Strong demand from cultural personalities for the “educational emptying that compromises the future of the Homeland”

“The undersigned would like to express our deep concern about the crisis in the Argentine school, which has been deepened to alarming levels by the latest measures taken in the context of the pandemic,” say the academics and teachers who subscribe to the text, referring to the provisions of the Federal Council of Education that facilitated to the extreme the conditions for the promotion of the degree or year and that for its implementation called for “unacceptable pressure on teachers to certify unverified learning”.

“A cry of alarm has arisen from teachers who suffer their dignity with impositions that aim to degrade the essence of their role: to teach,” the signatories point out. That was the trigger for the decision of these personalities to make a public statement to alert society as a whole to what is happening in schools and to challenge the responsible authorities.

The petition talks about “de-education”, “demagogy” and “educational scam”, “leveling down”, “facilitism”, “devaluation of the teaching role” and “underestimation of poor children”, among other very harsh concepts about the current state of education.

The text is signed by the prominent linguist Pedro Luis Barcia, the directors of the National Academy of Education (its president, Guillermo Jaim Etcheverry, and its vice-presidents, Horacio Sanguinetti and Adalberto Rodríguez Giavarini), the Argentine Academy of Letters (Alicia Zorrilla and José Luis Moure, president and vice president respectively), of the National Academy of Medicine (its president, Antonio Raúl de los Santos), from historians such as Luis Alberto Romero, José Emilio Burucúa, Hilda Sabato, María Saenz Quesada and Isidoro Ruiz Moreno, from philosophers such as Santiago Kovadloff and Diana Cohen Agrest, by political scientist Marcos Novaro and Rosendo Fraga, member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences. Also from several graduates from the glorious era of the Mariano Acosta School of Teachers, such as Jorge Butera (who was rector of that institution), Alberto De Luca (today director of the Phillips School) and Ricardo Romano; from writers, such as Marcos Aguinis and Abel Posse, by Alberto Bellucci, former director of the National Museum of Fine Arts and Decorative Art, Fernando Petrella (former director of the National Foreign Service Institute) and Ana Borzone, teacher and principal researcher at Conicet, among a total of more than 50 firms.

These personalities have joined their voices to point out that “for decades the authorities in the educational area - under different administrations - have been cultivating the conception that the necessary social inclusion is achieved only through the degradation of the quality and content of teaching”. And they denounce that “the result is the opposite of what has been claimed: the school gap is growing, as families with the necessary material resources flee to the few remaining niches of educational excellence, both in the public and private spheres”.

“The paternalism behind inclusive discourse is actually an underestimation of poor children,” the statement says. Instead of teaching them, educational charity is done with them. And they are deprived of the only chance they have to get ahead: school. A school that teaches.”

They also evoke a trajectory of our education that must be rescued, when they point out that “the equalizing role in opportunities and promoting the future that Argentine education traditionally had is sacrificed.”

The declaration ends with an invocation to the authorities “to assume peremptorily, as a mandate, to change this direction”, because “several generations are being de-educated, and if the future of children and young people is alienated, the future of the nation is being alienated”.

Finally, they point out that, “if the national government wants to de-educate, the provinces should not allow it”. “The federal country,” they conclude, must put an end to this demagogic conception of education, which denies demand and discipline, disavows teachers, defrauds students and compromises the future of the Homeland.”

Below is the full text of the declaration and signatures:

WE ASK THE AUTHORITIES TO START EDUCATING SERIOUSLY AND REBUILD THE ARGENTINE SCHOOL

An empty title is covert discrimination and failed inclusion

The undersigned would like to express our deep concern about the crisis in the Argentine school, which has been deepened to alarming levels by the latest measures taken in the context of the pandemic.

A cry of alarm has emerged from teachers who suffer their dignity with impositions that aim to degrade the essence of their role: teaching.

Before the end of the 2020 school year - the year of closed classrooms - the then Minister of Education and the Federal Council of Education announced the automatic passing of the degree for all students, disdaining the personal effort of each student to learn and of teachers to teach in an adverse context.

This decision was completed, in 2021, with a series of provisions imbued with the same facilitative spirit: a promotion system that is maximally flexible, which assumes the knowledge of two years of a subject with a single quarter approved by the end of 2021 and allows one year to go through with up to 5 or 6 previous subjects - all of this accompanied by the abolition of numerical qualifications, examination tables, compulsory school attendance and unacceptable pressure on teachers to certify unverified learning.

For decades, authorities in the area - under different administrations - have cultivated the conception that the necessary social inclusion is achieved only through the degradation of the quality and content of teaching. The result is the opposite of what has been claimed: the school gap is growing, as families with the necessary material resources flee to the few remaining niches of educational excellence, both in public and private spheres.

That is why we affirm that the current education deficit is not essentially budgetary. It's conceptual. Whimsical pedagogical theories banished methodological rigor and systematic teaching from school.

Measures such as those taken at the end of last year in relation to the promotion of pupils are merely a reflection of the idea that the requirement, discipline and evaluation of knowledge are aggressions to learners, who must be content all the time; a conception that derives from having questioned the centrality of the knowledge and the hierarchy of relationships that should prevail in education.

The focus of the system must once again be knowledge, the transmission of which is a complex and multidimensional process, which involves close collaboration between teachers and students, between classmates, between parents, teachers and students, although it always has a kind of backbone and ordering: the vertical axis of the cultural transmission. But in the name of the idea that “the child learns alone” - that he “builds his own knowledge” - teachers were denied the authority to teach and pupils the right to learn.

No child can appropriate knowledge for himself.

And every child has the right to be taught, to be allowed to access and appropriate the cultural heritage accumulated by previous generations. That is his right. And only the school can guarantee it. This will allow him in the future to defend himself and act in the world, whether it be work, relationship, university.

But today, with a paternalistic conception and under the label of inclusion, we see that, along with the devaluation of personal effort and the emptying of programs, a stigmatization of discipline, which undermines the authority of the teacher, is promoted.

Without the student's acceptance of the teacher's authority, there is no transfer of knowledge possible. The State must ensure respect for those values that made our school great and recover the virtuous alliance of authorities, parents and teachers that makes learning possible.

In today's school there is a constant leveling down. Competition, which should be promoted for the sake of emulation, is disqualified by the absurd argument of discrimination. This gives learners the idea that it is not worth the effort.

The paternalism behind inclusive discourse is actually an underestimation of poor children. Instead of teaching them, educational charity is done with them. And they are deprived of the only chance they have to get ahead: school. A school that teaches.

In this way, the equalizing role in opportunities and promoting the future that Argentine education traditionally had is sacrificed thanks to the imprint given by Sarmiento.

A school that taught reading and writing in the first grade, while today the failure is covered by automatically promoting and arguing - against all experience - that children need two years for that learning.

Every child is able to learn to read and write and to perform basic mathematical operations during the first grade. It is imperative to meet that goal again because the student who does not master literacy will be ill-equipped for the rest of his or her school journey.

It is a right that cannot be denied. If this is not guaranteed, this future young person is being divorced from the world, condemned to marginality or slavery. What technological innovation are we talking about if students are not provided with the tools necessary to access that knowledge?

Distributing laptops is important, but that does not in itself save the current failures. It is just a tool that does not exempt the school from its homework or the authorities of their responsibility.

Even more serious is that the prevailing educational facilitism is being transferred to teacher training institutes where unrestricted income has been imposed, compromising what should be an undeclinable principle: that the best students enter the teaching career.

It is that teaching has been devalued. The teacher, who is the one who transmits knowledge, puts it on a par with the student. It cannot penalize, disapprove, or let go free.

The challenge ahead is to give back to the school its role of teaching. The absurd association between disapproval and mistreatment must be disarmed. And between approval and educational quality. An empty title is covert discrimination and failed inclusion.

For all these reasons, we ask the authorities to take a peremptorily mandate to change this course. Several generations are being de-educated. And if the future of children and young people is alienated, the future of the Nation is being alienated.

If the national government wants to de-educate, the provinces should not allow it. The federal country must put an end to this demagogic conception of education, which denies demand and discipline, disavows teachers, defrauds students and compromises the future of the Homeland.

SIGNATURES

Pedro Luis Barcia (linguist, former president of the National Academy of Education)

Luis Alberto Romero (historian)

Guillermo Chaim Etcheverry (president of the National Academy of Education)

José Emilio Burucua (historian)

Marcos Aguinis (writer)

Abel Posse (writer)

Horacio Sanguinetti (former Rector of the Buenos Aires National College, Vice President of the ANE)

Santiago Kovadloff (essayist, poet)

Maria Saenz Quesada (historian)

Alicia Zorrilla (president of the Argentine Academy of Letters)

José Luis Moure (Vice President of the Argentine Academy of Letters)

Alberto Taquini (National Academy of Education. New Education Project)

Diana Cohen Agrest (philosopher)

Alberto Bellucci (former director of the National Museum of Fine Arts and the Museum of Decorative Art)

Fernando Petrella (former director of the National Foreign Service Institute)

Hilda Sábato (historian)

Carlos Reboratti (geographer)

Antonio Raúl de los Santos (president of the National Academy of Medicine)

Rosendo Fraga (member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences)

Ana María Borzone (Principal Researcher at Conicet)

Isidoro Ruiz Moreno (historian)

Marcos Novaro (political scientist)

Julio Martín Viera (composer)

Jorge Goldenberg (screenwriter, director)

Beatriz Bragoni (historian)

Lilia Ana Bertoni (historian)

Guillermo Scarabino (director musical)

Luis Priamo (National Academy of Fine Arts)

Javier Roberto González (Argentine Academy of Letters, Conicet, UCA)

Alieto Guadagni (economist, National Academy of Education)

Adalberto Rodríguez Giavarini (Vice President of the National Academy of Education, CARI)

Roberto Bosca (director of the Cudes Institute of Culture)

Olga Fernández Latour de Botas (Argentine Academy of Letters, National Academy of History)

Santiago Sylvester (writer, Argentine Academy of Letters)

Paola Del Bosco (National Academy of Education, UA).

Héctor Masoero (National Academy of Education, UADE)

Ana Lucía Frega (National Academy of Education)

Ramón Leiguarda (National Academy of Education, UBA)

Victor Herrero (Universidad Austral National Academy of Education)

Miguel Angel Iribarne (former Dean of Political Science at UCALP)

Diego Barros (sociologist and editor)

Carlos Altamirano (writer and university professor)

Vilma Saldumbide (educator, former director of ILSE)

Jorge Norberto Butera (professor and former rector of the Mariano Acosta Superior Normal School)

Alberto De Luca (rector of the Phillips School)

Ricardo Romano (National Normal Teacher)

Liana Pividori (teacher, A.P.L.E. Argentina for Education)

Vicente Massot (political scientist)

Hilda Albano (Argentine Academy of Letters, UBA)

Marcelo Gullo (historian)

Antonio Requeni (writer, Argentine Academy of Letters)

Pablo Cavallero (Argentine Academy of Letters, Conicet, UBA)

Luis Quevedo (Secretary of Eudeba)

Oscar Andrés De Masi (former regent of the Esc Nac. of Museology and university professor)

Martina Anghileri (Pilar Organized Parents)

Sergio Sinay (writer)

Maria Seitún de Chas (professor of Universidad Austral)

Rita Savaglio (doctor, SAP)

Francisco Muscará (National Academy of Education and Univ. Nac. of Cuyo)

Patricio Colombo Murúa (former rector of the Catholic University of Salta)

Hugo Carassai (Arturo Frondizi Foundation)

Silvia G. Melamedoff (president of the Argentine Association of Psychosocial Medicine)

Juan Javier Negri (president of the Sur Foundation, created by Victoria Ocampo)

Cecilia Azkinazi (literary editor, Argentine Association of Psychosocial Medicine)

Norma Nudelman (National Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences)

Oscar Dinova (writer, rural teacher)

Alicia Liliana Vicente (Republican Teachers Civil Association)

Jorge Ossona (historian)

Abel Albino (pediatrician, National Academy of Education)

Manuel Belgrano (president of the Belgranian National Institute)

Honoria Nader, academic of the Argentine Academy of Children's Literature

Luis Alberto de Vedia (National Academy of Sciences)

Claudia Peiró (historian)

(Signatures follow...)

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