The former mayor of Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Jordi San José, has made his debut as a writer with the book 'Estimades Families', in which he makes visible the diversity of family realities that exist in most educational centers in Catalonia.
Using his own experience, the author narrates the vital adventures of two teachers, Anna and Miquel, with whom many teachers will identify.
The book, according to the Eumo publishing house that publishes it, is a song to the community, to families and to love for children, and a tribute to the integrating contribution that educational centers make beyond the classroom.
Jordi San José was mayor of Sant Feliu de Llobregat between 2011 and 2019, a secondary school teacher for 15 years and since 2017 he and his wife have been a host family.
It is the first book by San José, which will hit bookstores on October 5, and in which the author praises the institution of the family "which has changed so much in recent times and has broadened its semantic scope so much." According to San José, "this is not an essay on the family, it is a text to highlight the decisive role of love as the reason for the existence of all forms of family."
"It is not a book on the theory of the family institution, but topics such as poverty, gender violence, cultural diversity, prejudice for religious reasons, etc. are addressed," he details.
Students and families that the author has met and treated become characters in the stories that intersect throughout the book, which explains the adventures in a secondary school in the Barcelona metropolitan area, where Anna, a new teacher, and Miquel, teacher at the gates of retirement, share reflections, joys, challenges and dilemmas resulting from their relationship with all of them.
In each of the ten chapters, as there are ten months in a school year, readers will approach the needs of a type of family: traditional, single-parent, same-sex, foster, adoptive, monolingual or multilingual, and the demands they make on the education system.
According to the author, regardless of the characteristics, trajectories and problems that distinguish each family, they all base their day-to-day life on unconditional love for their children.
San José, well aware of everything he portrays, adopts an optimistic and respectful point of view, and underlines the decisive role of educational centers and the entire system, teachers, families and city councils in social cohesion.
In a world that tends towards individualism and the overcoming of traditional values, San José recalls that the family, regardless of who makes it up, continues to be an essential element for society to advance better, happier, cohesive, egalitarian and free.
