Attention, right! Right, attention! March, attention! One might say that the initiative of the Generalitat Government to strengthen the presence of the Mossos d’Esquadra in educational centers is equivalent to the enactment of martial law. The so-called educational community , the organized part of a broader whole, has raised an outcry. Some out of conviction, others out of concern for what others might say, and others to take advantage of the issue amid the labor conflict between the Department of Education and the sector’s unions.
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Prejudice dominates judgment. Prejudice No. 1: the reality of things does not matter. What matters is their appearance, how they should be and how we would like them to be. Prejudice No. 2: the police of 2026 are not a democratic tool for good, but, at best, a necessary evil. Their presence will always be contaminating, and it must be fought. Prejudice No. 3: the solution to any problem is always material. Once the scarcity dog is dead, the rabies of conflict is over.
School is not immune to how life and education are outside of it
Schools and institutes in Catalonia do not have a security problem. A true statement that admits the adversative: however, but, still. Because there are places that, without being the cinematic Bronx of the eighties or the present-day French banlieue , do show symptoms of serious deterioration in coexistence. Points, for example, on the educational map of Baix Llobregat or the two Vallès where it is advisable to act to make the limits of what is acceptable more visible. Whether in the treatment between students, between them and teachers, between parents and teachers, in dealing or in any other issue bordering on conflict at best and crime at worst.
A plan, presented as a pilot and open to voluntary participation of the centers, is, contrary to what has been stated, a way to sweeten the matter and de-dramatize it. The way not to single out, stigmatize, or shame the centers that, whether liked or not, do require and demand that extra police attention. Things, while waiting for them to be as we would like, are as they are. Goodbye to prejudice number one.
We continue. It is not the grays of the past who will get involved in greater prevention in these centers. They are the police of 2026. The same ones whom schools and institutes call and applaud to offer talks on cybersecurity, bullying, or other issues. There are actors in the educational community still tied to the slogans of a very distant May, a time when the only thing considered good and fully democratic was to buy, read, and underline the people of the Frankfurt School.
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But we are in today. And the model of community policing, close to the concerns and demands of the citizens and more focused on prevention than repression, that is, the core of the pilot plan that has caused so much uproar, can only be seen with total reservation by those who ignore, or pretend to ignore, a substantial part of today’s police work. The plan seeks to make the effect noticeable without the care being apparent. Without uniforms, without daily presence, without intimidation, without a repressive spirit. Information, care, monitoring, prevention. A quiet police force at the service of the community good. Goodbye to prejudice number two.
More pedagogical and material resources. Of course. Only they will always be insufficient. And even if they were enough. Because school is not immune to how life and education are outside of it. It is not an island. And less so today, with the figure of the teacher under attack, with no authority whatsoever to assert themselves in their territory. Material resources are a necessary prescription but insufficient. Does this mean the educational system is sinking? Rather, it means that schools and institutes are not, nor would they be even if their floors were built with Ferrara marble, safe from the storm that in some places is experienced outside of them.
By now we should know at least two things. First, that the ideal is nothing more than an aspiration that does not exempt us from dealing with facts. Second, that what a part of the educational community demands and says publicly is not always beneficial. Especially when it has been held hostage for years by the ideological pedagogism of good intentions and closing its eyes to the signals reality persistently emits. Goodbye to prejudice number three.
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