"The teacher of Francoism gave us clandestine Catalan lessons"

PalmAt school they made us sing 'Cara al Sol' and Catalan was learned in secret. At six years old, I started at the Trinitarian nuns' home in Binissalem. We paid 350 pesetas each month, which was a lot of money back then. My mother wasn't too keen on me studying. She thought our job was to get married, that's all.

I prepared for the Baccalaureate entrance exam at nine and started at ten. To take the entrance exam, we went to the high school in Palma. In my year, there were only three of us doing the Baccalaureate; there was also a very young nun, about 18 years old, who studied with us because she hadn't been able to before. I remember with nostalgia when we went to take the entrance exam in Palma. Francisco de Borja Moll examined us in French.

Weekly Confession

We did the first three years of high school—first, second, and third—at the Trinitarian nuns' house. Hired teachers came, and we had classes in the afternoon: a priest who taught Latin and a public school teacher who taught French and math. We went to music lessons at the home of a teacher named Catitanes, who had a piano, and we also did needlework, gymnastics, and Formation of the National SpiritEvery week there was a visit to the chapel and confession. When general music class began, they sometimes made us sing 'Cara al Sol'. I did it without thinking too much; I didn't even know what I was singing.

The classes were always taught in Spanish, and we chatted among ourselves in Mallorcan. There was an older nun, Sister Miquela, who didn't speak Spanish very well, and we sometimes spoke Catalan with her because she had no other choice.

One day, the teacher who was TrainingA woman from Felanitx asked us if we wanted to learn to write in Catalan. She warned us not to tell anyone; so I started secretly attending classes at the nuns' house. There were adults and children, and we met once a week at 8:30 p.m. I didn't learn much, but I did learn the letter 's', the 'c' sound, and the difference between 'c' and 'c'. If we had been discovered, it would have been a huge scandal.

A notebook that passed through many hands

While we had specific classes for the high school students in the afternoons, we shared the classroom with everyone else in the mornings. We worked on the rotation notebook, which was assigned to a different student each day, and in which we copied dictations, math problems, or exercises. It was the notebook the inspector saw. I didn't like it at all because you had to write very neatly and everything had to be perfect. And it was strange and eerie that we had a clock in the classroom, and every hour that passed, we were made to stand up and repeat: 'One hour less of life, one hour closer to eternity.'

I was always a bit of a rebel. A teacher used to tell my father that I led the others astray and would hit me. I remember one day we were waiting for a teacher with our legs dangling out the window because the weather was nice. When the headmistress found out, she came and plastered cigarette butts all over us.

We also got up to mischief when the nuns went to pray and left us alone at school: we'd draw on the blackboard and look inside the drawers. The teacher who came from the public school was a real brute. Once he threw an iron bell and hit a classmate, splitting her lip. He'd come into class with a lit cigar and come out the same way, throwing everything he could get his hands on.

Left-handedness was forbidden

As for my hand, they wouldn't let me write with my left, because they said it was a sin. They threatened me, saying that if I did, they'd have to sign it. Now I do everything with my left hand; I'm a leftist in everything, except when it comes to writing.

When I started fourth grade, I went to the Berenguer Secondary School in Anoia. I was 14 years old, and we were the first generation of students at the school. It was the first time I'd ever been to a co-ed school, and it was a real eye-opener for me: I had a boyfriend within a month. I didn't finish fifth grade because my father got sick, and I had to leave the school. I cried a lot because I was an intelligent girl and wanted to study, but they wouldn't let me. And the consequence is clear: I'm the only one of my siblings who hasn't finished school.

'My school years This is a series by ARA Baleares that reconstructs what education was like in Mallorca, decade by decade, through first-hand accounts. In this installment, we delve into the 1960s.

*Text prepared based on the interviewee's testimony