"During the Franco regime, the nuns taught classes as if the Republic still existed."

Palm'My School Years' is a series by ARA Baleares that reconstructs what education was like in Mallorca, decade by decade, through first-hand accounts. This week we delve into the 1950s.

I started school at two. It wasn't common to start so young, but it was very unusual in our house. My mother only had one clear idea: she didn't want me to go to the Pureza school. So they took me to a nursery school that didn't have a name; it was simply Mrs. Ascensión's house.

I was very little, but I knew perfectly well that Mrs. Ascensión was a staunch Republican. I don't know how she knew. I suppose I overheard something she said. But if I, at two and three years old, noticed it, it's because she was very much so. There were many teachers who were purged, but if they didn't have obvious crimes, they were later reinstated. She was lucky: her husband was an inspector, and that protected her. To get there, we had to take the tram to Costa i Llobera Street, and my parents decided it wasn't worth it. They enrolled me at the Santísima Trinidad, a school run by Trinitarian nuns. I was there from the age of five to eight. That school was strange, and I knew it.

The nuns had trained with Maria Montessori. They applied her pedagogy, the real one, not like it is now. They isolated the content, presented it sequentially, and everything stemmed from personal experience. The school became part of the student's life.

I remember very clearly the practical life exercises: buttoning buttons, dressing neatly... Also those sheets with geometric drawings that we had to color in two colors, following strict guidelines. I thought it was just a chore. My father said so too. Later I understood that it was meant to improve hand movement, to prepare us for writing. There was inclusion. There were children with difficulties, and the curriculum was adapted. I remember a boy who didn't speak and who carried an empty satchel. I thought they were playing with him, but they were working with him in an adapted way.

Under the Eye of the Regime

When the inspection came, everything changed. They made us do what they wanted the education inspectors to see: The regime wanted to see Formation of the National SpiritThe rest of the time, I don't know if they were pretending the Republic hadn't fallen or if they truly hadn't been afraid, but they ran the same school as before. Even during the Franco regime, the nuns taught as if the Republic still existed.

The move to the large Holy Trinity school was a stark contrast. There, the headmistress was very... RegimeWhile the kindergarten had nuns with republican leanings, here a classical education prevailed. Everyone did the same thing. There weren't any harsh punishments, but there was a constant attitude of control. Learning wasn't forced, but if it didn't stick, it didn't stick. I never argued with any of the nuns. I understood that they were the authority, and if they were wrong, too bad for them. During this time, I shared a classroom, desk next to desk, with Carme Riera. At home, meanwhile, I experienced a different kind of education, because my father said that school was a waste of time. He gave me books, conducted experiments with me, and made me think. He had indirectly learned about the Ferrer i Guàrdia movement and spoke of a different way of educating.

In Sister Antònia's class, which also had some modern teaching methods for the time, an Andalusian woman came to substitute for her for a while. She gave dictations, and I wrote exactly what I felt. But where I put an S, it had to be a C. It made me so angry. I got really bored because I felt like we were doing two things.

Some time later, one day they asked me if I wanted to take the entrance exam for high school mid-year. I told my father, and he said I could do whatever I wanted. I went down to the entrance exam room, without a desk, and I passed. But there was a misunderstanding with the nuns. When the one in charge returned from a retreat, I couldn't enroll anymore. I was furious—even more so—and in May I stopped going to school.

Independent Enrollment

Later, I insisted on going to the Joan Alcover Institute, the only one for girls at the time, which was on the second floor of what is now the Ramon Llull building. Back then, only those who couldn't afford a proper education went there. It was considered a haven for the underclass. But my father didn't like nuns, and they realized it wouldn't be the end of me. I enrolled myself at eleven. I had to go and get my birth certificate and deal with a million other things. I suppose my family wanted to see if I really wanted to go. I managed it.

At the school, there were people from all walks of life. There were about thirty of us. From girls who hadn't even turned ten to some who were sixteen. Nobody bothered you about what you did. You had to do something really outrageous to get anyone to say anything. You studied if you wanted to. It was in the first year of high school, actually, that I met and got into a fight with Maria del Mar Bonet, but we quickly made up. Neither of us won; the teacher won, and he was very scandalized, because years later I ran into him and he reminded me of it.

*Text prepared from the testimony of the interviewee