Las Condes, Santiago de Chile. 19.22.
How do I describe what I’m feeling right now? I’m not sure. So I’ll do my best to reason my thoughts as I write. That’s what this whole blog exercise is for, after all, right? To throw down all the scattered puzzle pieces in my head so that they make a lot more sense on paper. That’s the idea behind it, anyway.
It’s like this. I’ve spent the last ten years of my life teaching foreign languages: English, Spanish, French, Arabic and even Italian. I do it because it’s what my degree was all about, primarily, but also because I have a pretty good ear and, frankly, I’m pretty good at it. In the last five years – after I’d earned my stripes – I’ve started teaching more and more literature, first through the Spanish Language B section of the International Baccalaureate Diploma, then as a fundamental part of the A Level course for both French and Spanish. The further I get into my teaching career, the more I hunger for the literary side of the course, genuinely revelling in the exploration of theme, character, identity and authorial philosophy. I love teaching the little ones, too – it’s immensely entertaining to go from discussing the corruption of the soul in French to learning Spanish phonics with various animals within the space of an hour – but every year I feel myself drawn ever closer into the literature.
Here in Chile, for the first time since my schooldays, I’ve had the freedom to teach English Literature as though it were my alma mater. It feels as natural as breathing. It helps that I have being using the same skills for years now to deliver the literature aspects of the French and Spanish courses, but… there is something more to it. This feels… right, somehow. Like this is what I was meant to be doing all along. And I’m feeling very conflicted about this.
I shouldn’t. This was always the plan – to move back to Spain and teach English Literature, if I could. But it is never going to happen in the UK. Never. I wouldn’t be allowed to cross over because of a lack of subject expertise and experience, no matter how much I point to my long years teaching literary analysis in another language. Similarly, it’s tremendously unlikely I’d be hired as a Spanish Language and Literature teacher in Spain, for which I am arguably more qualified, because why on earth would you hire a foreigner who has acquired your language from scratch to teach it to children when there are so many native speakers who are far better equipped to do so?
In short, my qualifications and my intentions simply do not add up. I did Spanish at university because I wanted to move back to Spain, but because my profession is teaching – a career path from which I will not stray on principle – I find myself stuck, unable to break into the Spanish education system as easily as mother did with music. I know what I want to do, but the barriers are all around me.
It’s frustrating – and yet the impression I get out here, in a school built upon the IB core philosophy of the universality of thought, is that none of that matters. Where I came from, what credentials I hold, what language I use from day to day. The only thing that matters is a passion for literature and for inquiry, wherever that takes me.
We could learn a lot from this system. Rather, I could learn a lot from it. The only question is, does Spain have anywhere that follows the same philosophy? That really would be the dream, if I could only track it down.
The sun has been out all day. Only now, in the last moments of the evening, has a thin carpet of cloud been pulled up as though to tuck it into bed. This would be only the third day of sunshine I have had since arriving in Chile, now four weeks ago to the day. So I have come up to the top of Observatory Hill to watch the sunset lay its Midas touch upon the Andes, perhaps for the last time, and think about the future.
Tomorrow, one last class of Othello – a proper hour and a half’s marathon on morality and ethics, Augustinian philosophy and Paper 2 preparation – and then it’s over. This strange exchange with Chile that was never on the cards until suddenly it was. I hope I leave a good impression.
And after that… somewhere completely different. Somewhere I have wanted to go since I was six years old. Somewhere… enchanted, even. BB x
The Book of Barnabas 