At five feet two inches tall I towered over my diminutive sixth grade Spanish teacher. Señora Kay may have lacked physical stature, but she wasn’t short on bravery or patience, two necessities for middle school foreign language instructors. Several 12-year-old boys in our class, including me, were far more interested in entertaining our friends than we were in listening to some ancient woman, one probably ten years younger than I am now, teach us about verb tenses.
Señora Kay could see potential in every child, even those of us who worked hard to disguise whatever latent ability we might possess. She never lost her cool, although every so often she’d keep a particularly infantile student after class. Those one-on-one chats were always long on encouragement and devoid of anger and/or disappointment.. I knew this because I was a frequent post-class invitee.
Why she put up with me I’ll never know. Not only was I absorbing nothing, my childish behavior was undoubtedly sabotaging her efforts to teach Spanish to those kids who were actually interested in learning some. One day when I had been exceptionally disruptive she asked me to stay after class. Smiling beatifically, Señora Kay let me know how disappointed she was, because she knew I was capable of much more than I was showing. Then she asked me why I was putting so little effort into the class.
I never considered disrespecting the señora. Smart-mouthing any adult, particularly a teacher, was not an option during my childhood. But even a youthful Philistine like me could sense the inherent decency in my incredibly kind Spanish teacher, so rather than being oppositional, I decided to level with her. Patiently, I explained, “My parents speak English. So do my grandparents, my cousins, and all my friends. Everybody on our street speaks English, and so do my baseball coaches, the doctor, the mailman, and everyone at the grocery store. No offense, Señora, but I am NEVER going to need Spanish.”
A lesser person would have thrown up her hands in frustration, but not this quietly determined 4’10” teacher. Smiling knowingly, all she said was, “You never know, Señor Young.”
Ironically, some years later I joined the Peace Corps, and was assigned to a Spanish-speaking country. A bigger person would have contacted Señora Kay right away and admitted she’d been right, but then as now, no one ever accused me of being a big person. I actually picked up some basic Spanish during my brief time in Central America, and four decades later I retain a tiny bit of it.
Thankfully.
After last week’s faculty meeting I lingered a bit to chat with a colleague from another department. It was time well spent, but by the time I discovered I’d locked my car and house keys inside my classroom, it seemed everyone had gone home. Desperately searching the all-but-deserted building, I finally spied a custodian. However, when I asked if she could unlock my door, she apologetically said, “Sorry, I no speak English.”
Fortunately, I was somehow able to reply: “Yo no puedo entrar en mi cuarto. ¿Tienes un llave?” Moments later I had my keys. I returned to give my new friend Nora, who kindly told me I spoke Spanish with no accent, a sincere “gracias.”
Unfortunately my middle school Spanish teacher died a long time ago. But if there’s an afterlife and she can see what’s going on down here, well, Señora Kay, you were right and I was wrong. Learning Spanish really is important.
Or better yet, Señora Kay, tenías razón y yo estaba equivocado. Aprender español es realmente importante.
Andy YoungReturn to main page
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