José Rodríguez Cuadrado studied Business Administration at Lancaster University and ICADE. After working as a banking consultant at Oliver Wyman, he went to a monastery, where he discovered his teaching vocation. He then took a second degree in humanities and worked as a teacher for eight years. In 2019, he entered municipal politics in Majadahonda (Madrid), as councillor for Children and Family. Together with other teachers, he has created “Historia con texto” (History with text), a project that aims to change the way history is studied.
How did “History with text” come about?
I am a member of the Majadahonda History Association and I was a teacher for eight years. It was at that time that the idea came up. However, we only launched it a year ago with the support of more than 40 associations, most of them signatories of the Santa Pola Protocol (and others not), such as Educators against indoctrination, Héroes de Cavite, and Misión Hispana. Some of them worked in the field of education and wrote to publishers to denounce erroneous or false texts, but they usually only managed to change one or two sentences. This new idea is much broader and more ambitious.
Of what does the project consist?
It is an alternative to textbooks, and it is meant radically to change the teaching of history in secondary and high school. We are now finishing the 4th ESO history book, which teachers can download for free and use as a support book or even as the main textbook. The idea is to provide books that are truthful and teach history, rather than just promoting Agenda 2030 everywhere. Anyone can download the books from the HistoriaConTexto.com website—where they will always be free—and use them as a teacher or offer them to their children’s or grandchildren’s teachers.
Will this cause a problem with the ministry of education?
No, because teachers will comply with the syllabi of each of the Autonomous Communities. Teachers can choose which textbooks to use, as long as they include what is established in the law. As long as the textbook complies with this, the teacher is free to use it and to organise the syllabus for the students. For example, HistoriaConTexto.com emphasises the critical thinking promoted by the law as well as the chronological axes.
Apart from the lack of content, what is the main failing of textbooks when it comes to presenting history?
The reality is that history textbooks have been getting worse and worse, and many of them now look like a magazine for teenagers in order to make the subject matter attractive by design rather than by content. They are very schematic books in which students learn a few loose ideas by heart. There is no analysis of causes and consequences, making it practically impossible to understand historical events, and, moreover, with the new laws, the books do not follow a chronological order, so that history is learnt as a succession of isolated events. This makes it impossible to develop a critical spirit.
If students don’t develop a critical spirit, how can they learn anything from history?
Of course, but in order to develop a critical spirit it is necessary to encourage students’ analytical skills by presenting texts by different authors on historical causes and consequences. This is impossible when the longest texts in a textbook are only three paragraphs long. Nor is there any gradation of content to differentiate fundamental facts from anecdotal facts, which increases confusion and ignorance. This makes it impossible to develop anything at all, which is why the picture is so discouraging. It should also be pointed out that this is not just a problem in Spain, and that the same thing happens in other countries. As the PISA report (Programme for International Student Assessment) points out, the level of reading comprehension is falling all over the world.
How is that achieved in “Historia con texto”?
The basic idea is that, although 80% of the content is like the school textbook, there is a new 20% that the students will be able to learn about and that they would not have learnt about in any other way. That 20% makes the difference and opens the door to thinking, so that students do not take on board what is written without any critical spirit. Our history is full of relevant events that need to be considered, such as the Reconquest and the Catholic Kings, and, although not everyone is going to study it, there is a percentage who do and whom we cannot lose. The OECD puts the average of the highest classification of pupils at 9%, but in Spain it is only 6%. In other words, we are losing a third of our future at the highest level. The objective is that this 9%—although I believe that in reality 15-20% of our students are brilliant (in Singapore 41% are excellent, and in Japan 23%)—have a good, structured, and valid book.
We are talking about a book that encourages group work and tools such as visual summaries, audiovisual resources, and biographies. We want to achieve history books that are attractive and that encourage students to learn about the past, and this is not achieved by memorising dates.
This can also serve to combat the indoctrination that, not only in history, is increasingly common in our educational model.
The socialist minister of education, Pilar Alegría, tells us that textbooks do not contain any kind of indoctrination, because the ministry does not impose the content of textbooks, and the publishers are professionals. The reality is that the content of textbooks depends on the ministry of education and the adaptations made by the Autonomous Communities, according to their political line.
Would Catalonia be the best example?
Yes, although to a greater or lesser extent it occurs everywhere. The Catalan case was denounced in a report by the trade union AMES, in which nine textbooks were studied. The conclusion is that these textbooks were used to steer pupils towards secessionism and the idea that Catalonia will be better off if it becomes independent. The report pointed out historical falsehoods such as the “Catalan-Aragonese Crown” when the only kingdom was that of Aragon; it presented Spain as poor and miserable, and Catalonia as rich and industrious; it turned the War of Succession (1700-1713) between two aspirants to the Spanish throne into an attack by Castile on Catalonia; and it played down the burning of churches and convents when 2,000 religious were murdered in Catalonia in the first six months of the Civil War. It presented a story of good guys and bad guys, in the service of separatism.
Can you give me more examples?
Yes, a very prominent case was the denunciation of books in the environmental knowledge subject in Andalusia, a region governed by the Popular Party, which stated that the Spanish Republic received aid from Stalin’s Soviet Union because they shared a “liberal” ideology. In contemporary history books, VOX is presented as a party of “fascist and national socialist heritage,” while in civic and ethical values, posters of the Socialist Party are shown. In philosophy, the Black Legend (a propagandistic reading of history which is anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic) is accepted and students are asked whether the Spanish state should assume “some responsibility.” Aristotle, Plato, and Thomas Aquinas are portrayed as male chauvinists. Everything is sold as good and bad or black and white. History is not like that; we have to go to the primary sources and we have to think; and, above all, we have to get students to think. For example, Margaret Thatcher had no sympathy for Spain, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t have good economic policies that I would like for my country. It is not black and white.
All this is not to mention the continuous allusions to Agenda 2030, which is presented as an inevitable fact. I was even forced to change my son’s school—he went to a nuns’ school—because they were promoting Agenda 2030, which we know has very nice headlines. But the devil is in the details.
What you say is very striking. Why do you think that Catholic schools also teach content that goes against Catholic doctrine?
Because they have lost faith. When religion becomes a belief of convenience, teaching Agenda 2030 becomes acceptable because it has good intentions—even if it promotes gender ideology, disregard for human life, and other woke values. That only happens when we lose faith.
