Salamancan School

I am going to write this post and then I promise you will not see much from me for a while, as I understand that I have left you with a lot of reading, so I will make these comments fairly quickly and briefly (hopefully) and then I will update you later.

It seems to me that it has been a while since I have written about school, and everyone always asks me about it, so I thought that I might reflect a little bit on school since the first few days.

School is going well. The conditions have improved greatly, and I do not normally leave the classroom every day wanting to smack everyone upside the head, wanting to tear my hair out, or contemplating the appropriateness of throwing a temper tantrum. I am not sure why this is, but I think that there are a few factors at work here. First of all, I think that it is because I have gotten used to the Spanish way of higher education. It took some time to transition to this new way of doing things, but I finally have and it is therefore not nearly as frustrating as that first week of school. This is not to say that the people have stopped talking when the professor is talking, but merely that I have gotten better at understanding Spanish, the professor's way of speaking, and have developed an ability to tune out all of the background noises. Furthermore, I think that there were many more kids in the classroom the first week than there are now. This is typical no matter where you go, I think, but it seems to be much worse here than in the States. Maybe this is because I go to a small school, where skipping is much more noticeable or because education there is fairly expensive. In any case, there are significantly less students in class every day than at the beginning of the semester, which helps me because then I do not have to cut through all of the other noise to get to the professor's voice.

However, there are some classes that are worse than others when it comes to being talkative and disrespectful, but I think that is due to the different years that are present in each class I am taking. For example, my history of modern Spain class is a fourth year class, so the students in there are much more mature and understand how disrespectful it is to talk when the professor is talking, or maybe because they are there because it is an elective course and they really want to learn about the subject material. My geography of Spain course, which is for first years, is therefore much rowdier and noisier than my history class, and also it is required for a degree in many different areas, so the students there are not their of their own volition, but rather because they have to be in order to get a degree. There are still many days in which my professor has to stop what she is talking about to yell at the students and make the point that we only have a certain amount of hours together, so we ought to make the most of it, which means that they have to shut up. However, the kids in my class seem to let that go in one ear and then it immediately leaves the other because the professor stops various times throughout the duration of the two hour meeting we have to reiterate how stupid and disrespectful the talkers are being.

I think I may have mentioned this is another blog, but one of the strange things in Spain is that you have to pay for the required articles for class. I talked to Sara about this and she told me it was because of the crisis that Spain currently faces, but I thought it was strange. At any rate, I had to pay something like $10-15 for these required articles for my history class that I could not get for cheaper anywhere else. When I thought about the difference in textbook purchasing between here and the U.S., I realized that an average semester means around $200 for all of my textbooks, whereas here I have paid no more than $20 for all of my textbooks. This means that I should really not be complaining at all. So I read these articles for my history class, and then we went to class to discuss them. I did not talk or discuss them because I was not as confident in my reading abilities, so I was going to wait for the others, the natives, to respond. The professor was looking for the main idea of the article we had read and it cost a lot of time and energy for the other students to realize the objective of the author, whereas I had it right there, on the first page, underlined and highlighted. In the end, the professor had to give the answer to the class, and I thought this was strange. In the U.S. there are generally a lot of people who get the right main idea fairly quickly, but in Spain it seems that they have to take some more time. I think this is due to the fact that in the U.S. we are trained to get to the punchline, the main idea, the thesis of the paper right away, and also perhaps because we are required to read so much material (at least at the university level). In Spain, however, there is little required reading and the students just scribble down virtually every single word the professor says, taking their words as textbook, and then going back later and highlighting the important ideas. I guess we will see which method is better at the end of the semester, but I think that the Spaniards could learn a thing or two about just soaking in the material and writing down the main ideas rather than every single article, preposition, and adjective that the professor may utter.

However, I do not want to maintain the position that the university studies here in Spain are not intense or rigorous, but just different. I think that there are a lot of good things about a degree here in Spain, actually. For example, a degree in history at the University of Salamanca requires some work on geography. I have never taken a geography class as a part of my degree at Luther, but it is a really good class to have, as I am realizing, because you cannot really understand why things happen or how they happen without a good understanding of the geography. The physical features of a land determine where people go, especially in the ages without modern technology. For example, the reason why the Moors were stopped in Spain and did not expand into France is partially due to the fact that there are some enormous mountains that separate the two countries. These same mountains also explain why Spain has a relatively different development pattern than the rest of Europe. Students of history at Salamanca are also required to take a historiography class, which discusses the ways to think about, discuss, and interpret history. Large, research universities have this option, but Luther does not. I think that this is an incredibly important thing to have in a curriculum because otherwise there is no consistency in your arguments or your interpretations. Perhaps this is for the better because then you cannot mold the facts to fit your paradigm, but still, it would be a cool class.

My geography class is very well planned out and intense as well. We just got done studying the geological evolution of the Iberian peninsula (yeah, it is an exercise for my Spanish skills for sure), and we are now exploring the flora and fauna of Spain. Then we learn about the population and historical movement of people in Spain. However, thus far I would like to say how much this class has helped my Spanish vocabulary skills. Not only has the class provided me with a ton of very specific words that I will probably never use again, but it has also helped me to revolutionize my vocabulary. Whereas before I was using the word “de” a lot to provide descriptions of nouns, I have realized, thanks to reading the schemes and presentations that my professor provides, that there are tons of ways to get rid of the word “de” in favor of adjectives. This is to say, that my geography class has made me realized that when writing something, I can use an adjectival form of a word instead of just a bunch of nouns and the word “de” to provide a description.

Finally, and perhaps most scary, is the reflection I had recently about my stress levels. This past Wednesday, I had a project due for my geography class that was supposed to be a topographic profile from the province of Zamora (just north of Salamanca) to Barcelona (on the completely opposite side of the country). You had to make a drawing and then had to write a little bit about the most important features of the map, describing how they got there, what they look like, and what type of use they typically get. It was a really long project (I think I wrote six whole pages about five different features) and I had to complete it Tuesday night (because I procrastinated until then and because we were in Lisbon the weekend prior), but I was not stressed out at all. I have found that I have become less stressed about a lot of things while I have been here. Maybe it it just because I have not a lot to do and so I do not have to stress as much as I do at Luther, but I have found that I do not care a whole lot about a whole lot. I know this sounds really bad, but I do not think that it is all that bad. I have learned to just relax, chill out, and take it slow instead of making a big deal about everything. There are a few scenarios that I see panning out after I get back to the States, having this attitude in mind. First of all, I will return to the States and will crave stuff to do, which will mean a greater efficiency and greater output. I will be a machine!! OR, (and this is the part that sorta scares me a little bit) I will return to the States and not want to do anything and my life is going to change drastically. Honestly, I do not think that this latter scenario is going to happen because I am a creature that adapts to change fairly easily (at least I think I do) and so I will get back into my habits and routines in the U.S. and there will not be a problem at all.

Well, I think that is enough for now, because I realized that this post just got really long. Sorry about that. I am known to have a lot to say (at least when it comes to writing) and I do not really care to go back and get rid of the unnecessary words, because, well, I am not caring or stressing too much about this blog being perfect. :-P

At any rate, just to give you a little bit of a preview of what is going to be next on my blog (provided nothing else interesting really happens), Holy Week and Easter is approaching, which means that there will be lots of pictures and reflections because it is perhaps the most important festival in all of Spain. After Easter, I am going back to Andalucía (in the south of Spain, where Sevilla is located) to visit two iconic cities that are definitely must-sees while in Spain: Córdoba and Granada. They were the seats of the Islamic rule of Spain for many hundreds of years, so there is a lot of beautiful architecture and interesting mixes of cultures in this part of the country. Look for blog posts and pictures on Facebook! Until then...un abrazo (a hug)!