A couple of weeks ago, the data from the last PISA report, presented by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which indicates the level of scientific, mathematical and reading comprehension of 15-year-old students aged 65 and 65 countries
As it's usual the Spaniards stayed in the middle zone and, as far as reading comprehension is concerned, we are 13 points below the average of all OECD countries, which is 494 points.
This means that the Spanish education system has not improved substantially compared to previous years since, although the alarm of school failure sounds a long time ago, nothing seems to have changed.
Whose fault is it?
When talking about school failure, the eyes are very focused on the character of young people, how they have grown and what their goals are compared to the previous generation, the current parents. However, the fault cannot lie solely with children, because in a way they are victims of an educational model that has not just adapted to the current times.
A Chinese proverb says that “if the student does not exceed the teacher, neither is the student good nor is the teacher good" It is true that the level of students is lower than desirable, but it is probably also true that the level of teachers could be higher. I do not say that teachers are not prepared, but that the way of teaching should change to help children learn motivated to do so and not as a routine that they should live yes or yes or as lessons to be learned because someone sends .
In this proverb only one speaks of a student and teacher, however families should also be accommodated, because the role of parents is fundamental in the education of our children.
How we act with them, how many toys we buy them, how much time we spend with them, how they feel important (or not) to us and how dear they know, what is our way of proceeding when we talk or negotiate with someone, what are our goals and our objectives, how we enjoy free time and a long etcetera are issues that serve to create the personality of children (you know, "educating a child is everything that is done when we are not educating him").
Children who receive hundreds of toys because parents pretend to substitute love for material things lose the value of things and feel that immediacy when it comes to getting something is paramount. Those who spend little time with their parents (Spanish parents spend an average of 22 minutes a day with their children), may end up feeling that "dad and mom don't care much about what happens to me" and the respect we show with our peers (or disrespect) will serve as a model when it comes to dealing with other people, to give several examples.
How to improve our scores in PISA reports?
What a great question and how difficult to answer it in four lines. Making a summary and saying something that is not new, because we have talked about it on several occasions, the goal would be to try to resemble those who get better results: the Finns.
There are several Spanish schools that are currently taking brushstrokes of this educational model, trying to make children go to school happy, eager to satisfy their innate curiosity.
Near where I work there is one of these schools, which is public, and the reality, after about five years running, is that they are encountering several "slaps" that come, especially, from the parents of children, who do not They understand that their children, with five years, do not know how to read when the cousin, who goes to another school, already knows how to do it.
As long as the parents do not understand education in any other way and are not able to say sincerely that the education we received was a "bodily" (speaking badly and soon), in which the important thing was to get good grades and not learn, education will remain the same and children's failure will continue to exist.
Get good grades and not learn?
I said that (written). The education children receive is based on receiving subjects and lessons in order to take an assessment test that everyone must pass. This makes (has always done) that most study using their ability to memorize things to "vomit" all day of the exam. After a couple of weeks, those who took a 9 on the exam would probably take a 7 and those who passed would surely suspend. After a couple of months almost none would be able to approve.
This is not learning. This is memorize. The important thing in life is to learn to think, not to learn to memorize. Any educational system or any technique that pretends that people understand things based on memorization is destined to fail, because memory has an expiration date.
We all spent about 15 years in school and institute with the intention of learning and receiving an education. How much do you remember everything they taught you? I think I should not spend 30% ... something was done very badly then and something is being done very badly now if the educational system continues to use similar educational techniques that do not help children to think or go to school motivated to learn .
More information about the PISA report
Finally I tell you more information about the PISA report that can help you get an idea of how the situation is.
The study has been carried out in Spain with 25,000 students. The biggest differences between results are not among the various autonomous communities, since the differences are around 4%, but between schools, where some centers achieve results up to 20% better than others.
Spain has a ballast of 36% of ESO room repeaters, which is said soon ... and 20% of students are below the minimum level required, which is also said soon. Only 3% of students are at a level of excellence.
Concluding
Something is failing in the education of our children both at school and family level if the educational level in Spain is still below the average of developed countries and if we are not able to overcome this situation.
In a society where children do not have much room (it seems that they bother everywhere and we try to grow them as soon as possible so that they behave like adults), where children's play is increasingly limited (children play less and less), where parents spend little or no time with them and we are often too tired to educate them and where the school system continues to make many of the mistakes they made with us, we should all put our batteries to try to turn the ship's course, because otherwise, nothing will change (I'm afraid).
Logic says that in a country whose goal is to develop more and more, these results should generate a genuine educational revolution in a hurry to prevent school failure from being so high.
However, I do not know if because we are Spain (you know what they say ... the country of the tambourine and Belén Esteban, the princess of the town) or because someone is interested that everything remains the same (the more lambs grow our children less problems will have the mandamases of the future), but here year after year the results of the PISA report show that we are not moving forward and school failure is still quite high without anyone demonstrating a bit of self-criticism. Anyway…
