Don’t Tell My Mother...

... that I’m a Spanish Teacher

When you finish high school and you must cross that Rubicon that used to be known as the selectividad, the university access exam that defines your future and which is now known simply as PAU (Prueba de Acceso a la Universidad) I guess just because acronyms always sound so cool, you’re faced with one of the toughest questions in your student life: “what do I want for my future?” 

Your parents, in all their parental affection, advise you to make a “wise decision”… They’re quite aware that the average age in which young Spaniards leave the nest lingers somewhere around 40. They also share that distinctly Spanish passion for government employee positions. They anxiously suggest the possibility of pursuing a career in the field of street light maintenance or as a vehicle operation trainer (in other words a driver ed teacher, which is by the way a government position in Spain), or even as some type of judge… just remember they insist, you want something that will provide life-long job security; “algo seguro, mi niño, para toda la vida”.

Interestingly, for a long time in Spain, the adjective ambicioso/a always came charged with a negative connotation. When you told someone that you were an ambitious student, they’d look at you with a confused gaze that recalled cows watching a train roll by, then they’d think “poor guy, he’s losing it, all those years of book learning has really messed up his head”. Plus, in Spanish the term hacer la carrera implies just how hard we had it earning our degrees. Fortunately it seems that this new generation of students has learned from the mistakes of my generation. Their career goals seem much more clearly defined –to the point where it even kind of scares me.

Here’s just an example of what I’m talking about: after university, and military service, which in those days was required, I opted to follow my mom’s advice and study for the public exam for high school teachers in my home region of Andalusia. Needless to say, my chances of successfully passing the test were next to nil since nearly 1,500 candidates were competing for 30 positions… that coupled with the fact that I wasn’t exactly crazy about the idea of ending up in some high school in who knows what part of Andalusia trying to control 35 teenagers.

One day, to my mom’s great disappointment and to my secret delight, I read a job offer in a newspaper for teachers of “Spanish as a foreign language”. This was back in 1983, a time when the field was still in its infancy. The Cervantes Institute was still just a pipe-dream and nobody seriously talked about “language tourism”. I applied for the job and to my surprise they asked if I wanted to join the teaching staff at a Spanish language school on the coast of Granada, a place with plenty of beaches and fiestas, etc.

Very few times have I seen my mother as dejected as she was when I notified her of my decision to renounce the public teaching exam (job security, government employment, bonus pay…) and instead embark on an adventure into territory that was completely unknown, which is precisely what made it so exciting.

Teaching material was practically nonexistent, language levels were not yet clearly defined (the Common European Framework that we have now is amazing), so we just had to get by day by day with as much common sense and imagination as possible. Surprisingly, it worked. That same year, an advanced level book came out, so I bought it and started using it… I was scared at first because there were so many things that I wasn’t sure how to explain…

Then ASELE conventions slowly started being held. We attended these regularly and we even gave talks on teaching that make me blush now thinking of how naïve they must have sounded. As the amount of available teaching material increased everything got easier.

The Student's Desire to Learn Spanish

The most important part of all this though was realizing that we were working –we won’t mention salary here, because that’s another story as Michal Ende would say- with groups of people who were motivated by a strong desire to learn Spanish and to get to know the culture of Spain (unlike our classmates from university who had gone on to become high school teachers and who had to struggle everyday just to get their students to stay in their seats). Not only that, but in this job, instead of having to travel the world to get to learn about other cultures, the world comes to you, and it comes eager to communicate… I love it.

I’ve said in public before (not too loud, I wouldn’t want my boss to hear) that sometimes I’m even ashamed that I’m getting paid to do my job, I should be the one paying to get to do it.

Now I’m in my 31^st year as a teacher of Spanish for foreigners, you could say I’m a viejo lobo de mar, and I enjoy working with colleagues, much younger than me, who have masters degrees and have as much to teach me as I have to learn. The worst part of all is that I still really like my job, something not everyone can say after more than 30 years in the same profession.

My mother is no longer with us, but I think that if she could see me now she’d probably smile with that knowing look that only moms know how to give, and she’d give me a proud pat on the back. When I started my career I may have often said “don’t tell my mother that I’m a Spanish teacher”, but now things may be a little different, and I think I would even be able to say “my mother is proud that her son is a Spanish teacher”.