The view from the trenches: "Social inequality is a differential factor, and schools can no longer always reverse it."

PalmWe spoke with three teachers to answer the following questions: 1. What are your challenges for the new school year? 2. Do you feel valued as a teacher? 3. What do you think are the main challenges facing the Balearic education system? 4. What would you change? 5. Do you think the school year will be better than the last?

Toni Perelló

Teacher at CEIP Ses Cases Noves

1. I take a three-year course, and my idea is to work hard on children's habits, to try to help them be as independent as possible. Now it's more necessary than ever, because they arrive with less and less independence; they need support for everything. We must help them fly.

2. At my school, yes, but socially, not always. It's very exhausting to see how many people only get the idea that we have a lot of vacation time. But what no one sees is all the work we do that isn't directly with the students. Dense curricula that change, organizing dynamics, and thinking about each student. I feel proud to be a teacher.

3. In the case of Early Childhood Education, the emergence of technology greatly affects our students. They are increasingly dependent on screens. We also notice many more delays in language acquisition and routines. Nowadays, the philosophy of giving children what they want at all times prevails, but it's necessary to apply common sense. There's more than just one child in a classroom. We have 20 other students.

4. There are many problems. Something I would do, and which I believe would be effective, is to offer courses with families and meetings at the end of each stage, so I can explain how we expect the children to arrive so we can work better with them. Air conditioning is also urgent. If we have three-year-olds, classes can't be held in 32-degree temperatures.

5. I treat each year as a new adventure, but I have a feeling it will go well.

Mònica Martín

Teacher at CEIPIESO Painter Joan Miró

1. I want to continue training, to deepen and improve my work, and thus get closer to what children need, understand how they learn, and, based on that, adjust my approach. I'm currently taking a course in integrative bodywork therapy and personal growth. To be well with children, we must be well ourselves.

2. Not always. I believe we should use educational methods to explain our roles and how crucial they are to the student's future. It's necessary to listen to families and involve them in the educational dynamic. We also need more political support.

3. One of the most important things for me is to have a truly inclusive education, as established by the LOMLOE (Ley de Educación Inclusiva). What was once an opportunity, the Regional Ministry has stumbling block, and now we're in crisis. I can't ignore the difficulties in going on excursions due to the exorbitant price of transportation. For example, we can't go on an outing to the Tramuntana Mountains because we can't subsidize bus fares for all the children who need them.

4. There's a lack of opportunities for conversation, for reaching agreements and listening to each other. I would also act to reduce the ratios, because they're sometimes not respected now. I would intervene to close the schools. ghetto and to create schools with sociodemographic diversity.

5. It hurts to say it. What I do know is that teachers must be vigilant in defending public, quality, and inclusive schools. More than ever. It has been proven that politicians fail to do so.

Josep Ramon Cerdà

Advisor at the Calvià CEP

1. I'm in a period of transition, because I've taken a position as an advisor at the Calvià Teachers' Center (CEP), a role I've never held before. For me, it's a challenge to see how teacher training improves, as a basic premise for improving education. Until now, I've worked with students and as a teacher. Now I'm going to have a new perspective.

2. It depends on the time and the stage. But I think so, although sometimes certain attitudes from the Administration toward our work are misleading. For 20 years, teachers have taken on more responsibilities than they should. We haven't fought hard enough, and now we can't resist the pressure we're receiving.

3. There's a lack of belief in public education, not privatizing it. There's a lack of financial resources, teachers, and a lack of belief in education as a basic public service for cultivating educated citizens in a democratic society. For now, social inequality is a differentiating factor, and schools can no longer always reverse it.

4. The major issue I would address is social inequality. It's unacceptable that there are elite schools and others that aren't. The current education system segregates. Freedom of choice of schools is only the choice of the powerful. A shock plan for Catalan-language schools is also urgently needed to unite the entire political class, but there's a section of it that wants to kill the language.

5. The chaos we've seen in the first week of the school year, with the problems in awarding temporary positions, doesn't bode well.