Teachers who stick together

I'm looking for the Roman theater of Pol·lèntia at sunset. Last night they performed The butchers, by Guillem Frontera, in the unique and vigorous playwright of Miquel Mas Fiol. I don't want to get lost. I get a little disoriented and, walking from the vacant lot where I'd left the car, I end up in a crowded litter. Some North African children are spinning tops in front of some isolated houses. I rush to them to see if they can help me.

Delighted, they give me all kinds of inside information. They tell, describe, point out... they even advise me to be punctual, and they keep me company for a good while. The whole scene takes place in extremely fluent Majorcan with truly acceptable phonetics. As we say goodbye, I think we sometimes forget the great collective success that teaching in Catalan has meant. Correct, it's been more than a success: it's a true miracle.

A good time to remember it, as we are about to start a new school year, which is once again full of threats and uncertainties: the PP-Vox Pact of Shame, linguistic segregation, the modification of the education law, the obsession with cornering one's own language, the devaluation of the Catalan qualification, the expansion of the exempla of the country's language –penalty, imposition, impediment, difficulty, dictatorship...–, the absurd goal of guaranteeing at least one segregated school per region, the non-requirement of Catalan language skills in certain competitive examinations, the distribution of 21 million euros among schools that segregate students and violate the law...

Even though Prohens' PP agrees to irresponsibly sign all kinds of nonsense for, textually, "guarantee knowledge of Spanish in the educational system"You only need to look at any school and see that the language that not all students are guaranteed to master at the end of the compulsory education stage is Catalan. The figures confirm a negative trend: a 10-point drop in Catalan proficiency since 2013.

In parallel with the weakening of the social use of Catalan, its use in schools is also weakening. The causes, of course, are diverse. The demographic challenge, for example, is experiencing the greatest acceleration in the Balearic Islands: a population increase of 52% in 25 years. These figures are higher than those of the Valencian Community (31.9%) and Catalonia (29.2%), and they affect the linguistic and cultural sustainability of the country.

Other causes, however, are clearly intrinsic and respond to the very dynamics of schooling. Education, as in other areas, is experiencing intense acceleration and increasing complexity. The dispersion of objectives and the diversification of expectations have strained schools and turned them into a territory with too many emergencies and too many events, and where it is not always easy to prioritize. There are now so many multitasks to undertake and so many microprocesses to complete that we end up forgetting the most important aspect of our work and the true meaning of education: ensuring equal opportunities for all students regardless of the diversity of their origins and family backgrounds. In short, we must ensure that schools continue to be a flexible and reliable social elevator.

It is evident that acquiring proficiency in the country's language is a fundamental pillar of equal opportunity and, therefore, the true backbone of the educational system. Here and around the world. That is why it is urgent to return to the proper implementation of language projects, which have recently been so diluted among all kinds of educational incentives.

Teaching Catalan effectively, however, isn't just a matter of intuition or willpower. Teaching the language—especially at the beginning levels and to newcomers—requires a careful methodology and a solid pedagogical strategy. Unfortunately, many young teachers face the task without the proper tools because, since the Bauzá government eliminated it in 2013, the Catalan Teaching Service and the immersion support teams, which successfully supported teachers for so many years, have not been restored.

We can't wait any longer. It's time to recover these tools, activate them, and share them. And this is what the Teachers' Assembly has proposed through the "Feim Pinya" network of Catalan-language schools, a training and mutual support program that aims to connect teachers and educators committed to teaching in Catalan and eager to delve deeper into the effectiveness of one's own learning.

A grassroots and popular initiative that will create spaces and opportunities where teachers can share methodologies and materials. And, above all, support each other. It's well thought out.