Spanish views from a small town

My classes are, most likely, effectively over for the school year. The Ministry of Education is talking about not opening schools again until September. And then, halving the number of students in each class, by combining regular classes with online ones. How they will do that, I have no idea.  But smaller classes are a good idea. After the Great Recession, one way to cut back on educational spending, was to increase student/teacher ratios and therefore spend less on payroll. Now, it turns out that smaller classes are a good idea, if not pedagogically, epidemialogically. But I don't think the online bit is really in the best interests of the students, nor the teachers. How will the teachers deal with both a classroom and kids on a screen? Who will decide which kids stay home and which go to school? What about the kids who can't socialize with their friends on the school grounds? Or who are separated from their best friend? The Minister said this situation would be ideal unt...

So, school will end when it's supposed to end, the 21st of June. There will be, however, extra activities in schools during the month of July. They will be voluntary, and supposedly, will involve more games rather than sit-down classes. It doesn't matter. Almost a month of class has been lost and will not be recovered. Almost a month, because a week of the quarantine was Holy Week vacation. But, though students are receiving classwork by email and school websites, it's all review work. Nothing new is being explained or shown. I have only heard of one teacher, in high school, giving a class online with his students. I don't envy the teachers who have to design classwork for September to include two marking periods' work in one. I just got an email today about the José Luís Perales concert we are going to in June. It's been rescheduled. To March 27th, 2021. I realize it's better to reschedule it for much later than the end of August, for example. But. That. ...

It has been mentioned that various states in the U.S. are trying to legislate Bible study in schools. Even Trump tweeted about what a good idea that was. Personally, it seems a suspicious attempt to put prayer back in schools.  Which Bible would be studied? The Protestant King James version? The Catholic Vulgate version? How would the texts be analyzed, in a literary fashion or from a religious viewpoint? Would any mention be made of Islam, that considers the Old Testament a holy book? How would the differences in religious interpretation be explained? Would they be mentioned at all? The First Amendment should put paid to those discussions in the states that are considering introducing the Bible. It says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,..." Thomas Jefferson later wrote an interpretation, in which he said the Amendment created a "wall of separation between Church and State." That Federal law was later extended to the individua...

I'm too young to have ever taken a home ec class in high school. By the time I entered those halls of learning, it had become a relic of the past. I was always under the impression that it had been a way to get good girls ready for their role in society as wife, mother, and homemaker. And that the then-few girls that decided to continue their education were considered failures as proper women. I'm simplifying, but when home ec was common in high schools women were still being held back in the job world. Well, the conservative party that is ruling at this moment in Spain, has decided that it's a good idea to reintroduce the idea of homemaking as a career. At the end of this last August, a law was approved amplifying what can be studied in vocational schools. One of those new courses of study is Actividades domésticas y limpieza de edificios (Domestic activities and cleaning in buildings). Its objective is to prepare a student to be able to keep a household and know how to ...