What a Proposal!

A Story in 3 Chapters, plus Prologue

Prologue

Some professors couldn’t care less, but others will do almost anything to encourage their students to learn. Feel free to decide for yourself which type this story is about. If you do not think the method of instruction works, please also feel free to modify it or suggest alternatives. Just please be prepared to explain your reasoning.

Note that this method has been employed in advanced Spanish language classes at the college level. There is no guarantee it will work with another language or another subject entirely. Discussion is strongly encouraged, since participation will reflect on your grade as readers.

One final note: All participation must be in fluent Spanish. El inglés es una lengua bárbara. You know you know what that means.

Chapter 1: The exam

Professor: I do not like final exams. 

(Students smile. They don’t like them, either. Who does?)

Professor: I am therefore going to propose something to you. 

(No final? Everybody gets an A?)

Professor: Do you want to make up your own final test? That’s what I’m proposing.

(Yes! Is this really happening?)

Professor: Then let’s do it. It’s going to take some work.

(Not as much work as studying for an exam. We’re going to know all the answers ahead of time, so this’ll be a piece of cake. Easiest A ever!)

Professor: First question. What did we study this semester?

(What? She doesn’t know or she doesn’t remember? She’s not that old, is she?)

Professor: Well? What did we study? What did we learn?

(Aren’t those the same thing?) 

(Uh, maybe not.)

(Is there a catch to this?)

(Somebody volunteers that they studied aspects of the past tense, better known as preterite and imperfect.)

(Somebody else mentions they’ve studied all the verb tenses.)

(Someone way in the back mumbles, fearfully, that they recall having learned the subjunctive.)

Professor: That’s enough for now. Muy bien. So how am I going to know that you’ve understood all these things and can use them?

(Huh?)

Professor: How can you show me, for example, that you can use preterite and imperfect correctly?

(She can’t be telling us to make up fill-in-the-blank questions.)

Professor: I’m not telling you to use fill-in-the-blank questions. Those are boring.

(They’re boring, but they’ll show whether we understood.)

Professor: Those questions don’t work, because they’re often ambiguous, so both aspects fit. Why does Spanish even need preterite and imperfect? English doesn’t need them.

(But in Spanish they communicate different aspects of a situation or an event. They really aren’t the same. English expresses the completed vs. the in progress features of an event or situation by other methods, not with verb endings.)

Professor: Right! How can you should me you got that and can use it when referring to the past?

(We could tell a story. It could be about a trip or something that happened when we were little, or news from last year.)

Professor: Perfecto! Imagine you are on a trip you took or that you are a child again. Or think about something that took place last year. Tell that story. How long do you think it should be?

(Um, about a page? It could be longer, but it needs enough context. I think I’ll tell about my trip to Barcelona and what happened when I got food poisoning.)

(That’s gross. Just tell about things you saw in the city.)

Professor: Magnífico ! You’ve got the idea. You’ll probably have to write about a page if you want to be sure of providing enough examples and contrasts.

(That’s what we thought.)

Professor: Here’s another question: How can you tell me what you’re going to do when the semester is over?

(That’s in the future, so we need to be able to express the future tense.)

(Wasn’t there a lesson back two months where we learned the subjunctive mood is needed to express events that haven’t occurred yet? That, plus things like making requests, reacting emotionally to something, doubting - things like that?)

Professor: Perfecto! You can tell what you’re going to do in May, if you’ll be working, where, things like that. Lots of subjunctive to be used in those cases. Tell me some of your plans.

(Lots of plans and subjective comments are made.)

Professor: All right, now take your ideas and work on them with somebody else in class. Jot down your thoughts so I can go around and check. This is what you’ll take home to work on for the next class.

(This is way too easy. There must be a trick question somewhere.)

Professor: There is no trick question, but there is another part to the exam.

(We knew this was coming.)

Professor: This part might be a little tougher. What does an A look like? What does a B look like? Using these criteria as guidelines, explain what grade you earned. Please remember that I have already seen all the evidence you’ve submitted all semester, but if there is more information I should have, you can include it.

(Like when my dog ate… ?)

Professor: I heard that. No dogs allowed in your self-evaluation.

(Oops! We’d better make sure we keep our comments in parentheses.)

Professor: Final question, maybe for bonus points. What course would you like to take in Spanish? Design it. You will need a topic, a list of assignments and readings. Choose what time and where to meet. Explain why the topic is interesting to you. Make sure you also select how the course will be graded. How long do you think your answer needs to be?

(At least 2 pages. That’s a lot of information to come up with.)

(We’ll need to be careful about agreement. You know, subject/verb, adjective/noun, that sort of thing.)

(Right. Profe really gets on our cases when we mix up singular and plural, masculine and feminine, or first person with second and third.)

Por favor, make sure your agreement is good when you write. It’s very important.

Professor: See you next class. Hasta la próxima.

(This exam is going to be the best ever. What a proposal!)

Chapter 2: The Course

Professor: Buenos días! This is Spanish 490. This is the course everybody suggested last semester in Spanish 306. 

(Did we all propose the same course? That’s rather doubtful.)

Professor: You’re probably wondering how everybody could have suggested the same course. What I forgot to mention was that each person will present and teach that course during the semester. We will all look at the syllabus each has created and will be tested on what our classmates have taught. Now let’s look at what we’ll be doing. I can’t wait to find out.

Michelle: I proposed a course in quince and dandelions. I love plants.

Professor: Fantástico! Let’s see. That brings to mind membrillo, quince gelatin, and other desserts in Spanish. What did they make desserts from? There was the Moorish influence in Spanish and all the indigenous influences in Latin America. If you ‘stick’ just with desserts, you’ll have your plate full.

(Oh geez.)

Logan: My course proposal was on rivers and streams of New England. I love to kayak.

Professor: Excelente! What if you research places you’d like to go in Spanish-speaking countries and explain why? You could also identify main water routes of the Hispanic world and even look up the meaning of their names. Some of them have a huge historical significance; others are important in myths. 

Jordan: I said I wanted to learn carpentry and woodworking.

Professor: Buenas idea! You can learn so much by studying the trees and forests of the Hispanic world. That’ll lead you to environmental issues, the fragility of rain forests, woods that are illegal to export. You can find out how wood is used in furniture-making and what styles there are. Do any of the countries export wood products? I’m sure you’ll have more ideas, including all the terminology for tools used with wood.

Dianne: My choice for a class was wildlife rehabilitation. I want to get a certificate in that after I graduate.

Professor: Estupendo! There are so many national parks, preserves, and protected habitats in Spain and Latin America. They all have some type of relationship with wildlife organizations. There’s a lot of information online. If you’re interested in endangered species, we can get a list. You might be able to set up something to raise money, and of course that’s such good practice for Spanish, since you have to present everything to this class as well as get them to help you.

Mike: I really thought a class on herbs would be interesting. I hope it doesn’t overlap with Michelle’s idea.

Professor: Interesantísimo. You could do a compendium of herbs in Spanish. There are organic cooperatives in Honduras and I think Padre Jesús would love for you to visit to learn about medicinal herbs with him. If you are interested in doing sketches of plants, that would be great. If you want to learn to make tinctures or use herbs in other ways, we can see how indigenous cultures work in Latin America.

(You mean we can get credit for learning useful stuff?)

Professor: Those are all excellent ideas and there is really no overlap. Let’s hear just five more today and we’ll finish up the next class.

Jenna: I’d love to take a class in paper.

Professor: Papel! One of my personal favorites. The history of paper is really long, so I know you’ll have to be selective. Paper has been manufactured in so many parts of the world, from different materials. It’s related to the development of writing systems. If you want, you can teach everybody about handmade paper today. There are cooperatives in Mexico, Honduras, and elsewhere. They use amate and banana fiber. You could include Asian papers, momigami, and art forms like them, but watch out - there’s so much ground to cover. The history of book binding and where the best paper for publishing is found could be another part. Spain has very high quality publications. Cuba publishes very inexpensive books, to promote literacy.

Andy: My choice was the Pyrenees.

Professor: Vale! Such a great topic! Naturally you’re including the mythical origins, because they say the mountains are named for Princess Pyrene, who was Heracles’ lover, or they might be named from the Greek word for fire. There are so many nations and languages associated with the region, plus the Spanish Civil War was when people crossed it on foot to escape being killed by fascists. The sports, the habitat, and the Basques will all be important parts of your course. You’re going to have to work hard to fit it all in, especially if you want to mention things like paper clothing and paper houses. You can teach us to recycle and also to make tin can paper, if you like.

Sal: You know me. Spaghetti and pizza. I know, it’s because of my name, but whatever…

Professor: Bien! You can work on all the exploradores, starting with Marco Polo. How did foods travel in the Hispanic world? How does film portray the role of food in Latin America and Spain? Just don’t bite off more than you can chew. Don’t forget that you can use TPR, total physical response, to teach us the formal and informal commands. You command us to make the pizza and we respond to your commands.

(Hope she never tells that joke again.)

Dale: I designed a course on salt. I thought it was safer than trying to build a nuclear bomb.

Professor: Este, este… good choice. I wasn’t ready to accept anything lethal for the classroom, as you know. The university has rules against dangerous activities, weapons on campus, things like that. However, salt is intriguing. You did a good job including topics like the Catedral de Sal in Zipaquirá, Colombia. Then there are the salt flats in Ibiza and Formentera, the salinas in Alicante, Navarra, Tarragona… most with natural reserves. Don’t forget besugo a la sal - bass baked in salt crust - or salted cod. You can fit in some myths and legends of the sea, too. Kurlansky has a book, Salt: A World History, and you can use that as your textbook if you can find the Spanish version. We don’t want to leave out folk beliefs and magic, either.

Evan: I know it’s weird, but I always thought plagues were a cool thing to know about. You know, the Black Death, the Spanish Flu…

(Snickers. It was Spanish class, after all.)

Professor: It’s not weird. En absoluto. Pandemics have existed for centuries. La Peste devastated all of Europe in the Middle Ages or la Edad Media. That includes Spain, but you can’t blame that country for the flu epidemic around 1917-1918, as you know. It would be interesting to look at Spanish speakers who have won the Nobel Prize or any other major awards and why was their work so important. Maybe you could look at major health issues in Spanish-speaking countries or at medicine in Cuba.

N.B. Everybody taught a class, everybody learned something new. Everybody worked harder than they ever had for a course, and everybody did it all in Spanish. The 490 group held an open house for all the majors and served refreshments, too.

Everybody got an A. An easy A. Everybody deserved that grade.

Chapter 3: The Major

Spanish 490 had not gone unnoticed by students, other professors, the language department, nor the administration. As was to be expected, there were few neutral responses: the course had either been seen as an outrageous violation of academic standards for learning and measurement of knowledge acquisition, or it had been applauded. The professor responsible for upsetting the intellectuals’ apple cart had made enemies along with allies. She apparently didn’t know how to leave well enough alone, because she decided the concept of the college major needed to change, at least for Spanish. She proposed several new plans of study:

. Colors, Sounds, and Flavors of the Hispanic World

• Plants, Animals, and Machines from the Medieval to the Modern Period
• Stones, Roots, and Fibers in Spain and Latin America
• Musical Instruments and Their Origins, plus Dances and Sports
• Homesteading, Healing, and Foraging in the Hispanic World 

Two of the five from the above list were approved by the Language Department. Feel free to guess which three did not make it.

Epilogue

The Professor did not get tenure or promotion that year, but that is because she didn’t apply for it. She knew it would have been a waste of everyone’s time. There were so many majors to be created, nevertheless. Elsewhere.