Teaching Memories

In Spain, school failure began in the 80’s . Failing subjects was for the students a matter of pride. ‘How many did you flunk?’ ‘Seven’ ‘Ha What a loser! My boyfriend has flunked 12!’ Fit youngsters would fail even Physical Education if there was a written exercise to it . He who failed the most was socially the coolest. In these circumstances hundreds of so called academies mushroomed . They became a day-care. Teary parents would enroll their kids saying ‘I hope you can do something. He has failed Religion-and they are allowed to do the exam with the textbook on their desk. I don’t know what is wrong but I’d rather have him here the entire afternoon than have him on the streets doing God knows what’
The expression “tripetir" (three times repeating a course) came into existence. They wore grunge clothes and chewed gum and intended to walk into their classrooms with their walkmans plugged in.

What was going on in Spain? The country was too busy having awoken to an unknown state of prosperity. Parents seemed to look the other way as their children enjoyed things they had never had themselves. No time to control their homes while working like dogs to practice the new art of consumption. While mum and dad filled the shopping carts their kids - even the little children - questioned the gratuity of an Educational System that had an obligatory nature attached to it. Spain had begun to teach English rather than the traditional French. Every year textbooks and contents would change chaotically . Dropping out - or skipping - school was a crime. Passing the grades was compulsory, like military service, whose compulsory duty was being discussed at the time. A student was allowed to pass a grade with many failed subjects from the previous year under a new law. Hating school was at is peak, and with that came along not valuing knowledge nor respecting teachers. They had now a self-given right not to learn, not to do their home work, not to answer teacher’s questions or request to come out to the blackboard, and to talk back all they wanted. Parents started promising a PC if their kids passed the year. Some accepted the sacrifice. But next term they needed all their time for their Mario Brothers and other incipient PC games. I have had students come in English class with the intention of just learning how to move on up to a new level in the PC game, and I swear I have seen some reading correctly the English instructions to obtain a new life – kids who did not know the verb to be – let alone passive voice clauses or modal verbs . In class they could not tell apart “must” from “will”, yet they’d know somehow their Nintendo or Sony the hedgehog tips to move on.

For the owners of the academies cash was flushing in. We were there to keep pupils happy and in. That meant forgetting about our gradual teaching methods, the student would be our boss in that sense. If it meant simply help them do their homework, we ought to let it . No pride allowed. We were to write down in red pen on the student’s notebook the day’s date, and every word to comment on the student given homework and grammar explanations, both formulas and uses. We were to sign our name at the end the day’s session. We were to work as a team, in despite of which I noticed during the coffee breaks that us English teachers did not sit together with other language teachers ( French, Latin, Greek ) nor with the rest (Maths, Chemistry, Physics, Language, entrance examinations for policemen , postmen and other state run posts. I was sociable but avoided gossip. I kept away from criticism of students – their attitude in the classroom and especially their complaints and demands for changing teacher, which was always a big issue as it involved parents angry at sending way their innocent, holy children .

I know how unfair some judgements can be, so for me it was like the old ladies in the clinic waiting room, who take their medications as they please and then criticise their doctor or somebody else’s - basically in two terms, slaughter or magic healer, especially when they do not prescribe what they want. These old ladies meet there every day like their husbands at the bar , and you can hear dialogues like ‘I did not see you yesterday. What happened?’ ‘Oh yes, I couldn’t come , I was ill’. As you can see, they saturate the National Health Care agenda because they get bored at home while going there is free...Of course not all do, and some only go when they are ill. 

But not judging does not imply not observing. We were three English teachers , two women and me, and not two were alike. There can be chemistry- or not - between teachers, or a patient and a doctor, or a student and a teacher. No one is indispensable, but each one is unique. I had a chance to get to see my colleagues in action when I was assigned to assist them during peak hours, before I was definitely hired. I suppose they reported to the big boss on my skills while I observed theirs.

Pat had a BIG DIPLOMA and had lived abroad a month. On the surface she was serious, formal and sober, and you could not get but monosylabs out of her. Despite the rules, she was determined to use a method no matter what, and her students were to go thru a process whether they liked it or not. Time clauses, auxiliaries plus perfect infinitives and every little torture that Thomson Martinet from Oxford University had conceived. Of course her students did their homework in class too, but of course Pat had a eight hours contract and plenty of time for it and she also all of her pupils segregated by level or grade. If she was going to work eight hours, she would have eight hours work even as Administration could condense her student list. My opposite case ….I had all mine mixed, from pre-Universitary to Primary School fourth-graders. Not fair, but I kept my mouth shut. Not fair when you must handwrite a lengthy explanation and a small girl is asking you “if” he means “él” for the seventh time, just out of jealousy or trying to feel important too. Some of them were sent to me with little more than colouring books in English…

But so it was for Pat working sift so it was for Mary, at the other side of town. Mary made lots of money working even 10 hours a day. No diploma but a strong Spanish accent, overly friendly to students and overly talkative in the bad sense – gossip and loud criticism, putting down everybody elses’s methods but hers . She refused to use any Oxford books and used her own photocopies instead. She had lived ‘somewhere abroad’ and now was living with her ‘partner’ –she would never say it was a he, which stirred up speculations. Despite her criticism of our own centre and methods- we were the headquarters of the business -, she would reluctantly accept the stapled bundles of intensive summer exercises created by Pat and me for each level. Teaching exercises were to be created in common and to be identical in all three academies. She would create nothing that others could benefit from, she accepted ours and then would use what she wanted . Pat and I ended up creating and photocopying at our center, as she never had time. So much for team work, but I must say, the owner knew all this and he encouraged it too, in spite of his words, as a means of knowing what was cooking. Mary was in business because her rate of student success was as high as hours, but then again, her downtown students were richer and attended way more hours than ours. Some came from good expensive private schools and were to Mary just for sports more than necessity. In her opinion, kids needed to know no time clauses, and certainly none of that British shan’t or oughtn’t. Instead, she would write them the exercises in their notebook –they loved this, ours were made to write them – mostly phrases in Spanish which they had to translate, and then put into questions and negatives. Very primitive, but very effective for learning English.

I managed to find my own style, not half-way the women’s styles but rather between duty and fun. I had my fans too. Youngsters who would skip my colleagues’ classes after local festivities and night partying, would negotiate with me in advance -as long as I did not tell on them - so that I would take them as extra pupils another day out of schedule. I liked that frankness and confidence. My colleagues didn’t, who knows why. Maybe because I never had a young boy tell me he had not been able to come because of a flat tyre…even though he used a train from a nearby village. Pat had one, and it was the only time I saw her lose her temper. Somehow I started to get all the hopeless, those who Pat just could not resist, the trouble makers, the “three-peaters” and the worst dropouts. More than a respectful classroom, mine seemed to be the laundry of the academy for the long-time friends of the high-brass’, which kept me in payroll among other things because I would have success in 55 of every 60 students. Only once I expelled an unruly ten year old and the owner himself brought him back, calling me outside and asking me if I was crazy, if I did not know how many hours a day he was paying to attend- from 3PM to 8 PM. He was talking cashing in, I was talking respect for the other students and me. That day I took the decision to quit at the end of the term.

Looking back I am not resentful. I learnt a lot from them and this was very positive as I think women make better teachers, at least of languages, and please let no one take offence as it is only my opinion. But I say it both as a teacher and as a student. I really have not much to back this statement with, except the observation of how we men must have evidence of something while women just know. And when that something is a student’s learning illness, that comes in very handy.