Week four: Passion

"Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire." -W. B. Yeats

One of my favorite teachers in high school was my Spanish teacher for Spanish 4 and AP Spanish, Señorita Roberts. We typically just called her Señorita, or just 'rita. We often started class on Fridays with a 3-5 minute dance party to "Super-mini falda" or some other Spanish song. We would often make hot chocolate in class or before class, since it was the first period of the day, but Señorita never let it get in the way of teaching.

At my school, Spanish 4 was somewhat of a "bonus" class because basically the only people who took it were those of us who took Spanish 1 in 8th grade. You only had to take Spanish 3 to take AP Spanish, so that's what almost everyone who started in high school did. Thus, we had a much more flexible curriculum. One unit I remember specifically was the art one. We studied a few Spanish painters, among them Picasso and Velázquez, and focused mainly on one of their "obras maestras," masterworks. Señorita was really passionate about the art, and it definitely showed. I remember so much about these paintings, and then when I was able to go to Spain, Portugal, and Morocco with her and some other classmates the summer after my junior year, the experience of seeing "Las Meninas," "El entierro del Conde de Orgaz," and "Guernica" in person was so powerful. We had heard Señorita talking all year about how lifelike the dog in Las Meninas is, and then we got to actually see it.

I'd never been that interested in art before - yes, I liked to look at it, but I didn't really have much interest in knowing about the life of the painter, and who all the people were, etc. After that month, though, my outlook changed. Señorita translated her passion for the paintings to me, and Las Meninas is now one of my favorite paintings of all time. Guernica fills me with sadness whenever I see it because I know the story behind it, and can pick out of all the strangeness what was going on. El entierro makes me smile because I can remember how long we discussed which Spanish word to use for the stick/staff the bishop was holding. Then I can look at the angels and remember, if not specifically, that the vast majority were noblemen who the artist knew. If I have the opportunity, I think I'd like to try and take an art history kind of class here, just so I can learn more. I went from really not caring much, to having a real interest, just because of Señorita.