Graduation parties and silence
it is no longer enough to finish a course. Now you have to graduate. From Kindergarten, Primary, Secondary, and High School. Five-year-old children with caps and gowns, emotional families, photocall, epic music, transcendent speeches and a staging that seems to announce entry into university or the end of the university stage when, in reality, summer just arrives. The graduation ceremony has become an end in itself.
It is an American import, yes, but above all an old private school tradition, specializing in turning any administrative step into a solemn act prepared to encourage consumption. The problem is not the party. The problem is that public school has also signed up with surprising enthusiasm. As Professor Josep Ramon Cerdà mentioned on X a few days ago, it is unsettling to see teachers dedicating efforts to give significance to an empty ritual while it is much harder to find the same enthusiasm to discuss what happens inside classrooms.
Because these graduations don't come out of nowhere. They are prepared during class hours, mobilize teaching staff, and feed a culture of appearance that has little to do with learning. It is simpler to organize a cap parade than to face a debate about the educational level, reading comprehension, and the deterioration of academic standards.
Meanwhile, an unusual silence reigns in the Balearic Islands. While teachers in Catalonia and the Valencian Community have staged mobilizations to denounce educational policies, there is hardly any protest here. Colleague Jaume Cladera observed in these pages that the minister Antoni Vera has the collective satisfied. But not precisely because a profound reform has been undertaken to improve the quality of teaching. The recipe seems to be something else: economic supplements, more resources, less workload, and pleasant measures. Exams are advanced so much that in June many classrooms operate at half capacity, almost empty. Now, the promise of a sabbatical year for most of the teaching staff is added, a gift difficult to explain when there is a shortage of teachers to cover positions at the beginning of each school year.
It is a policy of immediate satisfaction. Every hour dedicated to graduation ceremonies and every academic week that is emptied of content is time taken away from the objective of teaching. So is creating a public Baccalaureate reserved for excellent students, an idea that is more reminiscent of the selective models of private education than a public school committed to equal opportunities.
But teachers hardly protest. And there is another significant silence: that of families. For years they stood up to educational decisions they considered wrong. Now, too many changes are approved without counting them and without informing them, and their voice is barely heard. Perhaps it is because everyone is thinking about the next graduation. It is always easier to celebrate an ideal school than to demand a better one.
