The CGT Enseñanza Aragón union – to which several teachers from Aula Animal belong – is trying to eliminate animal abuse from Aragonese classrooms.
Bullfighting out of schools. That could be the succinct conclusion of the request made by Aragonese teachers' unions to the Government of Aragon. The Zaragoza Teachers' Staff Committee (the union representative body for public education in the province of Zaragoza) approved a motion asking the provincial director of Education for the Aragonese capital, Isabel Casbas, "not to allow activities in schools that involve or promote animal abuse."
La propuesta parte de CGT (segundo sindicato con mayor representación en la enseñanza de la Comunidad), y fue aprobada con los votos a favor de STEA y UGT y las abstenciones de CCOO y CSIF (sindicato mayoritario).
One of the main reasons that led CGT to promote this measure is the information revealed by Público, last April, about the fact that the Zaragoza school CEIP Camón Aznar included bullfighting as part of the Physical Education subject.
The CGT union points out that the administration was already forced to intervene on that occasion, and that the Inspectorate issued a negative report to the school, warning that it could not carry out any activity that promoted animal abuse. Following a request from the Teachers' Staff Committee, they report, the warning has been reiterated.
The unions explain that the aim of this measure is "to prevent activities related to bullfighting, visits to bullfighting schools, or other activities that promote animal abuse from taking place in the centers."
“Cultural activity”
The text of the proposal indicates that values education should be present, "not only in the classroom, but also in any extracurricular and complementary activity organized by the teaching staff and supported by the different educational programs of the schools."
They point out that in Aragon, during the current academic year, “other activities have been promoted which, because they are considered traditional, have been carried out in schools as 'cultural activities'.” They further indicate that “the United Nations has already issued reports on several occasions warning countries where these types of spectacles exist that bullfighting contravenes the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, given the exposure to violence that children experience when watching a bullfight.”