We were looking forward to the weekend. We had a quote in a winery in Laguardia, between wine and wine we started to fix the world. We do not run away from complicated issues: machismo, immigration and all the steps of the relief of COVID-ANTICOVID-19 and terraplanism. And the topic came, education. We breathe deeply. Will we address this issue? Are we not going to fight? In 1993 most of us played in the courtyard of the Ikastola, discussing whether or not our parents published the Ikastolas. It is not that this was a reflection of small bourgeois, all of them belonged to the working class: household employees, metal workers and teachers. 30 years later in Rioja Alavesa we were able to discuss the issue as adults and to express our concerns. I mean, a gardener, a physiotherapist, a metal worker and four teachers talking in depth about education, we've come to the Basic Educational Agreements, with our disagreements.

Laguardia Agreement: An Euskaldun education for the whole of the Basque Country, which is centred on the Basque culture and the Basque culture; which is nourished more from the north of Europe than from Madrid and Paris, and from the eleven schools of our people, to transform, modernize education; that inclusion, non-segregation, origin, race, gender or social class are no excuses to exclude anyone; and that we decide on our advertising. Once the reflection is over, we have had the opportunity to see each other's faces and dance many times.

I've come to school on Monday and Monday. We've had a week of five days, intense, passionate, beautiful. We have tried to put into practice what we dreamed of over the weekend from Monday to Friday. There are also similar truths experienced in a small school for a week: reflection to improve cooperative learning; elaboration of the cultural agenda “Enjoying the Basque culture”; debate on student strike and student rights; joint strategies to improve reading; coordination of joint projects to start overcoming thematic education; intervention of the co-education commission to guide a conflict; decision to start the “Euskera” commission and to choose the “Basque” commission.

Lots of activities in a week with the aim of offering the best to our students. Frustrations are progressing. Questions. Why do students not speak Basque anymore? What else to do to convey the Basque culture? What can be done so that newly arrived students can learn Basque and succeed in education? Why are we teachers and some students in the barracks and not in a serious building? Why are homophobic and machista attitudes still happening? Why do most workers not have a fixed place? Why don't newcomers have the internet at home?

Today is October 12, Columbus Day, and we're at home. Today is the day of the Spanish Empire. Turn on TV: military parade, royal queens and a great flag on the neck. What are we still in Columbus's time? Or in Franco? What values is television promoting? What language and culture drives the system? If you use television, aren't you going to use education? Does anyone believe that states and capital do not use all the tools at their disposal to broaden their ideology? In the hands of whom is education?

We're proud, how aren't we going to be proud of the work we do in our school? Surely our objectives, efforts and frustrations are similar in many schools and ikastolas in Euskal Herria. What's wrong? The answer is simple: the educational systems and the capitalist, hetero-patriarchal and centralist system behind them. We know that we need a Basque Republic so that our education system is fully ours... And in the meantime?

In the meantime, we have an opportunity to take further steps towards the educational system that we need. In 1918, Eusko Ikaskuntza brought together hundreds of people in Oñati to start building the Basque Educational System, since then we have been on the road, hard and prosperous. On 22nd and 23rd October, EiTB again made an appointment in Vitoria-Gasteiz with the Zinemaldia. It is time to sow the seed as in the vineyards of the Rioja Alavesa, to gather the fruit and obtain new tools for the education we need.

30 years later the new generations play in the courtyards of the school and the ikastola. We do not want to inherit our sons and daughters from this educational system and this conflict between the Basques. This reflection fits all the ideas and people, it is not worth punching or punching the ball. From the Laguardia agreement to the Basque Country Educational Agreement.

Ibai Redondo Beitia, education worker