Once again the Spanish education system continues to demonstrate its failure. The results of two international surveys, the PIRLS and TIMSS 2011 tests of the International Association for Educational Evaluation have just been made public.
The problems that were already evident in the Unesco Study come, therefore, from the Primary and leave the Spanish students at a clear disadvantage over the average of the European Union and the rest of the developed countries.
Our elementary students they have bad results: they read worse, they have worse results in mathematics and less knowledge in science. Let's analyze the reasons.
Mathematics, reading and science are areas of living knowledge
It is striking, in my opinion, the problem with mathematics, and it amazes, since it is one of the areas in which one works most and knowledge has been advanced that was previously included a little later. Repetitive exercises do not serve to understand, that is something basic. I remember how the children in my son's class learned to answer the problems, rather than understand, they did it automatically.
Reading is another area where the results are bad.. With the crush that exists since childhood and the real requirement, in many cases, that children enter Primary reading and studying in textbooks, what they are forced to read adapted literary works and what copies the statements of the problems It seems it shouldn't happen.
AdvertisingBut it is precisely because of that, to advance, to demand results, to make reading an obligation and an instrument, not a pleasure. What should be achieved is that children love to read. How many do it and have time to do it?
The natural Sciences They also have a bad result. And considering the basics of the knowledge that is required in Primary Primary. But it is that if you study the human body, the habitats or the volcanoes of memorieta to vomit in the exam and to obtain better note if you say it as it puts the book we guarantee that nothing that of course in the long-term memory, because, in In reality, the reason for learning is not desire or curiosity, but a written test that then, once passed, allows us to forget the knowledge acquired.
Other worrying points of failure of the Spanish education system they are the shortage of students with brilliant results, which in Spain is 4% compared to the average of 10% in Europe and the largest proportion, 6% compared to 3%, of students who are especially lagging behind. We cannot lose sight of the problems that students with dyslexia have in class and the failure of 80% of the most gifted students in the system, which does not meet their needs.
The causes of Primary failure
The causes of these problems they are, in my opinion and that of many experts, the excessive memorization, the lack of incentives for creativity and the freedom of the students, the excess of duties, the high ratios, the little time that parents can devote to their children for very long work schedules and, in general, an excessive concern for test scores rather than for the enjoyment and meaningful learning.
That said, it is clear that my opinion about the LOMCE is very negative. The revalidated ones, as happens today with tests such as Selectivity or the exams that are done at the end of the cycle to evaluate results and position the schools, will absorb the energies of the children, crushing memorial contents rather than skills.
Another serious issue of the LOMCE is its insistence on talking about the commodification of education, which is conceived as oriented to productivity and the demands of the labor market, and not to comprehensive training and critical thinking and the search for their own answers and solutions to problems.
A good Primary Education
It would a good Primary Education? The one that will foster the pleasure of reading, each at their own pace. The one that offered a true personalized education, oriented to the areas of interest of the student and his real needs. The one that will take advantage of the teaching hours and will not require two or three hours of additional work at home. The one that allowed to learn without memorizing textbooks. The one that got the children to enjoy learning and do it, especially through experimentation, life and play.
Learn from alternative systems, analyzing the advantages with which they work and listen to the great experts who think that the education system is obsolete and finished.
A challenge that is not impossible, but that could only be achieved with greater investment in material and human resources, a continuous preparation of teachers, small classes and a concept of educational success that was not measured in memorial exams but in daily knowledge. No more class hours, but better classes. No more authority from the teacher, but more respect for knowledge and its workers.
If that doesn't change the education system will continue to demonstrate its failure, in the measurable results, but especially in their ability to prepare free, critical, creative and entrepreneurial citizens.
