Escola Pública
Recent protests in Valencia got me thinking about the many educators who shaped my life.
It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge." — Albert Einstein
In mid-May, over 35,000 people gathered in Valencia as part of ongoing protests against the lack of resources for the Spanish public education system. I was on my way to a live model class but stopped to talk to a few women educators that were part of the crowd marching toward the city center. They wore fluorescent-colored vests and green t-shirts that read “Escola Pública De Tots i per a Tots” (“Public School of and for All” in Valenciano ). Classrooms are too full, there are not enough teachers, salaries are too low and schools are overwhelmed and without adequate funding. Sadly, universally applicable outside of Scandinavia and Singapore, I imagine.
As the masses mobilized to the Plaza del Ayuntamiento, some described it as an “educational mascleta,” referring to the traditional pyrotechnic events that draw huge lunchtime crowds for deafening firework extravaganzas (mascletas) which literally shake and rattle the city every afternoon during the first three weeks of March.
Somehow, this protest made me think about the many amazing teachers I’ve had the privilege of studying with over the years. Even though they could be few and far between—and my own receptivity varied according to hormonal conditions or behavioral transgressions—I have always loved learning. At times, teachers have saved my life, mainly by recognizing a spark, feeding my obsessive nature and pushing me beyond my comfort zone. In fact, my life, has been a continuous journey from one class setting to another.
I am embarrassed to admit I don’t even remember some of their names; it has been so long. There was a Spanish teacher at Allegheny College, where I received a minor in modern languages. She hosted a bi-weekly lunch table where we practiced Spanish, forced me to act in a García Lorca play (La Zapatera Prodigiosa), made us read 20th-century Spanish and Latin American literature, sent me to a conference across the state, and reviewed my senior thesis which had to be synopsized and defended in Spanish. All of it speaks to me today, 40-plus years later, and helped make me who I am. A lover of language in all forms.
I have known guitar, vocal, and writing instructors who, seeing a willing traveller, pushed me across the rivers of mystery onto the shores of personal discovery through creative practice. Somehow I grew up thinking that the people who write books or record music or make works of art belong to a secret society of singularly talented magic wand wavers. When in fact, these are inter-related disciplines with semantics and mathematics and historical references all their own. Giant ladders leading to base camps that can take you past the moon (250,000 miles, I believe). That is, if you’re lucky enough to find a mentor to point the way. Someone to help you to crack the code and find your own path—until you hit the wall and require further instructions.
Obviously we learn mostly from our own mistakes. At times it’s a teacher who, by improper example, shows us how not to think or act or behave. In the case of practical workshops it’s often your fellow students who impact the process most because you are experimenting and critiquing together. If you’re making an album or working with collaborators, you always want to be with people better than you. And when it comes to the deeper meaning of life, there’s no better teacher than a dog.
For the past five years I have been studying with an exceptional professor named Estefania Muñoz. She could be satisfied with simply teaching students painting and drawing but is fiercely determined to go beyond technique and impart what being an artist truly entails. Anyone interested in serious art training in Valencia eventually finds their way to her Punt d’Art studio near Plaza de España.
Thank you to all of my teachers, past and present, near and far. You don’t get nearly the respect or compensation or gratitude you deserve. One day may there be a world where karmic justice reigns. And where we’ve paid forward all the kindnesses teachers have sent our way.
All for now.
