"I'm fed up with putting up with the bad behavior of an increasing percentage of students, the overprotectiveness of parents, and the constant changes in regulations by the Administration."
Lthe teacher Eva María Romero ValderasHe speaks out loud about the protection of parents towards students, when they are urged to participate in the education of their children when they interrupt and prevent the class from being taught normally.
Professor Ana María has been teaching for 20 years in a educational center of Marchena (Seville)Through a kind of personal catharsis, he presents an excellent diagnosis of what is happening in the vast majority of secondary schools. I leave you with his speech, exactly as it was recorded. The Voice of Marchena. It is invaluable and a good indicator of our teenagers' motivations regarding learning and training...
His intervention:
Let's start with two premises:
First: I have nothing against the management team. What I'm about to say isn't the result of a specific situation that needs to be resolved with a modification of the school plan or anything like that. I do want it recorded in the minutes.
2nd: What I am about to do is called a harangue: a military speech to rouse the troops before entering battle.
I'm fed up!
That's enough, folks, stop putting up with it.
I am not here to put up with it, and I am using the exact words that a father told me on the phone when I called him to ask him to correct his daughter's attitude, which was preventing me from doing my job.
As far as I know, I get paid to teach, not to put up with things.
Map From a society that glorifies people who flaunt their ignorance, that values a footballer or a NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) more than an educated, respectful, and well-mannered person. From television programs that present as role models those who, without education or any sacrifice, have landed high salaries by criticizing, sleeping with, shopping at…
Am fed up with putting up with The increasingly poor manners with which children arrive at the school. The lack of consideration, not to mention respect, shown to me when I enter the classrooms; it's as if the wind were blowing in through the window.
Map From the overprotectiveness of parents, who want their children to pass without effort and without suffering, without trauma...From the lack of appreciation for the effort that we do make.
Map The administration keeps changing the laws and regulations governing my work without asking my opinion and without providing me with the training I need to do my new job properly. They add two extra hours to my teaching schedule and exploit me, because all I've done in recent years is work, work like a madwoman. Even my children tell me so.
Now they say they're going to give us back those hours, but do you know where they're going to give them back? In the irregular hours we dedicate to our studies at home, the ones nobody sees. It takes me five hours to grade 30 first-year high school exams, so that means I don't spend a single extra hour at home that week, right? I don't plan, I don't prepare my exams, I don't update my skills to use the tablet (which I bought myself to work better), or to learn how to use the school's digital platform, I don't fill out absence reports, I don't write minutes… and a long list of other invisible tasks.
The height of absurdity is that some of us have considered requesting reduced hours, accepting a lower salary, to do our jobs properly. But where is this going to end? What kind of job does that happen? Where have you ever seen someone give up their salary to sleep soundly at night? This doesn't happen anywhere.
And on top of everything, we have to put up with "Teachers have it so good!" Because society sees us as privileged people who "don't lift a finger."
The 67 proposals for improving education, so widely publicized, only serve to further burden us. What are we supposed to do when we can't even suspend a student for a few days for misbehavior? Besides, it's frowned upon to make them sweep or do community service... the parent doesn't want their child humiliated. Well, I think we should take inspiration from Judge Calatayud. We are authorities just like him. Let's exercise our authority; it's the only thing the law recognizes, let's make it effective.
We need to make ourselves heard, act collectively, not go around complaining in secret, as if we're ashamed. That way, no one will hear us. Let's shout our discontent; we can't go on like this. Let's demand our rights as workers, because it seems like everyone else has rights except us.
We teach our students to be critical thinkers, free-thinking minds who can choose and discriminate what suits them from what doesn't, and we are the first ones to be sheepish, we do nothing, we continue to bow our heads so that the yoke falls on us with more force.
Me like this I can't stand it Furthermore, you can do whatever you want. I've been teaching for 19 years, I'm 45, maybe it's my midlife crisis… but if the years have given me anything, it's courage. I'm not afraid, and if they push me any further, I'll snap. I just want to warn you: from now on, I don't intend to stay silent 'out of politeness'. I will respond in the same tone and with the same forcefulness with which I am treated.
I enjoy teaching and sharing knowledge. I like interacting with students; I care about them and encourage them. I consider myself a driving force for social change, a catalyst. I'm not a workhorse willing to... endure until it bursts.
