La Huelga: Teacher's Strike

Wow, been here a month and a half and I am already taking parts in strikes! Every 4 years they change the education laws, and now they are proposing making the school day longer while cutting teacher's salaries. Teachers already only make about 12,000 euro a year after taxes (and only get paid once a month!), and they want to cut that apparently, while making the in class time longer. What is weird though, when they were talking about whether or not they were going to participate in the strike, the administration was sitting there taking part in the conversation! That is most definitely different than the US because it is usually the faculty striking against the administration, but this is everyone striking against the Spanish Congress.The public schools shut down, but since the school I am at is is only semi-public (they still pay a tuition, but it is lower), they had to go to Madrid to protest. What was weird though, was they had the choice to take part in the strike, I don't think they are unionized. In the US, if you're union says you are going on strike, then you are going on strike without a chance to decide for yourself- here, they had the option. Either way, 4 teachers showed up to school, and only a handful of students. In all of the 8th grade (usually 60+ students), 4 boys came to school. For the 9th graders, 2 girls and about 6 boys showed up. The day was just mass chaos, as expected. We extended their lunch an extra 45 minutes, and they got to watch a movie for 2 hours, the other time was spent in Gym. I got the lucky job of subbing 4th and 5th grade. I confirmed the fact that I am not cut out for elementary school. But it was great experience that I will be able to talk about in a job interview!
Anyway, the public schools in Seville were marching through the city that night, and they got clearance with the Police and everything. They had police escorts:

And there were so many people! All chanting.

These were the shirts they wore: 

"I defend public education," and "We defend and construct public education"

Look at me, being politically active- fightin' for change. Then, I went home and bought a whole cake and ate it. I wish I was kidding. It looked really good.