The 23rd of June is Saint John’s Day (el día de San Juan); yet surprisingly, it has more Pagan roots than Christian and corresponds with the summer solstice. Apparently, the beaches fill with people and bonfires. The tradition is to write all your negative thoughts on a piece of paper and to burn them in the fire which is then followed by jumping over it. Other versions of the rituals include collecting the ashes and putting them in a vase with a specific type of flower. Having gone through a rough couple of months, I’ve decided to start my list ahead of time.
If I fell in love with Spain the first time, well I’m now ready to file for divorce. Why this drastic change of heart? Working and living in a country is an entirely different experience than studying abroad and living in the shelter of a host family. I have been exposed to the much uglier, yet more realistic side of Spain. Is it any better or worse than the U.S.? I really can’t say, but I have definitely become disillusioned. In the beginning, things would happen at work or at home and I’d be bothered by them but couldn't’t really attribute it to anything, except perhaps bad luck. But after awhile, when the same types of things kept occurring, I realized that what I was experiencing had more to do with larger social and cultural patterns than my own fortune. As I began to see my mishaps as a whole, this is what I came up with:
Category I: The Educational System
Just as health care is crippled in the United States, the education system here is struggling to pull itself forward, but due to structural and social instabilities, its threatening to topple and any point. I shall start with the structural failures.
The life of a civil servant: In an attempt to avoid the unequal distribution of teachers, resources and skills, and to assure a job to all teachers, Spain’s solution is this: teachers are given positions based on a lottery/point system. Basically, it’s a genuine three ring circus, complete with juggling, flaming rings, monkeys and ferocious lions.
Flaming Hoop Numero Uno: Graduate from the university with a bachelor’s degree.
Flaming Hoop Numero Dos: Complete a Pedagogical Aptitude Course that covers basic educational theory, followed by a short practicum.
Lion, Tigers and Bears “Oh My”: Los Oposiciones. This is the mother of all exams that is comprised of three parts. This is an exam that tests your knowledge of the subject you teach. HOWEVER, due the high number of applicants and competition, the tests are outrageously difficult!!! To give you an idea, the level of knowledge required is equivalent to that of a university professor in the U.S. (although here, they will never teach the majority of the material they are tested on). For example, if your especiality is history (albeit contemporary, prehistory, medieval…) you are tested on ALL history; that’s to say the entire world’s history and I’m not exaggerating. There are 71 themes related to each subject and a lottery determines which of the 71 you will be tested on; therefore you must study them all. People spend months, even years studying for the Oppositions. It is normal to fail, a matter of luck if you pass and common to take it multiple times.
The Monkeys; Step Four: If you haven’t passed the Oppositions that doesn’t mean you can’t teach (if this were the case there would be hardly any teachers) it just means that you are a temporary or “substitute” teacher. Here’s where the show just begins and the point system comes into play. As a temporary teacher you can be sent to anywhere within the community (equivalent to a state). So imagine that you have your house and family in Seattle; well, whether you like it or not, you get sent to Walla Walla for one, two years or an indefinite amount of time. If you reject the offer you get bumped to the bottom of the list and might end up unemployed. It doesn’t matter if your mother is being treated for breast cancer or your wife is pregnant (real situations of some I know).
Juggling: Passing the Oppositions isn't the only thing that determines your value. One can also receive points based on service time, if you’ve taken extra training courses, have a doctorate or any publications. All these things can earn you points which will eventually factor into your final placement. Then based on your points and the exams, you are then assigned a permanent position, although there is still little one can do to influence where that final destination may be. I have a friend who passed her exams a few years back and still hasn’t received her permanent placement.
Would you do all this for a steady, permanent job? The Repercussions: As you can imagine, this system, although quite entertaining, causes a ripple effects:
i. The teachers are far from their homes and families and generally unhappy.
ii. Who knows where they will be next year so why invest in the development of future programs? Why rock the boat and stick up for injustices? Why try to better your community and establish nurturing relationships with your students?
iii. Due to the extremely brief practicum, most teachers are given very little instruction on actually how to teach and are basically thrown to the wolves.
iv. They are not hired they are sent somewhere like soldiers so there is not much alliance amongst the teachers nor are they their based on their merit nor ability to actually teach.
v. If one is studying for the all consuming Oppositions, that is their priority, and they lesson planning (although basically non existent to begin with) is reduced to nothing and the quality of the classes suffers.
vi. Basically, every year is like starting with a new staff with the exception of a few people. For those few who remain it means they must carry the weight of keeping any existing programs or projects alive. They have much more responsibility but are not compensated and rarely recognized for it and continuously have to incorporate and train new staff. While those who are there temporarily have to adapt to each institution with its hierarchy of directors and ways of doing things.
The Time Warp:
The School: Unfortunately, the school I'm at is long overdue for a remodel and has a striking resemblance to a juvenile detention center. There is supposedly a library, but it is locked, as is the one shelf with the books. The books themselves are from the century before Christ and the majority lost their covers somewhere back in the Middle ages.
Technology: They decided to enter the twenty-first century a few years back and got computers in many of the classrooms, yet most of the students still don't know how to type.
Methodology: Most of the teaching strategies are still centered around reading text, translating it and answering questions. There is little interaction with the information and the thought of catering to different learning styles is unheard of.
“Spain is just a bit slow”: Failure to recognize different learning styles is less surprising than the fact that they are completely blind to learning disabilities. A child with A.D.H.D. is called “nervous” where as a slightly autistic one just has “problems”. I'll be the first to admit that the U.S. goes a bit overboard with these labels, but naming them is the first step to helping a child. I can really identify with the frustration I see many of the students going through. Here is a prime example of how old school ways of thinking don't meet new school needs.
One of those most pressing needs is accommodations for immigrant students. More and more students who don’t speak Spanish as their firs language are entering the school and no one is prepared for the additional resources required. There are students who come from Africa who may never have learned to use the Roman alphabet nor even to read and they are just thrown in to a class. There is “language support” but it only lasts a few months at the most and must be recommend by the teachers. Of course, when one sets up a student for failure, one is really setting up the entire system to fail. Maybe it’s still too soon to see the repercussions, but what will eventually happen is that those students who are forgotten about and left to drowned academically will develop a sense of resentment which will eventually fuel greater problems.
No Frills Added: Whether for lack of resources or imagination, there are no school sports, no clubs, no band, no drama, nothing extracurricular here. On the bright side, that makes for less clicks, but it also makes for less opportunities in general for students to develop their character.
No discipline = Lord of the Flies: There is absolutely no established disciplinary system here. Meaning, when a student is acting up, there is no “study hall”, no talking to the principle, no visit to the school counselor (they don’t exist), no Saturday work, nothing. The reason being that the teachers are considered “responsible” for maintaining control in the classroom. Perhaps this logic worked in the past, but now with larger class sizes and a more complex student body, putting all the responsibility on the teacher is not only unrealistic, it’s setting the stage for a bigger problems down the road. The only solution they have for bad behavior is to send a note home to the parents which as we are now discovering, most of the students forge any ways. Aside from the informative parent notes the teachers can give “partes”. Students can receive up to 3 partes before they are expelled. But you know, “so and so really is a good kid” and the teachers don’t want to be the cause of a student being expelled. So basically, there are no consequences for bad behavior.
It wasn’t until recently when I couldn’t hold it in any longer and let loose at the teacher’s meeting (I just happened to be using a computer in the room and didn’t realize it was a meeting, classic Lauril) that I expressed my utter surprise and disgust at how the students acted in class; I told them that what I was observing was NOT normal. They came up with a set of very clear rules and consequences and shared them with the students. Things went great for about a week and then teachers and students slipped back into their old ways. In the words of Sebastian the crab from The Little Mermaid “Teenagers, you give them an inch and they’ll walk all over you.” According to Caesar Millan (The Dog Whisperer) success is achieved by giving: A) Exercise B) Discipline and then C) Affection. In this case I’d have to agree (exercise may being mental in the classroom setting of course). If I learned anything from horse riding it is that consistency is a must. If you talk the talk you’d better walk the walk, practice what you preach... the clinches could go on. It’s obvious that if the teachers just set up a system to support discipline and then followed through with their threats, things would drastically change. But alas, here’s where I get to the sweeping generalizations about Spaniards that I’ve developed throughout my experience which may explain how the situation got to where it is.
Spanish children are EXTREMELY SPOILED!!!! Everyone agrees that in that in the past 15 years things have changed drastically but no one can exactly say why. Some attribute it to technology saying that with with MSN, cell phones and such, it’s easier for children to entertain themselves and parents have less and less control. However, I’ve witnessed parents give into their children’s demands time and time again, coddle them and re enforce bad behavior. In my opinion, a temper tantrum should never be rewarded and a seven year old should not still be drinking from a bottle, but maybe that’s just me.
Along with being spoiled, the children have absolutely no work ethic. The truth is that learning a language is work; although I try to make it as fun as possible, one can not learn without working. But the second they have to make any mental effort they simply shut down. There is no curiosity for learning. They don’t have after school sport nor clubs, although some play on private teams, this means that they are not learning how to work from the “normal” sources. They have very minimal house hold chores and as stated before the sense of consequence is very slight. If you wonder what happens when children with a relaxed work ethic grow up, continue reading.
Category II: “I Can’t Function Without My Siesta,” Results of a Relaxed Work Ethic
Public transportation leaves much to be desired. The buses normally run late or sometimes just don’t come at all.
I have 9 euros and 44 cents in my bank account and I was supposed to be paid 6 days ago!! No one seems to be too concerned about it but me.
Plan your meals ahead on the weekends because everything will be closed on Sundays.
If you want anything at a restaurant, be ready to shout it out, the waiter will not come otherwise.
Libraries (if you can call them that) aren’t even open on the weekends. The librarian just upped and quit, so now it’s closed.
I’m still waiting on a couple of letters. The mail carrier likes to wait to deliver until a pile accumulates so I tend to get everything all at once.
The highways are strewn with road kill; yet under closer examination, the Spanish road kill greatly differs that of WA. In Olympia, one will typically run across (pun intended) deer, raccoon, Opossum and the occasional unfortunate porcupine. Here the highway victims are almost exclusively made up of dogs and cats (with the occasional fox thrown in which we always joke about saying “well, there goes the last fox in Spain”). The reason being is that, in most cases, according to the Spanish mentality, a “pet” is more animal than member of the family. An animal’s job is to be an animal and an important part of that is to breed. Spaying and neutering is seen as barbaric, it’s basically taking away the animals purpose to live (plus, it would be a petty matter to spend money on). As a result there is an over abundance of stray cats and dogs, many of which meet their end in the glare of headlights.
There is garbage everywhere. Again, I can expect this from a country with less resources but Spain is supposed to be “modern” and “developed”. Recycling has just come to this country, but there is still quite a bit of confusion as to how this works (apparently Styrofoam is recyclable). In the 1970s Almería (my province) decided to boost its economy by putting a number of greenhouses up (what else is one going to do with all that wide open desert?). It worked wonderfully, where there was nothing before, Almería has now become Spain’s bread basket. These stretches of greenhouses are known as the “sea of plastic”; however, once they are no longer in use, they are left abandoned and the wind carries off the plastic, choking up the rivers and tangling in the cacti.
Category 3: The Racism
With the opening of the EU has come a flood of immigration from many eastern European countries, especially Romania. There is also a work visa agreement with many Latin American countries so large numbers have emigrated from Ecuador, Colombia, Argentina… Of course many Africans also undertake extremely dangerous journeys to make it to Europe. In addition, there is the “British Invasion” consisting of all the Brits who buy up the coast and move to Sunny Spain. All this immigration has happened within a relatively short time period, about the last 10 years, and the Spaniards who were under a nationalistic dictatorship for so many years aren’t exactly sure how to react. Of course nationalism is based on exclusion not inclusion, and although the dictatorship ended over more than 30 years ago, many people aren’t as quick to update their world views. To give an example all Asian people are known as “Chinese” or more commonly and socially acceptably “pigs”. All Africans are known as “Blacks” and all whites are “Giris”. The director of my school is of the old way of thinking and has openly, in public settings, blamed problems on the immigrant students and made racist comments. In addition, today they still celebrated a holiday called “The Moors and the Christians” where they rein act the conquering of the Moors; this would be similar to dedicating a day to “The Cowboys and the Indians”. Once again, I’m not saying that these problems don’t exist in the States, but it’s more commonly recognized what is politically correct and what isn’t.
Minor Grievances:
a. Bad dental hygiene is common and socially acceptable. The mixture of coffee, cigarettes, ham and infrequent brushing makes for some pretty putrid bad breath at times. Luckily, things are changing and most kids go at most once a year to the dentist. There are just certain people I have to talk to in well ventilated areas.
b. Speaking of hygiene, I feel pleasantly surprised when there is hand soap in a bathroom! Toilet seats are nice as well, but not always to be expected. And I find that if you leave food out, it just lasts much longer than in the States, how curious…
c. The cigarette smoke has honestly gotten better since I was here 5 years ago, but I still miss smoke free cafes, bars, bus stations, everything. Although many facilities have converted to non smoking, it is common to see a non smoking announcement and someone smoking just below it.
d. You can’t drink the water here, I would expect this of Nicaragua, but honestly, even if you wanted to the water tastes so terrible here. It is filled with lime scale, so much that my hair has turned brittle and dry. Joanna’s water heater broke after only a year and when opened up they found actual stones. Luckily, I found a public fountain in the next village over and I’ve taken to filling my water jugs there (I feel so authentic). But isn’t drinkable, free water high up on the list of basic human rights?
Well San Juan, more or less that’s what I’ve got. I think there really is something to this, it is a relief getting this all out, now I just can’t wait to burn it! Was I completely naive before? Or am I completely jaded now? Is the U.S. any better off? Maybe our history of confronting the challenges of education and immigration is longer, but aside from our extensive politically correct vocabulary, are we any closer to equality and social responsibility? What do you think?
It wouldn’t be fair to finish this without at least mentioning at least a few things that I still appreciate about Spain:
1. Tapas!!!
2. Fanta Limon
3. Ice cream
4. Fresh fruits and veggies from the market (yes, I am aware that my first three items on the list are food)
5. The beach!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
6. Having so much history all around
7. The marble promenade (the biggest marble exporting company is near by so there’s lots of marble all over the place)
8. The people are always willing to help if you need anything.
9. Siesta
10. A more relaxed pace of life
11. Cheap shoes
12. Lot of Catholic holidays
