As a mother in Madrid's working-class Lavapiés, watching my two kids battle Spain's education grind, I rage against the commodification of knowledge. It's everywhere: schools as factories stamping "qualified" labels, universities as debt traps, knowledge auctioned to the highest bidder.
From my heart, I say basta ya—decommodify it all. Turn learning from a product into a commons, free as the air we breathe in Retiro Park. No more paying for wisdom; no more gatekeeping genius behind tuition walls. In Spain's post-2008 crash scars and 2025 gig precarity, this isn't theory—it's survival for my familia and every barrio kid dreaming big.
Picture my daughter, Sofia, 14, glued to her phone after 8 hours of rote math in a public instituto overcrowded with 30 kids per class. Spain's PISA scores hover middling—reading proficiency stagnant at 482 in 2022, math a dismal 473—despite €50 billion yearly education spend.
Why? Knowledge is commodified: packaged in textbooks from multinational publishers, tested via Selectividad exams that sort winners to elite unis like Complutense, losers to McJobs. My son, Mateo, 17, eyes vocational FP tracks, but even those demand "certificates" costing families hundreds. This isn't education; it's a marketplace where poor Andalusian or Catalan kids buy entry to the middle class—or don't.
Anarcho-socialist fire burns here: commodification erects hierarchies, alienating us from our birthright. Knowledge once flowed communally—think medieval Spanish convivir, Muslims, Jews, Christians sharing algebra and poetry in Al-Andalus libraries. Now? It's privatized.
Private academies like those in Valencia boom, charging €500/month for "exam prep," while public schools crumble under 12% youth unemployment (INE 2025). Universities? A debt diploma trap—average grad owes €15,000, ROI negative for humanities (Bank of Spain). Elites send kids to IE or ESADE; we scrape for community college. As a mom, it breaks me: my kids' curiosity commodified into "human capital" for Amazon warehouses or tourist traps.
Decommodification means reclaiming knowledge as commons—voluntary, horizontal, abundant. Echoing Illich's deschooling webs, imagine barrio learning circles: abuelas teaching flamenco history in Seville patios, neighbors swapping coding skills in Barcelona squats. No fees, no credits—just mutual aid. Spain's got precedents: the 15M movement's assemblies birthed free skillshares; Montessori co-ops in Galicia thrive sans state strings. Online? Duolingo, Wikipedia, free MOOCs from UNED explode access—Spain's edtech adoption hit 70% post-COVID.
From my kitchen table, here's the blueprint:
- Community knowledge banks: Like zapatista caracoles, neighborhood hubs where anyone deposits expertise—plumbing from the plumber, ecology from the gardener. My kids could "bank" guitar from tíos, withdraw robotics from a retired engineer.
- Defund the middlemen: Slash publisher monopolies; open-source curricula. Madrid's ayuntamiento could redirect €1 billion admin bloat to public makerspaces, teaching AI ethics amid Spain's 25% digital skills gap.
- Peer webs over classrooms: Apps matching Sofia with a physicist mentor in Bilbao, Mateo with eco-activists in Euskadi. No coercion—learning sparks joy, not burnout. Mental health? Spain's adolescent depression at 25% (Ministry of Health 2025) plummets in unschooled pilots.
- Critics whine: chaos! But look at homeschooling's quiet rise—10,000 families by 2025, outperforming state averages. Or Valencia's huertos urbanos: kids learn biology dirt-cheap, building resilience against climate floods hitting Basque Country.
This mother's anarcho-socialist vision? Knowledge decommodified liberates. No more sorting into winners/losers; instead, communal flourishing. In Franco-era shadows, we fought for democracy—now fight for learning democracy. Policymakers: universal basic knowledge grants, not loans. Schools: evolve to resource centers. Parents like me: form pods, boycott exams.
Spain, with our paella-sharing spirit, we're primed. Decommodify knowledge, and watch barrios bloom—innovators from Morroco migrant kids, philosophers from Gypsy caravans. My plea to you, fellow madres y padres: rise. Turn knowledge from commodity to commons. Our children's futures aren't for sale. Viva la desmercantilización—free the mind, free the pueblo.
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