Emilio Viciana: "There is no point in banning cell phones in classrooms if at home the students are hooked up all day"

PABLO R. ROCES Madrid

Madrid

Updated Monday, January 29, 2024-23:56

Is Madrid in favor of the proposal to unify the EVAU proposed by Genoa? On Monday or Tuesday we had the meeting in Genoa and we were asked to promote a common EVAU seeking an increase in demand, quality and, above all, proportionality in the university entrance test. Because we have recently had this model based on the Ministry's powers, which fortunately stopped and left the subjects diluted, lowering the quality, rigor and level of demand quite a bit. Our intention is to make our model available to the Ministry of Education and any autonomous community regardless of political orientation. Because it is not appropriate for there to be such disparate criteria in terms of content, the type of exam or the requirement for spelling correction, that should be balanced. Is that the problem you see? With how many spelling mistakes can you access university? ? That is something that should be balanced, but there are more issues. It would be very good to focus on raising the level of demand in English, a subject to which we dedicate so many hours of study should have a higher level of demand because many times students arrive at university without having the level they should. The laxest criteria are associated with autonomies where the PP governs such as Andalusia or the Canary Islands. Have you raised the increase in demands? There is already an agreement to promote the working group and as for the level of demands it is your own reflection, which does not I have spoken with the rest of my colleagues, I would like to raise it and I think it will be well received. Article 38 of the Education Law establishes that the contents of the EVAU are set by the Government, will they be able to develop their formula? When has it been launched? This proposal for common bases has already been made with full knowledge of what the powers of the State are. Feijóo himself spoke of setting common content in these exams. There is no impediment to a group of communities deciding to share a series of criteria within their powers. At no time do we intend to invade the powers of the State, on the contrary, we want the Government to reflect on its model. Are the PP seeking to take steps towards a future State pact on Education? I think it is something very necessary because the community demands it education and society in general. In the face of so many ups and downs and legislation, it would be necessary to protect education and make a commitment to quality and demand. This worries us because we believe that Lomloe was precisely going in the opposite direction. Do you see it as feasible in the current political scenario? It is true that the panorama is very polarized and the circumstances are what they are, but our obligation is to do everything possible to make it happen, it is our job and we owe it to the citizens .

JAVIER BARBANCHO

Where would Madrid put the red lines for that pact? It is a very complex question that should be analyzed in depth, but there are very worrying aspects such as approaching certain subjects such as mathematics from the perspective of gender or affectivity. Our intention is to make them effective and increase quality. How is this socio-affective teaching formula harmful? We live in a very competitive international world with a very high level of demand. And this is not necessarily bad as long as there is equal opportunity. But these socio-affective criteria convey to the student, to a certain extent, that there is no requirement, that it is enough to participate, when what matters is having good grades and a high level of knowledge. [...] I think Education is very focused on the work environment and that should not be the only focus. We must build people with decision-making capacity, with freedom, who can open a newspaper and find out what is happening, who can maintain a discourse defending a series of ideas, whatever they may be. And that is achieved with rigor, quality and demand. What you propose is almost an amendment to the educational system. I propose an amendment to Lomloe, yes. We must educate free citizens, who can think for themselves and make their own decisions. The same thing happens with university, that not all careers should be oriented towards employment. For that we have the enormous development of Vocational Training. The university should not be aimed only at the professional environment, there are those who are already working and want to acquire more knowledge. That must be respected, it is a citizen's right. Given the bad data from the Pisa Report, Pedro Sánchez announced last week a reinforcement in Language and Mathematics. Are you in favor of this economic injection? The announcement in itself is already an implicit recognition that the educational model proposed by the Government does not work. The reinforcement measures in reading, writing and mathematics are things that the Community of Madrid has been applying for a long time. We support their reinforcement, but they have to be done well and from the president's announcement it seems to me that it will be of little use if it is going to be used for affective mathematics. You have been warning for months that you want to remove ideology from the classrooms. Where do you think that ideology is? Above all, we want ideology to be kept away from students in education, that they learn to think for themselves to be free citizens. This is achieved through rigor and knowledge; it is not advisable to guide students towards a political option. Where is this being done? It is very good to teach students the multiple political options and that they can then align themselves with one side, another or neither, but I do find it worrying that they are guided. We must maintain neutrality although it is very important, especially from high school onwards,that students become aware of the different options. I insist, counselor, how are students ideologically oriented? Do you ever receive any news about certain content in textbooks that can be considered politically oriented, through the media and networks. The first thing there is to send to the Educational Inspection to check the content, but at the moment we have not found any content of this type. In that case it is telling me that there is no ideology in the classrooms. We resort to the educational inspection when they give us that type of information, but until now, when it has been verified, that situation did not occur. Do these warnings come from parents? Many times they come from social networks or news that we see in the media. There is a certain stir and logically we are asked to investigate through the educational inspection.

JAVIER BARBANCHO

Is what you consider ideology what you have described as a gender perspective? The main way to guarantee that there is no political orientation is with rigor, complying with the contents and ensuring that the curriculum is given in its entirety. But we must not forget that there is an important part of the curriculum, 60%, that depends on the State and on many occasions we do not agree because we believe that they lack neutrality. For example, the loss of chronological order in History or the teaching of it from certain perspectives. I'll give you an example: do you consider trans and LGTBI laws ideology? Hence the regulatory change? I am in favor of the new content of the trans and LGTBI laws, seeking to free the entire issue from political ideology. What we have done is guarantee these talks, which are important, but no more than others that students should receive. And the most important thing is that these talks are given by professionals, psychologists, doctors... from a neutral point of view, because the previous regulation gave excessive priority to LGTBI associations. In 2015, the PP abstained from the processing of that law , it did not seem like an argument to be against. Of course the experience we have had and the knowledge of the different situations that can arise is something that has worried us and that we have wanted to reflect in the new regulation. What has that experience been? Well, we are very concerned about the testimony of families that minors have been administered hormonal treatments of an irreversible nature that prevent, for example, some girls from being mothers or boys who have reached maturity and have given birth. realized that they did not have that feeling or that transsexual orientation. In Community centers? No, no, at no time am I talking about educational centers. In that case, where have they taken place and why change those talks? Now we have jumped to the general social sphere, that is why it is important that in educational centers, trans matters and LGTBI matters are addressed from a perspective completely free of political orientation. Now the debate on technology and mobile phones in schools is also being addressed. We adopted this prohibition years ago because we were concerned , but the debate goes beyond the educational because our community cannot be burdened with all the weight. There is no point in banning cell phones in classrooms if they are hooked up all day at home. We are facing a social problem, I would advocate for a pact between the different political forces. But we cannot close our eyes to a reality and that is that new technologies are here to stay and can be a help in many areas. What you have to do is regulate them. The existence of electronic whiteboards does not pose any problem to me, the worrying thing is that each student has a tablet with an internet connection and that they use social networks in the educational environment.Or the absolute replacement of textbooks with that tablet. In fact, many Nordic countries are already backing down due to the negative results. Writing and reading comprehension is much better on paper than on a device. Are you considering modifying digital education in Madrid? That decision should not be made lightly, but we are going to continue favoring the freedom of choice of educational center. families and for schools to decide whether they want to use screens or advocate for paper textbooks. You have also announced a reform in the bilingual model, removing English from the core languages. Hasn't that system worked well? I wouldn't classify it as a reform of the model, which has had good results these 20 years. We are concerned about the teaching of History, we believe that it can be done better and more in the current political and global situation. And for that it is better that both this and Geography are taught in Spanish and reinforce English, which is very important in the electives. The idea is that students read English press, Shakespeare's works, and analyze speeches. And then include English in the diagnostic tests. Modifying a large part of the content seems like a considerable reform, counselor. The bilingual model seeks for students to have a high level of English. Is having students study Geography and History in English essential for that? I understand that not. A clear reform, in that case. It is a core subject, but not all of them.