“Schools are at an important crossroads and decisions need to be made, rather than changed, to improve, because not all changes are good. We have to stand and reflect, and each school has to see what it wants, where it wants to go, because not all schools have to follow the same path,” said Professor Koldo Rabadan, Superpowers. 10 steps on the path of school transformation.

To present the book, ARGIA has organized a round table at the school of Larraul, where otherwise the chosen room has been filled with children, fathers, mothers, teachers, citizens (education) as an expression of a living community. Larraul's children have started the act, singing and playing guitar, keyboard and percussion. Then, the diners started the talk show, led by ARGIA journalist Gorka Peñagarikano.

“Transformation, innovation… are words that have become fashionable, we are all transforming… but how? What pre-selection has been made? Has any pre-selection been made? Are we talking about needs because we have to transform or transform?”, aroused Irati Manzisidor (coordinator of Eskola Txikiak of the Basque Country): “it is good that change is the result of reflection.”

Maitane Telletxea (Director of the Mendigain School of Zizurkil) added that this change must come from within, “because the cloister has felt the need and not because the new law says so.”

Yayo Herrero says that thinking that education is capable of transforming society is a magical thought, remembers Nora Salbotx (Amaiur school teacher), while Marina Garcés says that education gives us tools to change the world. What contribution does the school want to make to the people, to the Basque Country, to care, to nature, to our relations…? “Let’s think about all this,” says Salbotx, and let’s put it as a goal of utopia. “Parents would be asked anonymously what class they dream of for their sons and daughters,” Rabadan said. Reflect, forge, theorize, dream and try: starting with the roof, because then reality will come down to us, “but at least let us try”; the diners have coincided. “It’s wonderful that there is a team ready to start the project from the roof,” Salbotx said.

In order to define the identity, the north, the values and the principles of the school, it is necessary to stop and take some time, in these times when we are experiencing stress and haste. “Education has to be quiet and slow,” said Manzisidor. At Larraul’s school they did so, stood up and debated what they wanted, “and we agreed that every boy and every girl had to find their place in school, also in the case of teachers, because in many places neither children nor teachers find their place, you see many tired and pessimistic cloisters; we decided we wanted a school for everyone,” Rabadan explained.

The burden and fatigue observed in the cloisters can often be because the school is asked to solve everything, and there is a step from omnipotence to impotence, adds Ainhoa Azpiroz (coordinator of Hik Hasi). “We are drowned, wanting to bring projects from outside, but if we look more at the cloister himself, if we listen more to everyone, we would do nice things, each teacher has his gift,” said Telletxea. In this sense, Manzisidor talks about the empowerment of teachers: “We teachers are who to philosophize about our profession, to discuss pedagogy.”

Some people think it's easier to experiment and transform in small schools, but the interlocutors say that using creativity everyone has to look for their way of doing, and in small schools, what one serves doesn't have to work in the other. “It’s fashionable to take a model for everyone, but the bad copy doesn’t work,” Manzisidor said. “They usually ask me after the seminars, “how many students do you have in school?”, as if the fact that there are fewer students would take weight from the message – said Rabadan – but if we have said that children are respected, rhythms, times, should children not be respected, rhythms, times in the big schools of cities? Another thing is that each school has to look for its own way of doing it, and that’s why the book is not a book of instruction, but a book that seeks to stimulate debate.”

The curriculum can also not be an excuse to find new paths, nor to think that as it rises to the level the transformation becomes impossible. “It is up to us to look for cracks and cracks,” according to Salbotx. And in addition, the network and collaboration, especially with the closest centers, to keep growing together, to protect and enrich each other instead of being islands. “The school has many responsibilities and she alone can’t, just like families. We should call the school project a country project, because we all have to take responsibility for education,” Manzisidor stressed.

Cryptotonites and solutions

Hurry, suffocation and lack of time. One of the main enemies and cryptonites of dreams. “The school is the transatlantic that is going on, it cannot stop, it has to continue on a daily basis, and that makes it very difficult for it to think,” Azpiroz said. “If we come together and ‘puf’, ‘I’m up’, ‘I don’t come’ the dynamic, it doesn’t help much, we have to approach the project with enthusiasm; in the group we can do a little therapy, but if we are slower and take a space to discuss quietly, we can feel that we are doing well,” says Rabadam. Do we lack time? “The filling is done, do not waste time on it and focuses on what is truly important.”

Another cryptotonite: high temporality of the faculty. How do we attach new teachers to the project if it goes from one place to the next? If the school project is a country project, as Manzisidor said, if it is from the whole community, it will be easier for it to be incorporated, because it will feel that the project has the support of the whole community, according to Rabadam.

Obstacles and cryptonites cryptotonites, because you can make the way. At least we have felt it there gathered together, in a warm room filled with people from the upper floor of the school of Larraul.