Mis Maravillosos Profesores Españoles
by Eileen Cullen
Since kindergarten, I have been lucky enough to be constantly showered with
the lessons of a second language; Spanish. From kindergarten snack time
rituals sided with Spanish sayings, to high school arguments with Spanish cuss
words, I've been blessed to have the language become molded into my academic
history. And who is to thank for this marvelous journey? My teachers, of
course. While only one of them was truly native to the language, it was them
who taught me to roll my tongue and order a burrito correctly. I thank all my
Spanish teachers for my trip to Mexico, and the response I got when beginning
to order my meal in Spanish, “Quiero a un pollo burrito, por favor.” The
waitress looked at me with a blank stare, "What do you want."
Señora Muller
Some psychologists say that when teaching a young child how to speak, they
should take the opportunity to throw in a second language as well. Something
about the brain being able to absorb information easier (which never made
sense to me because lets be honest, if five-year-olds still have a hard time
remembering to go to the bathroom, how in heavens will they learn an entire
new category of speech?). But aside from all that, in kindergarten I began my
teachings with Señora Muller.
Señora
Muller had short brown hair, a thin, bony frame, a red turtleneck sweater that
she wore every day, and glasses. She always smelled of coffee. I asked her
about it once, and her response was "Elena, every New Yorker's drug of choice
is coffee." Huh. Didn’t get what that meant.
We all had
Spanish names that we were called during Spanish class. Mine was Elena, and I
hated it. I wanted to be called "Eva" so desperately, and every year, I would
beg Señora Muller with all my heart on
my hands and knees to be called Eva. If I were only called Eva, my entire life
to this day would be different. I would have an entire new persona, identity,
and outlook on life. The name, Eva, meant confidence, a bold personality, and
anybody named Eva was guaranteed to grow up to be the woman I dreamt about as
I fell asleep at night. This was my opportunity for a new identity, a new
Spanish name that I loved, and one that I had wanted every year of elementary
school so badly. Señora Muller only
response was, "Sientante, Elena."
We didn’t have a
Spanish classroom. Nope, Señora Muller
came to us. She would wander around the desolated hallways from class to
class, with her squeaky wheels that rolled her gray cart that belonged to the
science lab, sipping her coffee and clutching her red sweater. Her cart was
sort of a Spanish Marry Poppins bag; in the sense that there was so much
chatarra on it I didn’t know where she fit it all. Every color of
construction paper in the world, boxes and boxes of markers and paints, even
stuffed animals and puppets for each and every animal in the entire African
jungle. Every day in class she would hand us our nametags, and begin by
holding up pieces of construction paper for us to call out the color. The
second my “real” teacher would leave; Señora
Muller would suddenly forget us and begin rummaging around in her cart. I
would slide across the floor of the classroom, then slyly slither around so I
could get a perfect view of the mysterious objects jammed into her rusty cart.
She would throw out objects as she searched; a hat, a feather, a boot, a movie
titled “Goodfellas”, some sweatpants, a toothbrush, an Italian Dictionary, a
box of chocolates from Easter, a picture of people I did not know, a box of
something that I recognized because my mom owned them, too, a Cosmopolitan...
Suddenly, I felt my arm being grabbed, then the cold wind of the winter air on
my face. Señora Muller glared at me, as
I had to sit in the halls until recess.
Still no idea
what she was looking for. Not sure if she ever found it.
I remember one
day I had finished drawing a picture of me swimming. Nadar. Boy was I
excited, and I approached Señora Muller
to show off my great achievement. She was on the phone, talking to her sister
in New York.
" Señora
Muller, look!" No response. "Look, that’s me and my friend, Billy swimming!"
No response. I guess she didn’t hear me standing two inches away from her
face. " Señora Muller, do you like
it??"
"Cayete,
Elena!"
I stood in
shock. Did she just tell me to shut up? She continued to drink her drug of
choice as I sat down and took an oath of silence from then on out to
Señora Muller. I hoped she would go back to
New York and hang out with her Spanish-speaking friends there.
I hoped and prayed for a beautiful Spanish woman for my middle school
experience. As my Spanish teacher, that is. I got my wish, sort of. I became
really good friends with a girl named Cejana who just moved from Brazil. But
my Spanish teacher didn’t fit the stereotype quite so much. He was a 48 year
old German man, 7-feet-tall and skinny, and answered to the name, "Geiken".
"Buenos días, clasè."
"Buenos días, Senior Geiken."
A pause. His lips quivered. His thin, white, delicate skin twitched as he took
his short, quick breaths. This time more stern, "Buenos días, clasè."
"Buenos días, Senior Geiken!"
"Muy, muy, bien."
The one vision I
contain about my glorious German bred teacher was our game of restaurant. I
know it might sound silly, but I promise, it wasn’t. We got into pairs, and
then prepared a skit for the class. One person was the waiter and the other
was the customer. Every week we performed our skits, and every week I would
pray for a worldly disaster, simply so I didn’t have to perform. Even though
my best friend and I presented the same skit every week, which included the
Spanish delicacy of a grilled cheese sandwich with lemonade, I still felt my
accent grow
weary as I approached the front of the room. Mr. Geiken would stare at us from
the back of the room, glaring with his slim, keen eyes and his large, bony
shoulders. His leg bounced up and down in his purple, pressed slacks that he
wore dependably every single day. His head would position in a way so I could
only catch a glimpse of his eyes through the shadows on his pale, pasty skin.
The most
thrilling of all adventures with Senior Geiken was catching a glimpse of him
outside of his daily uniform. One time, my friends and I caught him running.
It looked as though he was a giant, tall, greyhound, and the mini, neon blue
shorts he wore didn’t help that image. His thinning, straw like hair would
blow into the wind, and his long, skinny legs literally look as though they
were branches. We all yelled, "Emergencia!" and escaped his path.
The creepiest
glimpse of Señor Geiken was seeing him on Halloween. Now, don’t ask me what it
was that inspired him to dress up, because I honestly could not tell you. All
I could tell you is that after taking my first step into class on that
exciting Halloween day, I almost fled right out of school and took the next
flight to Cambodia. His face was painted white, which was odd because I had no
idea it could become any whiter. He was wearing a full body suite, with polka
dots all over its surface. His nose was of course red, his face of course
serious, and when he greeted us, "Buenos días, clase," I sincerely grew a
phobia for carnies that will last a lifetime. Adios.
Señor Martinez
"Yo pusse... tu pusses... ella pusse... nosotros pusseste..."
The kid next to me started laughing.
"Oh, yes, you like that, eh, Smith?" Señor Martinez smirked. I sighed and
looked down at my notebook.
"Eileen, you don’t agree? Eh? Claiming white privilege, no?" I began to open
my mouth in defense.
"Ah! Arguing with the teacher? Nope! No arguments! See you after school!"
Big, beefy,
tall, and actually Mexican. Actually crazy, too, however. I can truly say that
I believed, and still do believe, that Señor Martinez was clinically insane.
Entertaining, true, scary, yes.
One student,
named Marty, had a certain bond with Señor Martinez. Perhaps that’s because
Marty was Italian and therefore Spanish was simply like walking a slightly
different way; easy. One day however, Marty was pissing Señor Martinez off. We
suddenly all had permission to take a piece of paper, ball it up into a small
weapon, and at Señor Martinez's command, release onto Marty. "¡Uno, dos, tres,
tiran!"
Kids in my class
always seemed to be complaining about their grade. This could be for many
reasons:
1. They didn’t do their work
2. The paper they spent hours and hours on in hopes of satisfying Señor
Martinez, he finally decides isn’t worth putting into the grades, after they
stayed up until 2 am on their Sunday night working on it.
3. They missed one assignment, which took
their grade from an A to a D, because we had so few assignments it was simply
that easy.
4. They did their work, but Señor Martinez lost it or decided it wasn’t worth
grading (not uncommon).
5. Señor Martinez lost it, but blamed it on you then forced you to stay for detention.
So what would we do to get our grade up? "Arrodíllese y mendígueme." So kids would get down on their knees, and beg. Either they got an, "Okay, okay, I'll give you your 'B'," or they would get a "Shut up and leave my class!"
But really there was one magic act that would give a hardworking student the “A” needed to get into the Ivy league of their choice. One academic skill that only the brightest and most experienced students at Berkeley High knew, one that needed to be learned from a older ro-model who had learned before, or maybe a student was lucky enough to be born with this knowledge and skill of how to achieve a perfect grade. Comida. Some kids would hustle and run and sweat to get to Señor Martinez’s class on time. One tardy would mean a big, fat “F”. Those poor kids would still get snapped at for being a second late, and then get blamed in front of the entire class for being a milli-second after the bell. But other students could strut into class, 15 even 20 minutes late, and as long as they had a burrito or some fries in their hand, they were in. In, locked, with an “A”.
Personally, I was too nervous to bring Martinez food. If he got belligerent at me for turning in the term paper he forgot he assigned, who knows what he would’ve done if I brought him in a sandwich with more mayo than he preferred?
Tal vez me haré un profesor español cuando crezco. Or maybe I’ll just teach math.