The worrying results of the PISA report (Programme for International Student Assessment) have at least made us remember again, amidst all the media noise, that there are important things for the future of society that should concern us all more. Education undoubtedly is and deserves to generate more consensus.
Education, yes, that recognized universal right that must enable all people to develop as free, self-sufficient and full citizens in society. It means that you not only have to know how to identify and put letters together to read or write, you also have to understand the meanings and relate them to act accordingly. The same thing happens with mathematics; Beyond reciting the multiplication tables at once, you have to master when and how to use them to find solutions to practical problems. It's about not being functionally illiterate; That is, knowing how to apply reading, writing, calculation and the rest of the learning to daily life.
If I'm not mistaken, the PISA tests assess how competent 15-year-old students are in literacy, mathematics, and also science. I don't need to be an expert to understand its significance.
But if we really want to ensure the sufficiency and well-being of the citizens of today and tomorrow, we must also provide them with other skills no less necessary for their full personal development. Yes, of course, you already know me, I mean you know how to manage your diet. To do so, they must acquire, from a young age and progressively, a series of knowledge, skills, attitudes and values that allow them to eat well every day.
Health surveys indicate negative developments regarding eating habits and adherence to the Mediterranean diet. Consumer panels and rural depopulation show how we talk more and more about proximity and know less and less. Waste studies show the atrocity represented by the 192 grams of food that each European wastes at home every day of the year. The equivalent of each of us throwing the contents of a plate into the trash every day. Calculate what it costs to produce, transport, manipulate and manage, in economic, environmental and social terms, such a volume of wasted food. And in passing, calculate how many people could be fed with them. Other reports analyze the consequences of these bad habits in terms of health, the economy, resources and greenhouse gas emissions.
But I do not know of any large study that evaluates the basic skills of our citizens to buy, cook and eat at home or outside without excessively straining their wallet, their health, the agri-food environment, the planet, their tastes, their values or their daily tasks. .
The evidence of this GUISA report that I propose would raise, for example, which are the seasonal and local fruits and vegetables that are worth looking for at all times. Or what can we do if when we open the refrigerator we find half a jar of chickpeas, a tomato, half an onion and a pepper of each color. Or calculate how little money it costs to eat some delicious, small, local fish cooked in the microwave for three minutes. Or what dishes we will order at the restaurant in that region to savor its gastronomic heritage. Or how to use dry bread to make a soup with garlic, thyme and maybe paprika... I don't know.
For the record, I am not suggesting that we delegate all of these much-needed teachings to the educational system. I share my life with a woman with thirty-five years of teaching experience who knows what the playground is like and she tells me about it. But I also know that you learn to eat by eating and that most meals are made with the family. That common sense and science agree that the children of those who cook eat better, even more so if they also cook. And that it is essential to regulate advertising strategies and the use of influencers and celebrities with a great impact on the youngest because to educate a child you need the entire tribe.
But in many socioeconomically disadvantaged cases, more or less formal education should also contribute. We will have to be imaginative to find moments, spaces and teachers stealing time from screens and not from other subjects.
We will have to be creative; But in terms of cooking, we are well supplied here.
