Beyond the Classroom Walls

Various teachers invite us to witness their personal philosophies and their relationships with children as they work toward a cause that no lesson plan or paycheck could cover.

By Tyler Bello

“In 1967, the trip from Ciudad Real to the province of Cadiz was long. From Ciudad Real to Valdepeñas by bus and Valdepeñas to Cadiz by train. Later, from Cadiz to Medina Sidonia and a little bit longer in the bus. In total, 13 or 14 hours. Upon arriving at the small village, the first thing I did was look for living accommodations. By word of mouth, everyone knew that the new teacher had arrived, and the next day all 40 of the girls were in the school. How did I feel on my first day of class? To be honest, I don’t remember absolutely anything from that first day. All of my memories are of the general experience, but for sure I was very happy.”

In 1967 Francisco Franco was still alive, nobody had a computer in his or her classroom and Victoria Sesé was beginning a 37-year career as a teacher. She never really wanted to be back inside the walls of a school; bad memories of struggling with math at the board or of teachers pinching her inundated her head, but there she was. She never shed her thirst to learn from childhood, and for those 37 years she got the chance to spread that love and fire, imparting it to new waves of children, class after class, and in return she developed a genuine connection with the kids. Her memories aren’t sugarcoated, they’re pure; she is just as likely to look back on a troublesome, aggressive 7-year-old with a bad habit of cursing as the yearly rite of passage that sent the kids from one grade to the next.

No matter the circumstances, Victoria always felt that inside the classroom those kids were her own. “The classroom is a place reserved for the student and the teacher... You have to find what really moves them, you have to figure out what matters to each child and give them to choice to follow it.” Looking back through the open scrapbooks, nostalgic photographs and vivid memories, many faces come to mind, all of which have carved a spot in her experiences as a teacher, and though her location often changed, one thing she noted as never vacillating was the simple fact that “If you truly try, you will achieve.”

The first grade classroom of Ana Moya reflects a similar connection, though now the teacher is going on 31 years of experience leading a class with art on the walls, math on the board and computers along the windows. Greeted by curious smiles and an eagerness to show off any English they had, I was also allowed to be the honorary teacher for a few minutes. I don’t know how they do it — not just the teachers who always have the eyes of the children intent on their every move, but the kids who see it all with such a clean slate, ready to learn more, and the relationship forged between the two. After all, my favorite part of school was always recess. But when I asked one girl in the class, whose mom was helping out as the class assistant for the week, she simply replied, “I love school, I like learning and reading.”

Years after teaching her first classes to rows of dolls set up to listen to her childhood lectures, what has kept her going is “the natural manner and freshness that children have. Kids are already filled with all sorts of knowledge, you just have to expand it.” Like Victoria, Ana has lived the changes to the classroom. While “before, what was outside the classroom wasn’t integrated into the class,” the classroom still has a unique identity as the place “where they can express themselves so that they feel that their lives are important. I’ve dedicated my life to making good people.”

Yet beyond the school walls the detailed process is always underway in bettering the system through bodies such as the Teachers Training Centers (CEPs) regulated by the Junta de Andalucía. We visited the one located in Alcalá de Guadaría (Centros del Profesorado de la Junta de Andalucía). To summarize the many things they do, they work “toward everyone having the same voice.” The center, directed by Francisca Olías Ferrera, employs the work of 14 advisors in various areas, many of whom are former teachers now applying their expertise in the area of administration. In her opinion, their main challenge and role is to keep up with a society that “changes faster than the school.” They actually have to teach the teachers how to use newer equipment, an endeavor entitled “TIC 2.0,” for Technologies of Information and Communication.

While this project aims to supply every child in fifth grade and above with a computer, Carmen Checa Rodríguez, the elementary school advisor, also works toward an education where children genuinely take something away with them. With eight years of teaching and four years as an advisor in the CEP, she and her colleagues create new strategies to make sure every child feels included, “adapting the curricula to the children’s needs.” With a “special attention toward diversity,” she has seen the growth of programs like Peer Mediators(Alumnos Mediadores), , where fellow students help intervene to solve or prevent problems. Through this and other efforts, the aim is to teach more than just math and history, but rather to focus on teaching them how to listen, start a conversation, be assertive, resolve problems and lead “to better coexistence” and equality between all students, no matter their gender or background.

However, these processes must be continued in the classroom and at home, because “if a family isn’t behind a child, they won’t develop a habit of reading from a young age.” For this, they are widening a program with a mini booklet entitled Reading to Grow: A Guide for a Family Committed to Reading (Leer para crecer: guía para una familia comprometida con la lectura), because “sometimes, it’s hard for the teacher to know how to get the family involved, but we aim to create mechanisms that interest them and the child,” Carmen explains. “Truly educating and forming good students isn’t obligatory…There are outlines and some boundaries for what a teacher can do and must teach, but within them there is all sorts of freedom for the teachers.”

While there are many factors that go into an education, at CEP they are working towards combining life outside the classroom with the school day inside, combining years of experience caring directly for the kids with new strategies to make sure they get the most out of it.

As the Head of Studies and a physical education teacher at the Pedro Garfias Elementary School, María José Fernández joins the role of administrator with a personal connection with the kids. “As teachers, we dedicate more time into our work to show them how they have to behave as people, more than just presenting them with knowledge and facts... These are the years that a child is truly formed; the foundation is here in elementary school.” The final of three daughters and the recipient of her father’s name, she was always a “tomboy,” getting dirty, being a kid, playing sports. She considers herself lucky to have found something that genuinely moves her, for “when you truly like your work, people notice. You transmit it to the kids, the families, everyone around you.”

After visiting the class myself, I can testify to the incredible atmosphere she maintains, where “the main objective is to learn by playing.” “I love our teacher, she lets us run around,” simple but effective words from Pablo, an aspiring 7-year-old soccer player. You can see that the teacher becomes like her students, full of energy. More than that, you can see it on the kids’ faces, the genuine feeling of joy, freedom and the right to just be a kid, because “physical education shows them how real life is, they enjoy it without worrying about making mistakes.” That is their free time to run, to make friends and, coincidentally, to take pictures with my camera. “Parents don’t have to give their kids any presents, they just have to play with them... If you invest in children, the future will be better.” As each individual child passed by me through the door at the bell, I could see why graduation is her most gratifying part of the job.

Juan Martín Garrudo, Juanma to his students, also works in this elementary school and considers himself a “first grade teacher, the technician and the handyman.” Just like the others, he too has seen the effect that the family plays on education, since “a child is the reflection of what he has in his house.” In his case, he has had a first-hand experience of a difficult child who tried to hit him after he corrected the student. He says with a rising smile that there is always “the one kid who is determined to make my job harder, the one who takes it upon himself to imitate me or pull his pants down.” No matter the situation, he has always operated under the simple, age-old principle: “respect others, and you will be respected.”

Everyone has been there before — the teachers they will always remember and those that they wish they could forget. Of course, there has to be an end, even if what you learned inside stays with you. “On my last day of class, we did a theatric representation called My class is multicolored. As I was very sad to retire, I didn’t tell the kids, but when they asked me if I would keep being their teacher, I told them no.” Even now, years after teaching, Victoria holds on tightly to parent letters she received, one signed simply by the parents, Carlos and Elena, of two students that she taught. “Yet more than just being a great and marvelous teacher in school, above all you taught them how to be better people.”