In the midst of a heated discussion on how the famous protocol at schools in the city of Buenos Aires should work, how school authorities have decided to make it work and what teachers try to anticipate it will actually be like; in the inevitable sea of ideas for blended learning and hybrid teaching, the latest apps and resources to make your classes the most appealing, opinions, fuss, catharsis, excitement, anxiety and other social media reactions, you all of a sudden find conversations like this…

You just can’t read past comments of this sort, no matter how off-topic they are from the original debate. This has to get you thinking…

Yes, we should try to work out what we can handle, mind our own business, but… is it possible that while arguing, shouting, ranting over the new hot topic of the season we are missing the bigger picture with the reality of our whole country? Some teachers complain that protocols are no good in schools where they need to take care of more essential issues.

Let’s set a very easy example: You cannot focus your attention on how many bubbles there will be if you have been struggling to have water in your school for the past years. Yeap, there’s no water in some schools, and in some provinces there’s no English up to highschool. Basically, there are some things we are giving for granted. What else is there? And what if every time there’s room for improvement we keep on debating from the perspective of a school which is not true in every region of our homeland? Are we sharing but not really caring? What if everything remains there, in the domains of the virtual complaint until we get distracted with something else? Are we taking time to actually listen to what our less privileged colleagues have to say to see how we can help them and start to build a better education from scratch?

Please, teachers (and students)… don’t let it happen. Cool down, be the solution, get organized, speak objectively for once, get involved with what happens outside your bubble, don’t look away, be open for conversation with colleagues that is more than either complaining or accumulating guides, plans, ideas for the first two weeks of classes. Open your eyes to problems that have existed way before a pandemic forced us to change our lesson plan and an educational system that was already old. Don’t let our current talk be only one more silly debate for nothing to then be given for granted in the future.

Evidently, there is more to take into account as regards education (more specifically EFL teaching), and we need to start working to make it even for every one of our kids, for them to access the same possibilities. Let’s also deal with those problems together, demanding equal opportunities from a national viewpoint that reaches every boy and girl in our country. Let’s include them in our concerns too, once and for all. There’s lots to be done before we can say we are providing them with all the resources needed to be competitive in the world of the future that is here and now.

Happy school year!