Ideology? Mine's not Ideology!?

School's out on the Camino a Ítaca this week. Today a look at what education might look like if the PP forms a coalition government with the neofrancoists here in Extremadura and then at the national level. Click over to read the original in Spanish published in el HOY or read the English version below. (PDF en castellano abajo)

Each time I hoisted the eight or nine kilo bundle onto my shoulder, I was sure that it was going to be the last. The backpack’s left strap had begun to frazzle and fray under the tremendous weight sometime around Christmas and I was certain it wasn’t going to last the school year.

The senseless back and forth of its overflowing cargo of coursebooks acted as a daily, sweaty reminder of a broken school system overburdened with its excessive content, handicapped by its rigid inflexibility and reigned over by unaccountable civil servants with more job security than monarchs.  

The promised revolution of competence-based teaching that was supposed to be introduced with the latest education law had remained, like so many unimplemented innovations before it, forgotten, lost under those weighty tomes among the torn bits of paper and pencil shavings at the bottom of that pack. The law may have changed, but old habits hadn’t. (De)memorization, la copia, fill in the gaps and endless page turning still make up the bulk of classroom time in the mad rush to cover the seemingly endless contents.

And before this new law, the eighth since Spain’s return to democracy, has even had a chance to be thoroughly ignored and disregarded, distressing signs are pointing towards a possible change in government. One that could result in a coalition with the extreme right that would presage yet another reform.  

And that could be nightmarish.

The PP no longer holds a monopoly on the right and needs support to govern. Disaffected ultras from within its ranks have now migrated towards a much more extreme, aggressive brand of conservatism. One that bristles at the mere mention of pillars of modern education like inclusivity, plurality, diversity, sustainability and critical thinking. And it’s a party that desires power.

It’s a neofrancosim that unabashedly harkens back with fondness to the black and white days when education was solely controlled by the Church with stern nuns posing as teachers dishing out equal measures of liturgy and cruel punishment.

Under the euphemistic slogan of freedom of education and freedom of choice, this party wants to devolve even more power back to the Church that holds the vast majority of concertados in the country. All the while contradictorily insisting that ideology be removed from the classroom.

Another of their mottos is freedom of memory. A fallacious concept which would repeal the historical memory law, paving the way to them twisting history and begin presenting far right dictators like Hitler, Mussolini and Franco simply as misunderstood good Samaritans.

Our education system is seriously flawed and is in need of renovation. But the answer does not lie in going back to the days when it was taught that women came from men’s ribs or that the world was created in six days. What is needed is a profound overhaul in the way teachers are trained, chosen and then managed, along with a shift away from the excessive focus on content.

Contemporary methodologies present in the current law, where competences and learning to do are emphasized, work. They simply need a chance to be properly implemented, giving some much needed relief to those strained and worn out backpack straps.

The Bear is at the Door

In this week's Camino a Ítaca a look at the new policial map here in Extremadura and the negotiations that are taking place between the parties on the right. Click over to read the original piece published in Spanish in el HOY or read the English translation below. (PDF en castellano abajo)

It was one of those urban myths that was so entirely bizarre that it was difficult to know if there was actually a grain of truth to it or not.

Legend once had it that incognizant American families would travel up to the Canadian national parks, cover their children’s hands with honey, and then send them to get close to wild grizzly bears so that they could get a picture with them.

Needless to say, the story never ended well.

The false Winnie the Pooh image they had of these wild animals was so completely at odds with reality that, in their ignorance, they heedlessly risked their children’s safety just to capture a photo. After all, it was just a teddy bear, wasn’t it?

And therein lies the danger. Real bears bite.

The political map of Extremadura has been redrawn and real live bears are now on the prowl. A new party with five key seats will be represented in the regional assembly in the upcoming session. Seats that will be decisive when choosing who will be the next President of Extremadura.

One of the biggest questions since this new party’s irruption on to the political scene nationally, and now in Extremadura, is how to precisely categorize this green ursus horribilis. Their abstruse nebulosity is only thickened by the fact that they didn’t even bother to prepare an electoral program specific for Extremadura.

This oversight was excused by claiming that they are a party with a national vocation. The naivety of which, presuming that the challenges faced here in Extremadura are the same as those in the Basque country, surmounts the ingenuousness of those poor children with honey on their hands. That is if it hadn’t in fact been done deliberately to obfuscate their true intentions.

In a cautious act of self-censorship, in just one newspaper you can see this newcomer labelled as extreme right, ultraright, radical right, ultranationalist, Trumpist, francoist and neofrancoist. But are these euphemisms and trivializations just a distraction from what the party really represents? If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quack like a duck, well...

The Partido Popular is also going to have to reexamine how they classify this excision to its right. For years it maintained these ultras within its ranks isolated and quiet, but they are now out in the open. After swearing she would never govern with them, the president of the PP in Extremadura, Maria Guardiola has now stated that its program coincides 90% with what the newcomers’ voters want.

The incoming mayor of Caceres, Rafa Mateos from the PP has gone even further in normalizing this party that won 2 seats in the city. In his view, parties themselves are not dangerous, only people are and that the spokesman of Vox had given him a very good feeling as a moderate person.

But this bear is no longer your drunk cuñado singing ‘Cara al Sol’, slurring that under Franco we lived better after a long afternoon with a bottle of Veterano, but a party at the gates of power. One that could have a say in such vital areas as education.

Let’s hope they leave the bears to their caverns.