Catholic School Priests or, “Is He Dumb?”

When we moved to Spain, my parents decided that it would be very good to place my sister and me into the Spanish educational system. 

Taking us aside, my father told us that we would be going to school and that he didn’t care what our grades were with the subject matter being taught to us, but rather that learning Spanish would be the goal and would serve us better in the long run, especially once we returned to the States. 

As an eleven-year-old I entered the 6th grade and my sister entered the 5th grade.  

In the late 1960’s the schools were run by the Catholic church and boys attended schools run by the priests, while girls attended schools run by the nuns.  As such, I attended the Agostino’s order of schools and my sister attended the Carmelites Order.

Brothers of the Agustin Order

Now, remember that neither my sister nor I knew a lick of Spanish, but I stood in line as the rector took roll that first morning.  I didn’t understand what the other kids were replying as their names were called out; all I heard was something to the effect of “sente” (which in fact was ‘presente’, or present!) 

So down the list the rector proceeded and when he got to my name, I yelled out “SENTE” as clearly as I could, to which the rector looked up from his list at me and grunted, then continued with the roll call. 

After several weeks of sitting in the back of the class, trying to pick up the language without much success, the priest/teacher handed me a note written in Spanish.  And tried to say “for your father”.  I shook my head and took it to him when class ended that day. 

The note was a request to meet with my parents to discuss something critical about me and my attitude in class.  The next day, my parents went to meet with the head priest that ran the school to be informed that he and my teachers thought that I had a mental problem and that the school might not be able to help me with my situation because all I did was sit in the class smiling all day and not saying a word. 

My parents could only laugh, to which the head priest looked at them with concern and some distain.  They told him of their intent to have me attend school as a means of learning Spanish and if we learned anything else, that would be gravy. 

He too had to laugh and told us that he would bring it up with the other priests at their next meeting. 

And that is where I got my nick name of “Mudo Americano” or American deaf, or Mudo, for short.  A nick name I carried with me for the rest of my educational years at the Agustino School in Zaragoza, I kind of liked it!