Swimming
in my lane, trying to get used to the cut-off fins (the ones that ‘real’
swimmers use in swimming pools for reasons that elude me) I hear a voice from
the next lane chant out a soulful, “One week!”
This was a teacher friend of mine counting down the days before she has
to return to school.
In this part of the world, at the start of
term, there is a period when teachers are in school, and the kids are not. A golden opportunity you would think for harassed
members of the profession to get themselves and their classrooms sorted out; to
check through class lists and timetables; check room allocation, and generally
prepare themselves for the forthcoming fray.
You might think that. But if you do then the chances are that you
have not taught in the Catalan or Spanish school system. The Powers That Be consider time without kids
to be the opportune time for meetings.
And more meetings. And more.
In my experience, and I have been to
thousands of meetings, literally thousands – political, cultural, and
educational, and what my mother would have described in a catch-all term of
which she was very fond, “sundry”. And I
can truthfully say that the most soul destroying and quintessentially useless
meetings that I have attended have been here in Catalonia. I must make an honourable exception for
Departmental meetings, but ‘whole school’ affairs have been viciously
pointless. And long. Very long.
In some educational administrative minds,
The Meeting is an end in itself, and the content and participants’ response is
secondary. Even as I type I can begin to
resurrect my feelings of almost homicidal hatred of the agenda-less meanders that
took away hours of my life, without compensating me with anything even remotely
educationally positive.
A signal low point was a meeting on a
Saturday morning (!) during which I was wearing my most pointedly casual
clothes and throughout which I didn’t smile once. Not once from the beginning of the pointless
charade to the eventual will-sapped end. I spoke only when I was directly
addressed, and my answers were clipped to the point of being marginally rude. Not one smile.
And I left at the earliest point I could and went home, smouldering
because the meeting had been (surprise!) pointless.
But you are retired, I hear no one
say. You no longer go to meetings. True.
I no longer go to meetings that I have to go to; I go to the
meetings I choose to go to.
The last meeting I went to was in our
local city hall and was a gathering of individuals from the foreign
communities, who had been invited by a general email to consider taking part.
We gathered at the appointed time outside
the City Hall and were ushered into the Council Chamber where we were seated,
shown a short film, and then joined by the alcaldesa (the mayor) and encouraged
to give our opinions about our city. We
were not a large group and we had widely differing proficiency in Spanish or
Catalan, but we were listened to with courtesy and our points were considered
and responded to. At least verbally.
One of the points that I made was about
the state of the roads and especially those roads in the immediate vicinity of
my house. Some of the road surfaces are
composed of what seems to be rafts of concrete and there has been some movement
of these plates. Round the corner from
where I live one concrete plate in the road has risen so that there is a ledge
lifted above the surface of the surrounding road. As the ridge is so pronounced, it means that
a car driven at a normal speed feels as though it is encountering a substantial
step in the road with consequent jarring.
I had even taken a photograph of the ridge and was able to illustrate my
point that the road was not only uncomfortable to drive on but also potentially
dangerous.
I await further developments, and hope
that it will not be the breaking of the axel of some unsuspecting car.
To be fair I have not attempted any follow
up and anyone who expects anything to be done in the month of August must be a
very green newcomer to the country!
The important thing is that a channel of
communication has been opened with members of the foreign community and it is
up to the individuals concerned in the initial meeting to make something of the
opportunity offered by the City.
We were not, in any way a representative
grouping. We had no mandate apart from
our own interests. We had an opportunity,
and we were speaking directly to the political power brokers in our own area.
We were listened to, and a group photograph
was taken! An overture has been made and
it is up to us to find out if it can be taken further.
I started this writing by concentrating on
futility: the system grinding on, pointless and empty actions limiting
expression.
But I end this piece with a new
determination to make the channel of communication with the movers and shakers
in my adopted city one that works for me and one that even might Get Something
Done!
There is no point in being near levers if
you don’t pull one or two occasionally and see what happens.
