It's Not You Spain, It's Me

“…to look on Andalusia is to love her, even while realizing that to live with her would put that love to a very stringent test” – Katherine Lee Bates

I am now more than halfway done with my time here in Spain. It no longer feels like an extended vacation, it feels like I am actually living in Seville. I love Seville, how could I not? The warm sunny days, the beautiful river views, the vibrant nightlife, the charming narrow streets: it an incredible place to be. However, like Katherine Lee Bates so wisely said more than 100 years ago in Spanish Highways and Byways, actually living here complicates and challenges the love one feels for this beautiful place. It is not all sunshine and sangria. The longer I am here, the more I realize that Spain and I are not meant to be. We can always be friends, but our romantic relationship is not going to work out. It’s not you, Spain, it’s me. My American values and ideas clash with some of the ideas and practices here in a way that cannot be easily overlooked.

The place in which this is most evident is at my práctica at a local private school. As an education student, I could not wait to learn about the Spanish education system and work with Spanish students. Spanish classrooms may look similar  to American ones, but there are some subtle but very important differences. Most evident is the different levels of discipline that teachers expect from students. In general, students are expected to sit in their seats and raise their hand like American students, but this rule seems to be more flexible than in America. In the classrooms I have seen here, students wander around the room and speak out much more than in the American classrooms I have seen. A teacher here might gently tell someone to go back to their seat or remind them to raise their hand, but I have not seen any consequences to their behavior. Also, there are different teachers for each subject in the primary school, and kids as young as 2nd grade are left alone in the class while teachers switch classrooms or talk to another in the hallway. You can imagine the mayhem that ensues when this happens. The older kids also have a different level of discipline than in the US. When the teachers are gone (which is oddly often), the kids have one student wait at the door to see if the teacher is coming while everyone else in the class does whatever they want. I have had 6th grade boys yell “guapa” at me in the hallway (they switched to “beautiful” because they thought I didn’t speak Spanish) and had 7th grade boys ask me if I owned a gun and if I had a boyfriend while their teacher was present (the teacher did not find these questions odd). I have yet to see any consequences when a student says they didn’t do they homework. All of this is not necessarily bad, it is just a major difference that I have had a hard time dealing with.

More subtly, but more concerning to me, is the emphasis on memorization and lack of creativity and critical thinking skills. Like so many other things in Spain, appearances are important. The students all have beautiful cursive handwriting and the little kids spend lots of time making sure they are cutting evenly and coloring in the lines with the right colors. However, from a US perspective, it seems that this comes at the cost of creativity. For example, every Tuesday I help with the “arts and crafts” after-school class. Last time, the project was to draw a house, cut out the windows, and put tissue paper behind the windows so they will be colored. The idea for this came from a book the teacher had, and he showed the kids the houses in the book as an example. He encouraged them to use the pictures in the book for inspiration, and many kids drew almost exactly what was in the book. However, one kid decided to go rogue. Instead of drawing a house using the vertical side of the paper, he drew a hotel using the horizontal side. The teacher told him that this was unacceptable and he needed to start over and do what everyone else was doing. The project would have worked with his original drawing, but it would have been different. Apparently, this is not okay.

There is a lot of memorization in the curriculum, and not a lot of analyzing or critical thinking. I also see this on the University level. My classes are mostly 2-hour lectures. There is a midterm and a final in which we are expected to regurgitate everything the teacher has been saying all semester. My history professor told us that there is joke in Spain that you have not studied if your elbows aren’t red (from resting on them while studying). He bragged about all the studying he did as an undergrad. I am a history major, and in my college career, I have not memorized a single thing for a history class. Instead, I have spent hours analyzing primary sources and crafting persuasive arguments based on evidence. To me this seems to be a better use of time than memorizing facts.

Another cultural difference that has been a huge issue for me is the use of time. A long-standing stereotype in Spain is their belief in “the eternal mañana,” that everything can be done tomorrow and they are never in a hurry. Though this might be an overgeneralization, I have found it to be mostly true. Obviously it depends on the person, but in general, “on time” usually means 5-10 minutes late (similar to Havertime). Emails go days, sometimes even weeks before being answered. Things are not very organized, and no one seems to give specific instructions. Suzy and I joke that the Spaniards are telepathic, because everyone seems to know what to do even though no one has said anything. People walk slowly and eat slowly. This is the perfect environment for a vacation, but not so much if you are an American trying to go about your daily life. Figuring out my internship was a slow and painful process. Trying to walk through Seville involves muttering “perdón” a thousand times as you push your way past slow locals and confused tourists. I plan on being late to everything, because if I show up on time, I will just have to wait.

I am not saying that Spain needs to change. If anyone should change, its me. However, I am an American, a New-Englander no less, through and through and there are some things here that are really hard for me to deal with. Spain is a wonderful, enchanting place… to visit. To live? Not so much. I’m sorry Spain. I will always have a special place in my heart for you. We just weren’t right for each other. I must leave in 7 weeks. It’s for the best.