I have spent almost 40 years sharing the passion of educating with thousands of teachers from the Canary Islands, from rural and urban schools, from neighborhoods and towns, from all educational levels. I deeply love what I still consider my profession, I have always been proud to belong to the teaching community, which has had to continuously reinvent itself, adapting to the changes experienced in schools and in our society, without much help from their company. I "formally" left teaching a few months ago, very satisfied with all the "good schools" I shared, in which we provided our students with enriching educational experiences, always involving the educational communities. In all of them I met many women and men, "bearers of dreams" as Gioconda Belli calls them, who as she says "like industrious little ants did not stop dreaming and building beautiful worlds, of men and women who called themselves companions, who taught each other, who consoled each other in deaths, healed and cared for each other, loved each other, helped each other in the art of loving and in the defense of happiness." Therefore, I dare to write these reflections on the work carried out by the "dream-bearing" teachers in this period of confinement.
Teachers in times of confinement
If anything has highlighted the confinement, it is the importance of public services, and specifically of public schools, especially for the most vulnerable groups, with lower socio-economic-cultural levels, who do not have the tools to replace their functions, manifesting as one of the few spaces to guarantee equal opportunities to citizens, provided that the corresponding administrations provide the necessary human and material resources. In these days I have thought a lot about the difficulties we encounter in public education to offer that equity in a society as unequal as ours. And I have done so because the confinement has provided us with a clear picture of the deficits of an educational system incapable of guaranteeing an inclusive education, of leaving no one behind and of giving a coordinated response to an exceptional situation, beyond what each educational center and, sometimes each teacher, has been able to offer. It has also made it clear that a system that was fundamentally designed for face-to-face learning cannot be sustained virtually and from confinement, in a reality that has a significant social gap. That is why it has struck me so much that the work carried out by thousands of teachers has not been sufficiently and publicly highlighted, losing a valuable opportunity to recognize the teaching work, often invisible and misunderstood and socially undervalued.
The truth is that the majority of teachers have done a silent and immense job in the "front line" (at a distance, with the difficulties that this entails) of attention to students and their families, as they have rediscovered the problems they had in face-to-face teaching, but increased by the distance: difficulties of personalized education due to very high ratios, problems to attend to the diversities present in the classrooms due to lack of support and guidance professionals with whom to coordinate and work together, limitations to develop an online education due to lack of digital means (of teachers and students) and training of educational communities, and impotence in the face of the inability to attend to the group of disconnected minors and families, who have been left without access to education.
We have been confined, also the teachers. And in this confinement, without more resources than those that each teacher had, the teachers have had to put in place, with hardly any time, a distance education, which "replaced" the face-to-face education that disappeared unexpectedly. With their computer, their mobile phone and their internet, mornings, afternoons, even some nights, many teachers have tried to locate and attend to the students and their families, have created tasks for the diversity present in their groups, sharpening their creativity and imagination, have resolved doubts, have looked for and elaborated resources and fun activities for their students to enjoy in the company of their families, have corrected tasks that arrived by email, whatsapp or some of the various educational platforms, have talked with the families, seeking their collaboration and offering to help in what they could, have participated in meetings with the cycle, the faculty? and written a multitude of messages between colleagues giving and looking for ideas and resources, asking and proposing solutions to the problems that were arising, and have completed the reports, surveys and minutes requested by the educational administration; always without schedules. Special mention I would like to make of the teachers of early childhood education, a non-compulsory educational stage, not always sufficiently considered, and in which emotional support, the maintenance of the bonds that children need with their teacher, is fundamental and especially difficult. Many are the colleagues of this stage, who have always stood out for their passion, dedication and professionalism, who for many hours a day have been hanging on their phone talking with each child, and guiding families, designing creative activities, recording themselves telling a story, programming video conferences so that their group could see each other, hear each other, feel each other?, with a gigantic gratitude to the families who channeled and collaborated with their proposals.
But let's not forget that these teachers also live with their families and have to do the care tasks in their home, accompany their sons and daughters, help them with their school tasks, attend to their elders, sick and dependents, some at home and others in the distance. These teachers also have to share their digital resources, endure technological difficulties and some coverage problems. These teachers live the exhaustion, the fear, the sadness and the anguish that the days of confinement are causing in all human beings. So allow me to thank and congratulate the enormous capacity, effort and empathy that I have seen in many colleagues with whom I am still connected, a sample of the Canarian teachers, to face this situation, with anecdotal support from the educational administrations. I applaud them with all my strength, but more than applause, I demand, do we demand?, to return public education to the place that corresponds to it.
Let's return public education to the place that corresponds to it.
The truth is that a different, more courageous educational policy has been missed, capable of attending to the learning needs of the most disadvantaged sectors, a closer follow-up of the educational centers has been lacking to see what they needed and provide solutions. The situation is complex and with important inherited deficiencies, it is evident that it is a complicated task. Even so, the information, measures and instructions have been confusing, not very transparent, slow and timid. But, the truth is that many teachers have assumed their professional autonomy and have put in place encouraging attention proposals, exciting pedagogical experiences, without waiting for or subordinating themselves to the communications of the management apparatus of the educational system. Let's hope that this crisis will help teachers to strengthen their relationships, take care of themselves and become cohesive as a group, a cohesion necessary to be able to face, when they return to the centers, the challenge of guaranteeing the right to education -not just schooling- to the entire population. When the educational centers reopen their doors, the teachers will have an immense task ahead of them to try to compensate for the increased inequalities. It will be necessary to take into account the students who arrive with greater curricular, personal and social deficiencies, those who have not been able to be contacted, or those who have had especially complex experiences, in order to give the best response to their needs. When they return to the classrooms, the students will need to talk, express themselves, relate to each other, take care of each other? It will be necessary to provide safe spaces and times, without the pressure of contents, homework, evaluations, results?, with calm and tranquility.
And in order to carry out this safe, slow, calm, inclusive education, where the learning process can be personalized and diversity can be attended to, it is necessary to start the next course with lower ratios and with sufficient human resources to face educational, personal and social support programs. After a long period of cuts in education, it is necessary to commit the public authorities to provide educational centers with the necessary resources to develop a quality public education, which contemplates the option of a true online training as a reality for all centers and not a privilege of those who have more resources. It is necessary that, in everyday situations, habitual and exceptional, everyone can enjoy the same opportunities. Technology has been necessary in the period of confinement, but the most important thing has been and is the teaching teams, which in collaboration with families, have worked on a common idea of public school, in which we prepare students to be able to be the protagonists of their own lives and to participate and live together in a democratic society, in a world that is possible to improve and that is in their hands to do so. Therefore, it is essential to make visible the importance of the function of education and its teachers, much more in times of coronavirus.
Mary C. Bolaños Espinosa. Harimaguada Collective
