Juan Francisco Falcón has been teaching for 20 years, especially in Mathematics, and this will be his second year as a teacher at the IES San Benito de La Laguna, in Tenerife, after having passed the exams for Secondary School teacher held in the Canary Islands last year. . That year he will teach 2nd year of ESO and 1st year in the Learning and Performance Improvement Program (PMAR), so he will not have to adapt his teaching to the new Education law for now. “It’s not up to me this year, but many colleagues at the center are, and what we’re going to do is work as a team, helping each other so that everything goes ahead, and because that will help us for the next grade”explains the teacher, who acknowledges that after the summer holidays there was an atmosphere of nervousness in the center because all the details are not yet outlined to start teaching.
Falcón defines this course that begins as “transitional”. Not only because of the new educational law but also because full normality is restored after the pandemic, and for that you also have to adapt. Although the end of the previous year was quite similar to what was historically considered normality in schools, with many activities that had had to be suppressed in the last two years, this school year begins with the illusion of full order with the normalization of spaces and the disappearance of covid classrooms.
“And that also means that we return to the usual ratios,” recalls the professor who regrets this fact. “Teaching classes for 16 students is not the same as for almost 30”, he affirms and adds that it is a detail that not only affects the teaching staff, who must be aware of more students, but also of the young people themselves, who have accustomed to highly individualized tutoring. The previous year he taught classes to only 15 students in which there were up to three teachers, “and that was a joy,” he says.
In any case, he acknowledges that “there is some fear” among the teaching staff for all the changes that the new course brings because “it seems that sometimes the students themselves are being experimented on, making them face so many modifications.” However, he trusts “the level of professionalism of the teachers”, who have shown that they can face any challenge after what they have experienced in the pandemic.
However, Juan Francisco Falcón downplays some of the importance of the changes that the new Education law may bring about because “it seems something focused more on a normative level.” In this way, he affirms that he has been teaching classes for years with a system that fits quite well with what is included in the new legislation, so it will not be traumatic for him or for his students, who “are the most important in all case and for which we have to work correctly”.
