Areas, for what?

Areas are a patch that attempts to repair the damage caused by successive educational reforms

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Josep Oton

A ruling by the High Court of Justice of Catalonia has just ruled in favour of the Secondary School Teachers’ Union (ASPEPC·SPS) in its appeal against Decree 171/2022 of the Generalitat that allowed the implementation of areas in the Baccalaureate.

According to art. 24.1 of the LOMLOE, “the subjects of the first to third years of the stage (ESO) may be grouped into areas”. In the previous legislation (LOMCE) this possibility was limited to 1st year of ESO, to facilitate the transition of primary school students to secondary school, but the LOMLOE extended it to 3rd year of ESO.

In Valencia, the regional government went beyond tihis and the optionality of such measure became mandatory: “The grouping by areas of knowledge must be applied for the first year of the stage in all educational centres supported with duly authorised public funds.” (Art. 11.3 of Decree 107/2022 of the Valencian Community). The reaction of the teaching staff, channeled through OCRE, managed to overturn this systematic imposition of the areas.

For its part, the Generalitat of Catalonia, through the decrees that regulate the curricula of ESO (compulsory education) and Baccalaureate, has sought to extend the application of the areas up to 4th year of ESO – which is a course of an orientation nature – and also in Baccalaureate. Thanks to the appeal presented by the Secondary School Teachers’ Union (ASPEPC·SPS) this will no longer be possible.

Let’s analyze the issue of the areas. It is about the grouping of related subjects taught by the same teacher. In my opinion, this pedagogical resource was designed to respond to a triple purpose. On the one hand, if the number of teachers involved in a group is high, the students tend to disperse. On the other hand, transversality offers a vision of knowledge closer to reality and reinforces the learning of the contents of the subject itself by approaching them from a complementary perspective. A third purpose: grouping subjects by areas serves to free us from the corset of 60-minute classes that prevent us from carrying out activities that require a longer time margin.

However, if a teacher with a double degree, or for whatever reason, he wants and he’s qualified enough to teach two different subjects to the same group, the system must be flexible enough to allow it. In addition, to balance schedules sometimes it is necessary to use the same teacher to teach subjects other than those of his or her specialty. However, these are exceptions that do not legitimize the imposition of areas, presented as a panacea for the educational system with the veiled promise that they will improve student results.

The LOMLOE’s areas are intended to require fewer teachers assigned to a group, but this was already achieved when the number of hours in the subjects was higher. This reduced the supposed dispersion of the students, but the teachers themselves also improved their dedication by teaching the subject in fewer groups and levels and, consequently, with fewer students in total. Even if the same teaching hours were maintained, by dedicating them to a smaller number of groups, the results tend to improve.

The LOGSE inaugurated the reduction of hours per subject. The LOMLOE has continued with this systematic pruning. These laws have generated a problem with their micro-subjects that harm both students and teachers. They have created a dysfunction and now they intend to remedy it with the introduction of the areas, wich is not a real solution, but a botched joc.

Likewise, before the LOGSE, in Catalan high schools there was the possibility of splitting subjects such as History, which was known as the “B hours“. One hour a week, the class group was divided into two. While some worked on more practical or procedural content in Geography and History, the other half, for example, went to the Natural Sciences laboratory.

The “B hours” were not a vestige of the LGE of 1970. It was an advance of the 80s that the LOGSE was in charge of eliminating. If this resource were available now, teaching hours could be optimized. With this timetable organization it would be possible to implement, in a more than reasonable dose, pedagogical improvements: co-teaching, transversality, manipulative and collaborative activities… However, the LOGSE, and now the LOMLOE, have sabotaged this margin of flexibility by reducing the hours per subject and eliminating resources such as “B hours” in certain subjects.

Likewise, to carry out interdisciplinary activities it is essential to start from the basis of the subjects themselves. Would anyone think of doing comparative linguistics or translation exercises without knowing a language thoroughly? Therefore, for the sake of transversality, the structure of the subject itself must be strengthened. For this, teaching departments are essential. However, there is a tendency to banish them from the organisational chart of the centres. Therefore, without hours for department meetings, without reduction for their coordination and without specialist teachers, it is impossible to tackle the challenge of interdisciplinarity.

Furthermore, the imposition of areas forces teachers to teach subjects that are not their speciality. Something that is detrimental to the quality of teaching.

In short, areas are a patch that attempts to repair the damage caused by successive educational reforms. A remedy that is worse than the disease. We congratulate the legal services of the Secondary School Teachers‘ Union for this judicial success that marks a red line and will undoubtedly improve the quality of teaching.

Source: educational EVIDENCE

Rights: Creative Commons