Yesterday in Spain there were widespread strikes and protests against the recent cuts in education funding, which have been quite significant. So I was stuck with the director of the primary school I work at in Albarracín and one other teacher as a result of the rest of the teachers striking. We took fifty or so kids hiking in the countryside around Albarracín because we couldn't follow the regular schedule and classes, which require several more teachers at minimum.
As we were leaving the school to go hiking, we saw the students and teachers of the high school joining up with parents from the village, wearing green shirts in solidarity. I don't really know they chose green outside of having some color for everyone to wear and because they wanted to avoid other colors with potentially negative connotations (red, for example). The little preschoolers also marched, all tied together by a rope so they wouldn't run off all willy nilly. I wasn't sure how to feel about the little children being a part of it all because they obviously weren't conscious of what was going on with the protest, much less the political and economic atmosphere of Spain. But it is something that is going to affect them and is currently affecting their quality of education, so I guess they may eventually appreciate the opportunity to be there, if only retroactively.
