Somescola.cat calls for Civil Disobedience of Court Sentence

Somescola.cat calls for Civil Disobedience of Court Sentence

Somescola.cat (We Are School — a collective of civic, cultural and educational associations) wish to express our most profound indignation for the verdict by the Superior Court of Justice in Catalonia (TSJC, the Spanish superior court in our country) that would make it compulsory for a whole class to be taught in Spanish if the parents of just one single student presents a lawsuit demanding their child have all lessons in that language. The TSJC sentence seeks instability and tries to create a conflictive atmosphere of discrimination at Catalan schools. In this respect, we must reiterate that there is not and has never been such a linguistic conflict at Catalan schools, as all people’s rights have always been respected.  At present, for instance, after all school enrolment for the next course has been made, only 17 families in Catalonia have asked for their children to be taught in Spanish. For the last 30 years there has always been social and political consensus concerning the role of the Catalan language at schools, at which, as a pedagogical strategy, it is the prevalent teaching language and has normally become the common language in education.

The TSJC verdict now seeks to introduce a fragmentary element against the normal coexistence in all classrooms and schools by imposing the interest of a very few families over and above the rest, an outright majority, and by eliciting a perilous doctrine that the Spanish language carries some form of preferential rights as a superior language which stands naturally above Catalan and further, above current law and society’s will. Such a position would be the precedent supporting base for the Spanishizing plans of Mr.  Wert, the Spanish minister of Education, that are included in the LOMCE, the new Spanish education bill.

Somescola.cat express our conviction that no teachers will apply such an unfair resolution in their classrooms.  We also ask the Catalan Department of Education, more than ever, for the adoption of the very firmest position on this matter in not executing this TSJC resolution. Finally, as the situation exceeds the patience of a whole country seeking to live in freedom, Somescola.cat make a call for disobedience and reiterate our will to defend our educational system by rejecting any foreign interfering misconceptions.

For a country for all, school in Catalan for everyone!

Somescola.cat