What a Disappointment

Well, what can I say… It’s like giving sweets to a diabetic and then getting angry at him for being sick. I don’t quite understand fixing our attention on the symptoms and consequences of the disease, rather than its origin. We may blame screens and the tech era, but we are the ones who handed it to the children. We have been as audacious and irresponsible as to provide cutting-edge technology to three-year-olds, just to be able to eat calmly in a restaurant. And it didn’t matter that it was something new and unprecedented, that there were no studies on the brain impact from its use or on the medium- and long-term consequences of using it as a daily habit. If you think about it, it’s like trying a new medicine without prior clinical trials. After all, what could go wrong?

But, beyond our obvious guilt, beyond the inertia that drives us and strangles us at the same time, we have the Ministry of Education, which in Spain possesses one of the most varied and scattered regulatory frameworks in Europe. The LOE of 2006, the LOMLOE of 2020, the FP Law of 2022 and another heap of norms partially or wholly repealed; I’m not talking about political parties, but about a disastrous totum revolutum. Since my old days, compulsory basic education was extended from 14 to 16 years: I have seen the educational programs, and I believe I can speak with knowledge when I say that there is a repeated review of concepts, a tendency toward mechanical memorization and a very secondary space for research and debate. Many teachers rightly complain that students use AI to prepare assignments, but I myself —a mother of a fifteen-year-old— have seen assignments of all kinds presented without sources “because they weren’t asked for,” and if sources were provided, it was fine to cite Wikipedia. Furthermore, the norms of our Welfare State eliminated September recovery exams and moved them to June, lest the youngsters become frustrated and ruin their parents’ vacations. In the end, even if they failed some subjects, they still advanced to the next year, and those who had passed everything at first, while others did retakes, found themselves going to school to do nothing for two weeks before the year ended.

And beware, because education does have the power to steer and direct: I urge you to review the Technology subjects in the third and fourth years of the ESO; in my day we did crafts and simple things, but now they teach from how to build cement to how a full electrical system works. It is evidently aimed at a generation that leans more toward Vocational Training than university study, but they are not explained what a freelancer is, what a limited liability company or another type of corporation is, nor how much to pay into social security in each case or how much is withheld for income tax if you work as an employee. My sense is that we are seeking a workforce to whom, deliberately, a panoramic view of the job market is not offered.

Thus, the system fails at its root, and formal schooling is structured as a fundamental pillar to give the new generations the slightest chance to have judgment and critical thinking. But blaming the institutions alone is like shouting to the sky in a desert. There will continue to be a legal vacuum around the use of AI and the use of technology in minors for many years. Now it’s time to look in the mirror, because everyone knows that, in ninety-nine percent of cases, when a child fails at school, something is cracked at home. Let us equip our children with tools: it isn’t necessary for them to think like us, but they should reason according to their own criteria. Solving integrals, understanding photosynthesis, or reading Camilo José Cela won’t serve them in real life, but they will exercise the muscle inside their heads. It is our obligation to explain it to them, to give them encouragement, to facilitate their own takeoff. If we do not do it, their only references will be Instagram or TikTok, where the muscles that develop, however beautiful and aesthetic they may be, will always be insufficient.