It seems that with each beginning of the school year the controversy about the school is revived. In all its aspects, that if public, private or concerted, that if the schedule starts or only in the morning, that if the school canteens, the scholarships, the security of the centers, etc.
Since I have reason, I have not known a single year in which everyone was, more or less, in accordance with the school system of the day and of course it depends on the political flag flying in Moncloa does not help much. Well, not to be outdone, I would like to open a debate on how it would be, if possible and always taking into account that it is my personal opinion the school I would like my children to go to.
I am 40 years old, (some more), that is, it was my turn, for better or worse, ESO. But since I have reason, I don't know how many curricula we have already. Such is the mess I have today, that I don't even know for sure what course my children are going to, so every time I have to buy books or ask for something related to their education I do it alluding to the years of each one and of course, as the eldest is one of the little ones in the class, not a year goes by when the mess is not mounted. So I think it would start out there, for something as simple as calling things by name, what is that first grade? What university would first be septenaria?
Free?
I have two clear things: one, educating has costs that depending on what type of education we are talking about can be more or less high. Two, education and a right of each individual, and it is not that I say it, it says something that is called Human rights and specifically, in his article 26.
It is clear that although education is free, teachers and associated staff will have to eat and cover basic needs, which today can only be made with money. So this has costs that in the part of compulsory education are assumed by the state, that is, its taxes and mine, something that I agree with and about which I do not have a single objection.
School supplies: It seems that everything included in this chapter on expenses, paintings, pens, paper, textbooks and many other materials is not included in its turn in what they call "free." It seems that for the State, books, manuals, pencils, pens, notebooks and cards, and other material in which each parent leaves an average of 500 euros per year per child are not necessary for the education of our children and for both are not "eligible". Well, if they aren't, why do they demand them at school?
If a child can learn without books, something of which I am convinced, especially in the first years, why books? Because some paintings still have a pass to buy them, after all two boxes, because we already know that at first the first box is spent in two days trying to discover what each color tastes like, but a cost of about 10 to 25 euros per year and child if it could be acceptable by an average family.
Wouldn't it be much more acceptable that the center or the state or whoever bought the material and it was rented to cover costs and renovations? That it is not normal for the page of a children's book to be more expensive than those written by a Nobel Prize in Physics. I have found versions of El Quijote, cheaper than my oldest son's English book.
The schedules
Another Achilles heel of our day. The school, like many other things, continues with the schedule that was in the 70's and 80's in which a large majority of women did not work outside the home and could take care of taking the children to school at any time and go pick them up when necessary. But today there is no such society, at least in many areas of Spain, today both parents have or want to work outside the home and that implies schedules that in most cases are very weak and certainly not adaptable to children's schedules .
The adaptation of schedules, also called Family Reconciliation and that if it were a book, many would place it in the "C" ... of Science Fiction. Because you will tell me if leaving a child at school at seven in the morning to pick him up 12 hours later can be called conciliation.
I must admit, however, that I am not sure what the means may be to adopt, it is clear that modifying the operation of thousands of companies to adapt work schedules to schoolchildren is a titanic task and much more in a country like ours in the that entrepreneurs do not trust these so-called conciliation measures. Perhaps something good would be similar schedules to those of the faculty, that is, one morning shift and one afternoon shift. Or fail and promote that part of the day is done from home, continuous days of eight to three, etc.
The truth is that it is complicated, but we must make an effort to make this happen because we do not know what consequences the situation that many children in our present will have in the future.
Learn, learn, learn
We continue with the obsession of "what have you learned today?" as if a day without "learning" anything new was a day lost in our lives. We speak, of course, of the concept of "learning" that of a lifetime, of learning useful things my grandfather said. That is to say, that spending the morning scribbling on paper did not fit into this concept.
Nowadays we put our children under pressure to know, know and learn that probably few of us could bear it. We send them to school to see what letter they have learned today, we worry if they don't know how to read with four five years or if they are more aware of being children than of becoming small adults. Yes, it is true that society is increasingly despotic and demands more from each and that tomorrow will be the best prepared (as long as you are in the right place of course) but it remains to be demonstrated that this preparation has to Start at two years.
