Pastel a-la Celaá

Crucifixes in classrooms

Next stop on the Camino a Ítaca is a look at how you can indeed have your cake and eat it too...as long as you 'believe'. You can read the English below or click over to the original in Spanish. You can also find the Spanish version in  PDF format at the bottom of the page. Tambien se puede ver el original en castellano abajo en PDF.

I’ve always loved proverbs. Like linguistic snapshots, they are able to say more than a thousand words in so few. It also intrigues me that many languages tell their stories in similar refrains. In both Spanish and English we search for needles in haystacks, look for worms early in the morning and recognize that it’s always best to have a bird in hand than many beyond your reach.

It therefore came as quite a surprise then to me when I couldn’t find a satisfying Spanish equivalent to the English proverb, ‘you can’t have your cake and eat it too.’ A metaphor we have all wished for at some time in our lives.

I searched for sometime until I finally found something similar yet that meant the direct opposite. It’s a saying that suggests that you can in fact have your cake and eat it too. The proverb is, ‘la escuela concertada,’ also known as private schools that are financed with public funds. That curious Spanish institution, or better said, hangover from darker times that freely allocates public funds to institutions that, in their majority, answer to a foreign city-state. Schools that gladly take the money given to them by the state yet who reluctantly, and at times directly refuse to abide by rest of the rules and regulations dictated by Spanish law.

The ninety-seventh odd change to the Education law has brought religion and its place in schools to the forefront once again. A revolution complete with beastly scenes in parliament of deputies shouting ‘freedom’, somewhat ironically demonstrating our Darwinian linage with apes. Simians protesting that their rights will somehow be infringed upon by the supposed threats to their ‘cake’ and their ‘right’ to segregated schools that concur with their values.  

But what about the rights of the kids?

Parents may choose the tell their children that the world is flat or that the virus doesn’t exist. The state however cannot classify children as Catholic, Muslim or Jewish, just as it would be absurd to see them classified as Socialists, Monarchists or Real Madridists. Children are children and balanced, equal access to quality education is their right.

The cognitive dissonance that must reverberate in some of the kids’ heads must be extreme. In one class they learn about the millions of years that it has taken for different species to evolve, only to be told in another that the earth was created in six days with a sky god taking a siesta on the seventh? In one class they learn that men and women have equal rights, yet in the next they find that women were fashioned from the rib of a man and should be submissive in learning and to their husbands. It’s the equivalent of going from astronomy class to astrology or from chemistry to alchemy class.

Then there are the supposedly distinct values that these private fiefdoms espouse. Schools funded by the state should focus on the values that are encompassed in the constitution and not be the source of fear and abuse. Telling children that their friend, aunt or neighbor will spend eternity broiling in a lake of fire for being non-believers or loving whoever they want is child abuse. Twisted cruelty like this is for some reason permissible in other temples, but it cannot be in temples of learning.

The Spanish education system is grievously flawed, but running away from its defects and creating splinter groups helps no one. It’s time to extract imaginary problems from the debate and focus on real, tangible change because no se debe querer estar en misa y repicando. (be in mass and ringing the bells at the same time. My closest translation.)