So Many Strikes

Over the past few weeks, there have been a number of strikes by workers in different public sectors. The transit workers were on strike last week, and the street cleaners are on strike this week, which has shown how frighteningly disgusting Madrid would be if no one were out there emptying public trash cans and cleaning off the sidewalks every day.

Really hoping the street-cleaners' strike ends soon!

In addition, the day Charlene arrived, it just so happened that there was a general educational strike going on throughout Spain. I still had to go into work, but only two full-time teachers and three administrators showed up. The whole thing was so well-organized that they even sent home notes with the kids requesting that their parents not send them to school that day, and indeed only about thirty kids showed up from all of the grades combined. Needless to say, it was a pretty easy day - we just had to keep all of the kids entertained and occupied.

The goal of the strike was to impede the passing of a new law which had been proposed to revamp public education in Spain. I'm still not 100% sure what all the law was intended to do, but some of the things I heard were:

• Making [Catholic] religion mandatory in public schools (it's currently optional)

• Imposing even more drastic budget cuts on the public school systems, which have already suffered severe cuts over the past few years

• Apparently initiating a new style of teaching which encourages competition, partly by instituting more rigorous end-of-year testing at the end of every grade level

Essentially, EVERYBODY is extremely opposed to this law, and so much so that another stipulated goal of the strike was to force the current minister of education, José Ignacio Wert, to resign.

In conjunction with the strike, there was also a protest march later in the evening, which happened to commence on a main avenue not far from my house...

As soon as Charlene arrived, we dropped her stuff at my place and headed down to join the march. It was actually kind of fun - instead of acting super bitter and angry, most people just seemed to be enjoying coming together to support a common cause. Lots of school groups seemed to have met up beforehand in order to march together, shouting slogans they had prepared against the government and for better education. We wound up behind a group of people playing upbeat riffs on marching-band style drums. This was the first protest I've ever been a part of, and it was certainly an interesting experience!