From the old rural school to new rural school: Unknown potential of a small great school

Abstract

The rural school in the Spanish State has undergone a substantial and progressive improvement in the last 25 years: The rural school of today, what we call the "new" rural school, has little to do with the one of yesteryear, with which we We agree to call it the "old" rural school.

This change was by no means accidental: the political situation of the 1980s plus the efforts of different agents who at the time demonstrated great capacity for work and pressure were decisive in promoting an accelerated and visible transformation.

In spite of everything, the improvement process cannot be considered as completely finished, with which there is still work to do. A part of this work consists, from my point of view, in explaining pedagogically to the educational community and to society in general the potential of this type of center. This article, structured in four parts, deals with a good part of what we have discussed so far: in the first part the characteristics of the "old" rural school are explained, in the second part the distinctive features of the "new" school are presented rural as well as the factors that made it possible. In the third part, the pedagogical, relational and human potentialities of the school we are dealing with are explained and it ends with a brief reflection where the progressive educational discourse is related to the possibilities of rural centers.