjoyable if done freely at a municipal or private facility rather than under the full disciplinary structure of a school as they now are. Within useful subjects, a great deal of time is wasted with unnecessary material and in attempting to measure knowledge, rather than provide it and teach how to use it. And of course, the biggest problem of all is that many of the people who are forced to be there are not in fact going to benefit from it, but their presence will prevent others from benefiting.

There is no reason for schools to teach religion, unless that is one of the specific purposes of the school. Otherwise, it is a waste of time. Parents who want their children instructed in their own faith, or in some other, will find plenty of people willing and able to do it for them, freeing children two or three hours a week.

Likewise sport and art, which should be enjoyable activities done for pleasure. If there were places children could go, and choose the activities that attracted them, they would enjoy them much more, and schools, and the taxpayer, would save a fortune on all the facilities that have to be replicated unnecessarily in every school in the country.

I am not, of course, suggesting that children should not study their parents' religion, or that they should not do sport or learn art. The point is that schools are a bad place to do it.

Conversation with the Natives

In their constant struggle to improve the quality of education in this country, the relevant authorities forever miss the very point of it, create obstacles when they mean to smooth progress, ignore the people who actually know what needs to be done and how to do it, pay scrupulous attention to the interests of everyone but the children, for whose benefit the system is supposed to exist, and generally create more and more regulation and paperwork to less and less effect.

So it’s quite unusual for someone in government to say something intelligent on the subject. The surprising news in this case is that President Rajoy has suggested that there should be conversation classes with native speakers in schools, to improve the level of English. This is a good idea. If anything comes of it, it will be done badly, ineffectively and at unnecessary expense, but the idea is sound.

First, some background. The focus in Spanish schools is on grammar and vocabulary, because those who decide these things lack imagination and experience, it’s much easier to justify the marks you give if they come from written exams, and it’s difficult to do useful oral activities with groups of 30 or so pupils. Some would see these as problems to be solved. In fact, they tend to be seen as excuses not to try to do things better.

The aim of the recent Education Law is that pupils who leave High School at 18 should have a B1 level of English. For those of you who understand these things, that is Cambridge Pet level, and you will recognize the problem. It is not an independent user level. It is half a language, which is no good. You can’t actually do anything with it that a company, a University, or you yourself, can use. A B1 level does not allow you to answer the interview question ‘Do you speak English?’ with a ‘Yes.’

Also, needless to say, the aspirations of government when they wave their hands about and create these documents are not always fulfilled. Most children don’t even reach the low level that is set as the target. The result is that the great majority of Spanish youngsters leave school with a very limited knowledge of English, a bit of useless baggage that has cost them thousands of hours of wasted time, and doubtless many arguments and punishments along the way. This is not the way to do things.

The idea, though, that the purpose of language is communication, is not really recognized by the system in use. Anything that changes that perception is good. It really is like riding a bike. You are more likely to reach your destination if you actually have somewhere you want to go.

Conversation with Natives

Just to clarify:

Conversation (communication) classes with a native teacher are an important part of the process of learning a foreign language. In the case of younger (preschool or primary) children, this is because the naturalness of the accent* and the prosody (primarily intonation, and this is often underestimated or not understood) contributes greatly to the way the foundation of learning is built. They will mostly be hearing native speakers in the resources used to back up the class, and on the television and in the songs they hear and sing, and the natural rhythms of a native speaker reinforce the memory and the ease of use.

For older students this is much less important, but a native speaker, one who grew up in a cultures where the language was part of life, can provide a much more interesting background to the conversation, which adds a lot to motivation, and leads to real communication.

When I say native teacher, of course, I do mean teacher, not some random unemployed graduate found on the streets of London or Dublin or San Francisco. Teaching is not nuclear physics, but it requires competence and experience.

*it doesn’t matter all that much where it’s from, or what kind of education it denotes, as long as it’s something that most of the English speaking world would understand and accept

To Dub or not to Dub…

It was suggested recently by the President of Spain that TV should stop dubbing films and series into Spanish, as this would help improve the level of English of young Spaniards.

Even though this is almost certainly true, and the experience over many decades in countries like Sweden, Norway, Holland and Germany is that exposure to English in TV programmes from a very early age is one of the reasons for the extremely high depth and breadth of competence in English, the government is obviously not “mulling” a ban on dubbing, nor would it be right to do so.

I doubt it has any authority to do it, for a start, but there are other reasons it’s a bad idea.

There is a very good dubbing industry in Spain, and many of the voice actors are better than the Hollywood people they replace. (For some reason Hollywood doesn’t require its stars to be able to communicate like normal human beings, let alone like performers). I often prefer to watch in Spanish because they do it better, and they turn down the background noise, too. “Let’s annoy the luvvies by stopping them working” is not usually seen as good politics, especially when they are actually doing a good job.

Also, although it might benefit, undoubtedly would benefit, suitably motivated youngsters, older people would probably be a little miffed at suddenly not being able to watch the TV because the government has said so.

Another point is that the key is motivation. If you don’t find a way to motivate the young to want to learn, playing around with what’s on the telly is only going to annoy people, and achieve nothing. That motivation is one of the major failings of government in regard to Education.

And another important point is that they are far too late. With digital television and polychannel platforms it has been possible for at least 13 years to watch hundreds of different series on dozens of different channels, in the original version- which almost invariably means English- if you so choose. Some choose to, some don’t. I encourage them to do so if they find they can still enjoy the programme that way, and explain why. Government meddling would cause a lot of harm and would, in practice, change nothing.

The fact that they are thinking about such things, however, and understand something about how the desired results might be achieved, is a step in the right direction.

Why do Spaniards not Speak English

It is perfectly possible to teach young Spaniards to speak English to a good enough level to study or work abroad, or work in Spain in one of the many professional fields that require high competence in English (most jobs worth doing, these days). That means B2-C1 level, for those of you who understand these things.

I know it is possible because I have been doing it successfully for years. I know why schools fail to do it, and I know why that isn’t going to change, probably for decades.

The technical probably with teaching here is that it doesn’t focus on communication. Mixed groups of 30 children, the need to justify marks, which dictates the kind of exams to be used and the material to be examined, the interests of powerful Unions that take precedence over those of children, the monumental lack of imagination and the general ignorance of those who make the laws and design the system.

It is widely recognised that proficiency in English is a basic skill, but the state system is quite unable to provide the means to gain that skill. It is not even capable of transmitting the idea it is possible to learn English well, let alone of transmitting the motivation required to do it.

As I frequently point out, not always to universal understanding, in England even the village idiot speaks English. It really isn’t so hard, but in the absence of saturation, it takes a lot of work. But it can be done, and I’m not the only one who knows how to do it. The problem is that those who think they should have a monopoly on Education, don’t know how to do it, and are not trying to find out.

Steinbeck on Teaching

"On Teaching" by John Steinbeck

      It is customary for adults to forget how hard and dull school is. The learning by memory all the basic things one must know is the most incredible and unending effort. Learning to read is probably the most difficult and revolutionary thing that happens to the human brain and if you don't believe that watch an illiterate adult try to do it. School is not so easy and it is not for the most part very fun, but then, if you are very lucky, you may find a teacher. Three real teachers in a lifetime is the very best of luck. I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.

      My three had these things in common. They all loved what they were doing. They did not tell - the catalyzed a burning desire to know. Under their influence, the horizons sprung wide and fear went away and the unknown became knowable. But most important of all, the truth, that dangerous stuff, became beautiful and precious.

Teaching, good teaching that is, is indeed an art, both a creative art and a performing art. It is one of the situations in life which turns human interaction into an art form. The teacher needs to attract and hold the attention of the student, provide, at all times, an answer to the question, 'Why am I sitting here listening to this bloke?' You have to be worth listening to. And you have to find ways to communicate something difficult to understand to someone who has no particular reason to want to understand it. If you can't do that you shouldn't be teaching.

The reality of good teaching that Steinbeck remembers is a long way from 'sit down, shut up, study chapter 5, the exam's on Friday, don't look at me, teach yourself or there'll be trouble' which is the idea a lot of teachers have, and a lot of children, as they've never known anything else.

If the teacher doesn't know why the children should learn what he's teaching them, they won't learn it. Learning should be cooperation, not attrition, not conflict, not the ticking of boxes, not getting through the day. Give me children who want to learn, who are keen and sharp and have enthusiasm for life, the present and the future, who understand the importance of learning not in a dry, theoretical sense, nor a profound, mature, analytic way, but in an immediate, unreflecting, this-clearly-matters-now kind of way. Where to find such children? Give me good teachers, and I'll make them for you.

On the Need, or not, for Public Education, and Other Related Matters (Because I Can't Stick to the Point)

When people say they want public education, what do they mean?

I want good education, as cheaply as possible. I don’t care how it is done. Why would you?

When you talk to people about this, you often find that it is public education, more than good and available education, which is taken as the final end.

(This is not only true of education. The local governments of Madrid and Castilla-La Mancha have recently been trying to privatize the management of some hospitals. This is not, on the face of it, an ideological plan, but one that stems from the desperate need to make the available money go further. Administration costs are recognised as being far too high. Why not attempt something that might allow more money to be spent on looking after sick people? If it doesn’t work, we can go back to the old ways, but surely it is worth trying. Nevertheless there have, predictably, been massive protests, even before anything has been done.

Similarly, Brett Hetherington wrote a while back about a plan to privatise the water supply of a town in Catalonia, which has been rejected by the people of the town. Ok, fair enough, local democracy at work. But it isn’t necessarily the right decision. What is wanted, surely, is a cheap and reliable supply of water. It doesn’t have to be done by politicians.)

It is broadly accepted that everyone should contribute a smaller or greater amount so that all children can have access to education. There are few wealthy people or higher earners who would argue that poor children should be left illiterate and unable to offer anything useful in exchange for a living. They didn’t when education was not fully socialized and I don’t believe this has changed. By ensuring that all children have the opportunity to get education governments are genuinely acting as the agents of the public will.

However, there is no particular reason, as I have said, why they should have exclusive control over every aspect of education, including the education of those who do not need to depend on the government, or who do not want the education it provides?

The schools I worked at in my previous existence as a high school teacher were private. My current teaching avatar receives homage at a ‘concertado’ school, that is, one that was independently created, was strictly private for many years, and is now privately managed but to a certain extent publicly funded, and open to all those who want to go there via a selection process not controlled by the school. It is economically efficient (so I understand, relative to state schools) and academically and humanly successful. It does what it is supposed to do, what people want it to do. Why does it matter that it does some things its own way?

Surely it doesn’t.

Much of what happens at school has the purpose of creating a disciplined, respectful atmosphere. If the place were not full of people who don't want to be there this would not be necessary and time and energy could be properly devoted to helping the people who want to learn, to learn.

Even in this school there is much that must be done according to the government’s rules, and much that is done as it is because, that’s the way you do things, isn’t it? The classes are long and dull, full of quite unnecessary information and skills, a huge amount of the children’s time is wasted, enormous effort is put into creating systems for instilling and enforcing order, discipline and mutual respect. It is a fine system, well conceived and well run, functioning smoothly and without fuss, reacting calmly to push down every nail that attempts to stand out. It makes life better for everyone involved that these systems exist and are very well oiled, but they are only necessary because of the essential nature of education is misconceived. They are a very good solution, but to a problem that should not exist.

In almost every class there are children who do not want to be there, or who should not be there. If they were not forced to be there, and we were not forced to waste time pretending that they will ever learn anything useful, life would be much better for the rest, and their education much more productive.

In any case, if exams are the focus of everything there is no need to bring children together forcibly. There is little point even having classes. Tell them what to study and where to find it and then make yourself available to those who have questions. Surely it really is that simple.

In systems where exams are not the only thing that matters there is still little reason to force children to be in classrooms where they don’t want to be. The idea of education as an advantage and a privilege has been so completely lost that we think it perfectly reasonable to force children to accept that privilege against their will, and the idea that parents might not be able to have their children locked up and guarded 7 hours a day by other people is utterly mystifying to many.

The Gentlemen are Speaking Well of the Gorgonzola

I have heard recently a number of people, who do things related to cultural psychology, literary studies and the artier bits of 'neuroscience', discuss the idea that we like reading or hearing stories because they help us to develop theory of mind. The lecturer in Spanish theatre said that this applied specifically to literary novels, and in a way defined them and set them apart from popular novels, because they expose the empathy between the characters and help us to share it. Thus we grow in an important social skill.

There are clearly other motives for telling and listening to stories.  Whether this is an important one will be determined only by a lot of work in neurobiology, serious anthropology and psycho-linguistics, and we won't have an answer quickly, but the idea has some promise. I cannot comment except to say that I await the results of research with interest.

I was explaining abstract art in 1ºA ESO this morning (12-year-olds). That class can be lively, and they were today at first. I spoke for nearly ten minutes about the distinction between representational and abstract painting, compared it with the use to which elements are more traditionally put in music, and illustrated it with just a couple of slides. Most of this was in English. In some classes I have done it all in English. There was not a sound. Wrapt, they were. It happens that way sometimes. In fact, I know how to exploit it, I've been doing this a long time. Sometimes I tell stories to 6-year-olds, in English, who respond in the same way.

It is clear that they do not understand the whole story. What I was telling them today was not even really a story, and I am by no means an expert in the history and psychology of art. They responded, however, as though a great drama was being played out before them, one so absorbing that they could only hold their collective breath and wait for the ending. And it was true. That drama was me.

More than the words of the story, the drama was my tone, the music of my voice, my body language, the atmosphere that they themselves were unconsciously involved in creating. It is a curious thing to be part of. There is much more to story-telling than stories.

What do Children Need to Learn?

In the end it comes down to this- what do children need to learn and how can they best learn it.

It depends first of all on their parents (yes it does, those who think the state should control the minds of children are wrong). Parents may choose to send them to a school with a particular ethos, philosophy, ideas, whatever, and they are right to do what they think they should for their children and to pay others to do it for them.

Those who can educate their own children will do so. Why should they let ideologues control them? In Spain they are not even allowed to do that, although there are ways, if you are prepared to take risks.

If we start without preconceptions we would never, now, reach the conclusion that they need to be locked into semi-slavery eight hours a day throughout their childhood.

Once you assume they must be together for long periods doing things they don’t want to do you immediately see a need for discipline which means authority, which means rules which means enforcement and punishment and teaching becomes more about force of character and the assumption of authority than the ability to communicate knowledge, or better still, to inspire a thirst for knowledge.

Assume the point of education is to prepare children to take the greatest advantage of the world they will live in as adults. This means economically, psychologically, socially, culturally. It doesn’t mean preparing them to fit into one of a number of pre-ordained niches that our handlers seem to think must exist (most people involved in education would find this rather shocking, but it is my starting point because it seems to be the only legitimate purpose education can have) then certain conclusions can be reached and arguments made.

Reading and writing fluently and naturally are still essential skills and will, I think, continue to be in the future. But this can be achieved comfortably by the age of 6 or 7.

The understanding and manipulation of numbers is also essential to adult life, if only because of money. For this reason, a basic understanding of economics, and of what money is, should be provided at the same time.

IT is essential, but fortunately it’s also quite easy to learn to the basic level most people require, and easy to practice. Because of the speed with which technology is evolving, a very free curriculum is required, and in any case it would be part of a broader area of learning whose aim would be to ‘understand the world and how to function in it, how to obtain and evaluate knowledge’

We are trying to prepare children for the future, to make them useful to themselves and to the rest of us, in some combination, and so far as each is able. We are not trying to make them feel good about themselves.

There is no point studying a foreign language unless it’s done properly. If children aren’t going to become fluent in a useful language before they leave school it’s a waste of time trying to teach it. Half a language is no good to anyone. It is well worth saturating children with a specific foreign language from an early age. All primary schools should be genuinely bilingual, but in which language? For those who already speak the international language, the choice is not clear. The great advantage of knowing a second language is that it makes learning further languages much easier when the need arises, and it also enables the mind to work and think more productively (it provides new analytical tools). But it isn’t obvious that, for native English speakers, it is worth the time involved. Even so, I would, I think, recommend it. Possibly Chinese, just for the hell of it.

It is very important that children understand who they are and their place in the world, by which I mean the history of the world and of their country, the geography of the world in as much detail as is reasonable, the nature of the solar system and indeed the known universe. In short, they need to have the information, sufficiently processed, to have perspective about themselves and the world. It puts wise and stable heads on shoulders and is part of maturity.

They need to be exposed openly to many fields of knowledge and activity. They must find as early as possible what stimulates them, what they enjoy, what they may be good at, what they can themselves add to those fields.

It is a terrible waste of resources to have sport (and to a lesser extent art) taught in schools. It requires dedicated facilities and staff, replicated unnecessarily many times over, and seems to originate, like many of the great failings of state schools, from a misguided or simply lazy desire to imitate public and private schools, which do what they do for entirely different reasons.

Municipal facilities, available to and organised for children, would be far cheaper and much more useful and enjoyable for the children. They could freely choose the activities that interested them, they would not associate such activities with the boredom and authoritarianism of school, and they would have a lot more time to do them. Those children who can, do this anyway, but if there were more facilities and they wasted less time at school more could do it, and much more profitably.

A lot of this comes from a slavish imitation of the practices of the public schools, which have a purpose quite different from that of state education. Such schools take over the formation of most aspects of the child, because the parents want them to. State schools should have no such control.

From here (about 8-10 years, let’s say 10) it becomes largely technical things, and choices have to be made. It may seem very early to make choices about which route to take, about what kind of future to prepare for, what kind of job the child is capable of doing, but the alternative is to waste years learning, or probably not learning, ultimately useless things. A good grounding in the basics, an efficient system for identifying possibilities to work towards, while excluding as little as possible, is what is needed here. Many people are at University learning things they should have learnt years before, or things which will be of no use to them.

All of this assumes that they are there because they want to be. The first and most important thing is to STOP FORCING CHILDREN INTO SCHOOLS. The job of the state, insofar as it has one, is to provide the opportunity for a good education (the fact that the state clearly has no idea what a good education is suggests that it shouldn’t be directly involved in educating at all). Children (or their parents) will decide if, when and how to take advantage of those opportunities. Some of them will make a mess of it, some will realize too late what they have missed. Education is a privilege, one treated with contempt by governments, who are more interested in keeping potentially disruptive young people off the streets than in guaranteeing that potentially successful young people prepare themselves well for the future.

What is the point, I mean really, what the hell is the point, of filling classrooms with people who don’t want to be there, or who can’t benefit from where they are. No form of education, however conceived and structured, is going to work unless each child is somewhere where they can actually learn. Those who don’t want to learn cannot learn. And those who are with them will not be able to. Get rid of them. Those who are not able to learn much or quickly might learn little and slowly. But if they are with those who learn much and quickly one or other group is not going to learn anything like what it could. Once you remove the politics from education this is blindingly obvious.

How many millions of clever children have achieved little because the ideology of education, the ideology of a school or a teacher, or just the stupidity of all of them, was obsessed with trying to get someone else to achieve a little?

There is no need for age groupings, artificial identities or obligations. Offer a large variety of options, open and fluid; choose teachers who understand, communicate and inspire; let children choose where and whether they want to be.

No one will learn less than they otherwise would. Many, most, will learn far more, and will be far better prepared for the world.

On the Purpose of Schools

I observed yesterday, in passing, that teachers, and the teaching unions, seem to believe that the purpose of education is to provide jobs for teachers. This appears to be a fairly common belief among public employees and bureaucracies in general, and helps to explain why it is so hard to get the public sector to do things efficiently and economically. They treat waste and redundancy as good things, proving more positions for civil servants.

In Spain it has been enshrined in law for 150 years that public employees have the job for life, including a guaranteed pension. They cannot be sacked for laziness or incompetence without a very long and tedious administrative process which is only very rarely initiated, let alone completed. And they cannot be sacked at all simply because they are unnecessary. We, the public, are undoubtedly paying hundreds of thousands of civil servants who were originally employed to do something which is no longer required, or which, in the current economic climate, is a luxury we would choose to do without, if we had the option. Hundreds of thousands of people are effectively paid by the taxpayer to do nothing.

This system of awarding government jobs for life by means of independent tribunals was created with the excellent intention of stopping the corrupt practices of the 19^th century whereby an incoming government would sack the civil servants of the previous regime and replace them with people loyal to themselves. Since then there have been two republics, two dictatorships, two changes of Royal house, various attempts at different forms of democracy, some 15 heads of state of all types and all political persuasions, and some 5o heads of government, almost equally varied (they include nobility, but not royalty). Now, with a stable democracy and a constitution accepted by all sides, it may be the moment to review a practice that is 150 years old and is the direct cause of enormous economic and human waste.

Politically it can’t be done. Neither of the main parties would touch such a reform, but it could happen slowly, over a couple of decades or so, if government at all levels starts to use more contracted staff and allows the system of permanent posts to die off, or at least to become a rare thing, a way of covering core positions from people who have demonstrated competence and diligence over a number of years. Even the private sector needs greater flexibility in employment at difficult times like these (something even Felipe González understood in the crisis of the early 90’s) and the civil service needs to become hugely more flexible.

Nevertheless, in teaching a problem at least as great as the inability to get rid of bad teachers is the way they are selected in the first place. No part of the selection process, I repeat, no part at all, has the aim of determining which of the hundreds of candidates are the best teachers, and best suited to the positions available that year. The whole point of the process is that no one can be blamed later for the decisions taken. It was ‘the tribunal’ that gave that idiot the job.

It’s easy to imagine how a selection process whose only purpose is to exist, so that the right boxes can be ticked, affects the quality of teaching.

So in Spain the purpose of education is to assign salaries to teachers, any teachers, as long as the numbers are high enough to satisfy the unions. Not surprisingly, the education of the majority of children ends in failure to achieve a fraction of what they might have done. And no change is in sight.

On Striking Teachers

If anyone wants to know why the Spanish education system doesn't educate children properly, they had only to look out of my window on Wednesday morning to see one of the important reasons. The teaching unions were on strike and they were massed below me, in a display so thuggish and infantile that a pupil who behaved that way would be suspended. They don't understand this. Giving a public display of your unfitness to do what is a very responsible job strikes me as rather stupid, but oddly enough it seems that most parents already know what sort of hands their children are in, they were not surprised and they accept it as the way things inevitably are, if not actually as the way they should be.
The unions, and the people they claim to represent, believe that schools exist to provide work for teachers. This is typical of public employees. They made it very clear on Wednesday, but I knew it long ago. When you are that wrong about something that is a major part of your existence, you will never understand the truth. Nor will education in this country be able to achieve what it should.
Why do these people, and the ‘perroflautas’ and the occupiers and the hippy/squatters and the others imagine that they are doing the world a favour by making a nuisance of themselves in public places? They seem to think, and there are those who agree with them, that they are some kind of heroes, drawing the world’s attention to the state of the country. This strikes me as nonsense.
I have no objection, neither in principle nor in practice, to peaceful protest. Governments of all colours need to be constantly reminded that, in theory at least, they serve us, not vice versa. A stressed and worried politician is by far the best kind. But no one in Spain needs to be reminded that the economy is in a bad way and that millions of people are having hard time. There are things that can easily be forgotten or pass unnoticed, but this isn’t one of them. The protesters are a combination of political opportunists and the usual inadequates looking for an excuse to break things. These are difficult times, and the cathartic magic of shouting on the streets is not going to solve anything.