It is not uncommon that, knowing very well the Cortes of Cádiz, the reign of Fernando VII, the First Republic, the Restoration and the Cuban War but not knowing anything about the coup d’état of 1936, Francoism or the Transition, there are students who Get a 10 on the Selectivity test that gives you access to the university. Nor are young people unusual who finish their compulsory studies – and stay there or continue in professional training – without practically having seen what the dictatorship was like, what its cruel and massive repression was like, what the exile consisted of or how the terrible famine that affected them was. devastated the country in the 1940s.
That Spain has a problem with the study of these historical stages is corroborated by several recent investigations that allude to the gaps in the educational system. And it is something that has been put on the table again this week with the start of the events that the Government has prepared for the “50 years of freedom” after Franco’s death. The initiative is opposed by the right, who have deployed their usual arguments pointing out that it is something of the past or that the left seeks to impose a “unique” and “biased” vision, but talking about the dictator continues to be a pending subject in the classrooms, where As is happening with other issues, several positions coexist in a scenario marked by polarization.
“From the outset, what there is is a general lack of knowledge,” says Néstor Banderas, who until this year was a History teacher at a high school in Valencia. The teacher points to the “progressive loss of references” who can talk to them about the past, as long as the established mandate of silence does not prevail in the family. Together with that, there is “a structural problem” that has to do with the educational curriculum, its contents and its organization, agree the experts and professors consulted for this report.l
Everyone knows how to name a Nazi concentration camp, but if we ask them about those here or about the prisons, they know little.
Nestor Banderas
— Teacher and researcher
The result is classrooms in which, although heterogeneity prevails, many young people know that these stages existed, but are unaware or confuse many of their characteristics and internal logic, according to a study with people between 16 and 30 years old carried out by the CIMOP research institute for the Association of Descendants of Spanish Exile. A situation exacerbated by the most used textbooks, which tend to reproduce a “reductionist” image of the dictatorship. “Everyone knows how to name a Nazi concentration camp, but if we ask them about those here or about the prisons, they know little. In general, there is a tendency to underestimate the importance of Franco’s repression,” says Banderas.
Lack of information and ultra boom
Aída Fernández Olanda, who has taught at high schools in Madrid and Andalusia, where she is now, agrees: “There is little information, a lot depends on the intention that individual teachers have in transmitting this knowledge. But in general it seems like something very alien and very distant, extremely distant, something from the past, that they did not experience…”, reflects the teacher. From this lack of knowledge, myths and false beliefs arise that are reproduced in the classrooms and are linked to those that society also expresses in many cases.
“There is everything, it depends a lot on the political and family culture, the training that the students have or the consumption of social networks and cultural products that they do… I don’t know if it is the majority, but there are positions and typical trivializing comments , myths such as ‘you lived better with Franco’, that ‘it made swamps’ or that ‘you could have the door to your house open because there was more security’. It is something that comes from the lack of information in many cases and in others also from the rise of the discourse of the extreme right, which is very simplifying of the past and very unscientific,” explains Banderas, who refers to how the ultra discourse has permeated also among students, a trend already identified in educational centers.
Víctor Manuel Vegas Conejo, professor of Geography and History at the IES Isla de León in San Fernando (Cádiz), also refers to “poor” knowledge and misinformation, who reproduces the same myths as his Valencian colleague and summarizes them in “biased information.” and shallow.” “What I do is encourage the class to come up with all those ideas, and then put them on the table and debate them among everyone. In any case, what are we asking of young people when society itself is still not trained in this?” asks the teacher, who also mentions the added difficulty that at this time entails “dealing according to which issues” in the face of accusations of “indoctrination” that has agitated the ultra sectors in recent years. He, for example, has experienced it from some families and colleagues at the center, where they have nicknamed him ‘the gravesite’, he says.
There is equidistance, stereotypes, attitudes of trivialization and rejection of memory policies, but we also detect groups with more complex visions, interested in learning from Franco’s regime.
Carlos Fuertes
— Historian
The historian Carlos Fuertes, an expert in social history and education under Franco, advances along the same lines and is committed to focusing on “the diversity of positions” that occur in the same classroom. “There is equidistance, stereotypes, attitudes of trivialization and rejection of memory policies, it is not about denying this, but we can also detect groups with more complex visions, interested in learning from the Franco regime,” says the expert, who also refers to how, after the emergence of Vox “there is greater boldness in the expression of antidemocratic opinions” and at the same time recognizes that the organization of the system “does not favor” the in-depth treatment of the dictatorship.
Late and little
Because the first time a student is told about the Franco regime in class is not until the 4th year of ESO, when they are about 15 years old. But the vast extension of the program does not favor in-depth treatment, since universal, European and Spanish history is addressed in the same subject. The LOMLOE has let the communities distribute the content between 3rd and 4th grades, but only three have decided to move the 19th century and Geography to the first so that in the second there is more time to study the most recent history. Furthermore, since the syllabus usually follows a chronological order, it is left until the end of the course and this encourages its “avoidance or superficial approach.”
This is what the study details Francoism and transition in the classrooms: democratic teaching and memorypublished in the magazine Yesterday by Banderas and Fuertes –both researchers at the University of Valencia–. The teachers consulted agree that it is common that this historical stage is not addressed, which means that those who abandon their studies after completing ESO or continue doing vocational training may leave the institute behind without having studied the Franco regime or after having done so very above. A survey among Valencian students carried out by Fuertes and Banderas for their study revealed that 74% of students did not discuss Francoism in the 4th year of ESO.
The next time to address it, this time in much more depth, will be 2nd year of Baccalaureate. In this case, the LOMLOE has meant a change and has returned to the Contemporary History with which the LOMCE of José Ignacio Wert (PP) ended and which involved concentrating a very broad syllabus that began in prehistory in the same subject. Even so, what greatly determines the content that is seen throughout the course is that 2nd year is so aimed at passing Selectivity. An example is what has happened in Andalusia, where, according to Fernández Olanda, at least since 2017 “the only question asked” in the test “about the 20th century is the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera.”
All this depends a lot on the personal effort of the teacher, the centers do not always give us facilities and it is not thought to be something important in the educational system.
Aida Fernandez Olanda
“The first year I was very determined to study with them the Second Republic, the Civil War and the Franco era and they told me ‘it’s not going to fall’ and that was indeed the case in that and the subsequent courses,” says the teacher, who also adds that in the last courses since the coronavirus pandemic “optional options were expanded” in many autonomous communities “giving the choice between a question from the 19th century and another from the 20th”, so that “a person only studying the first can get a 10 without having looked at anything of the 20th century”, summarizes Fernandez Olanda. “Everything depends a lot on the teacher’s personal effort. The centers do not always give us facilities and it is not thought to be something important in the educational system,” he highlights.
Visit graves, tell stories
At the same time, there are many teachers who, like those consulted for this report, are trying to ensure that knowledge about these matters is broad and rigorous and launching educational innovation projects along these lines. An example is what they do at the IES Manuel de Falla in Puerto Real, where the group was created five years ago. Recovering Memory to involve the entire educational community and from which they hold conferences, talks, visit graves that are being exhumed and carry out activities to bring out the family stories of the students. “It’s amazing and it’s something that works very well. In a place like this where there was so much repression, of the 83 students I can have, 30 relatives are shot,” says Cristina Honorato, a History teacher and one of the promoters of the group.
In his experience, he agrees with his classmates that “there is a lot of misinformation and the kids reproduce clichés,” but “when you have the possibility of having a space to work on it in depth and motivating the students, it is very well received and what They tell you that they had no idea and that they should have known about it sooner. They always want more, they are curious,” explains Honorato, who regrets that the issues of the dictatorship reach the students “so late.” “From the Primary grades it should begin to be addressed. They are children who are super crushed by who Christopher Columbus is, why not with this?
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