Spanish Teacher Quits After 27 Years: 'Glass Generation' Is Deceived

Math teacher quits classroom after 27 years

Alex Torio, a math teacher in Barcelona, requested leave after 27 years of teaching and swapped classrooms for a restaurant kitchen. He did not leave due to boredom with the profession, he explained on Cadena Cope radio: he left because he encountered 18-year-olds entering Bachillerato (upper secondary school) without knowing their multiplication tables. His case is not an isolated anecdote but the tip of a malaise running through the Spanish education system from top to bottom.

The First EducAcción Barometer: Perception of the Education System in Spain 2025, produced by Metroscopia with support from the Unicaja Foundation and promoted by the UAM Education Chair, paints an uncomfortable picture: half of Spaniards consider the education system to be working poorly or very poorly and do not expect it to improve in the near future. The clinching data point is another: nine out of ten citizens do not believe political leaders have either the capacity or the will to fix it.

Overprotection as the central diagnosis

Torio argues that classrooms have been emptied of rigor and that students advance year after year without facing real difficulty. "This glass generation, so overprotected, are deceived. When they try to access higher studies, they discover a reality that has been hidden from them," he stated. The warning goes beyond the classroom: "We are building a society that no one can know where it will lead us."

His thesis on the origin of the problem has a name and surname: an inertia, not global but Western, that "disguises itself with a kind of pedagogical science trying to justify everything." The result, in his analogy, is an inflation of degrees: "If you give money to everyone, eventually money is worth less. The same happens with degrees. Everyone has the ESO (compulsory secondary education)."

Why does nobody act if all teachers see it?

Torio himself acknowledges that the diagnosis is shared in staff rooms, hallways, and playground duties. What is missing is someone to make a move: "Everyone is caught up in the system. Everyone has a mortgage, a car, a family..." This paralysis, he argues, is what has allowed the drop in standards to consolidate without resistance.

The criticism also points to how statistics have been managed. "Spain was in a very low position regarding success in compulsory schooling. What do we do? Do we tighten the level? No, no, we lower it so everyone passes and the statistics are met, but the substance is not met; it is just makeup," he argued.

The diverse classroom and resources that don't arrive

Torio addresses another growing phenomenon: the arrival of foreign students who join the grade corresponding to their age, regardless of their academic or linguistic level. "Sometimes people come with no language at all: they speak neither English, Spanish, nor Catalan, and they come to class," he explains. He gives a concrete example: someone arriving from a rural area of Pakistan, without completing ESO, ending up in fourth year at 17 or 18 years old.

Teaching basic content, he admits, "is not that difficult either," but it is a particular case requiring resources and strategies that the system does not always provide. Diversity in the classroom is a real challenge, not a slogan.

Teacher discontent: from leave to 'sit and wait'

Torio's case reveals a broader complaint. There are teachers describing a daily routine where proposing an exercise and finding absolute silence has become habitual. The response of some is silent withdrawal: meeting administrative requirements, giving everyone a pass, and collecting their salary. Others note that the legal system regulating education prevents deviating from the curriculum, learning outcomes, and assessment criteria, meaning demanding more than permitted leads to sanctions.

The blame, according to several voices, is not only political. Parents appear at the center of reproach: some maintain that part of the teaching staff has abandoned the profession fed up with family pressure, while others recall that a demanding teacher can end up being targeted by their students' families. The equation is complicated by the lack of authority in the classroom and episodes of aggression resulting in one-day suspensions.

The debate on multiplication tables and real level

Not everyone buys the diagnosis. Some defend that memorizing tables is not the goal of the curriculum and that what matters in mathematics are abstractions and higher capabilities. The counter-argument is forceful: if the bar is lowered for everyone, it also harms the minority who could learn and benefit from it. A society without a trained minority ends up being, in the words of those holding this position, a terrible country.

The underlying issue is whether the education system is designed to train or to certify. The barometer data suggests that citizens have already decided what they believe: it doesn't work, it won't improve, and those who could fix it have no intention of doing so.