The best teacher of teachers in Catalonia

In the midst of a tense educational atmosphere, on the eve of 2026, the year of its centenary, the figure of Marta Mata i Garriga, teacher of teachersRaimon Portell has written the book of this title, published by Rosa Sensat. A shot of hope for moving from the best of the past to a possible future.

If I say she was the best in Catalonia, few will doubt it. She had a gift and great inner strength. And an optimistic smile. Her mother, Àngels Garriga, had trained at the Mancomunidad teachers' college with Alexandre Galí, Artur Martorell, Rosa Sensat, Pau Vila, Pompeu Fabra, and Carles Riba, and later worked at the Baixeras School, where Marta was already a student at the age of three. She followed her mother to the Pere Vila School Group, still operating today opposite the Arc de Triomf in Barcelona, ​​a work by the architect Josep Goday, who years later would design the Escola del Mar (School of the Sea), bombed by fascist aircraft and which it seems will finally be rebuilt.

At Pere Vila school, there was a library (staffed by two professionals, it was open in the afternoons for the neighborhood adults), a music room, heating, and they went on excursions to visit museums. There were no exams (the teachers provided individual and intensive support to each child). When she turned 12, Marta transferred to the Institut Escola in the Ciutadella, across from the Parliament building. Directed by Josep Estadella, who knew all the students by name and saw them off at the door every day, she was also taught by Angeleta Ferrer, Rosa Sensat's daughter. With her father dead and her mother dismissed from her teaching position (because of her religious beliefs), in 1938, in the midst of the war, the family sent Marta to the countryside.

After the war, her mother was purged again, this time for being a Catalan nationalist, and Marta contracted tuberculosis: four years of illness at the family farmhouse in Saifores, Cal Mata, the first two spent in bed. She was cared for by the doctor Cinto Reventós, uncle of the future socialist politician Joan Reventós, with whom she would forge a strong friendship. She used her illness to read extensively and study English. And she became deeply rooted in the land. She gradually became a peasant: chickens, grapes, a hearth in the kitchen... All combined with her love of books and a group of village children who met every afternoon at Cal Mata, where she told them stories and led them in all sorts of activities: theater, nature, reading, discussions, games, chess, music...

Alexandre Galí, Artur Martorell, and Pau Vila visited her at Saifores. She decided to study pedagogy independently at the university. Twice a week she goes down to Barcelona. She takes a job as librarian at the Talitha school. Over time, she realizes there is a shortage of good teachers and in 1961 she organizes the First Congress of Cheap Pedagogy at the Saifores farmhouse. That same year she becomes involved in the creation of the magazine Strong HorseShe who had read so much Patufetand in collections of Catalan titles at Vicens Vives and La Galera, and promoted illustrators such as Fina Rifà and Pilarín Bayés. In 1965 he created the Rosa Sensat Teachers' School, which received financial support from Jordi Pujol until 1969.

Upon her mother's death, her brother José, the heir, bequeathed Cal Mata to her, which she transformed into a holiday camp and her own refuge. In the 1970s, she organized an official teacher training college for the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), and with the Transition to democracy, she entered politics (joining the Catalan Socialist Party, PSC) and became involved in promoting Catalan public education. As a member of parliament, Barcelona city councilor for Education (appointed by Mayor Maragall), and senator, her prestige and her "gentle tenacity" (as described by Minister Maravall) ensured that the Pujol administration of the Generalitat (Catalan government) did not create a dual system of schools, one for Catalan and one for Spanish, but rather a single system with Catalan as the language of instruction. In 1983, she organized the First Congress of Pedagogical Renewal Movements. She traveled the world to learn about new educational approaches: Israel, the USSR, the USA (New York, Chicago, San Francisco), Finland, Denmark, Nepal, Poland, Italy, and others. She also traveled extensively throughout Catalonia and Spain by car. "Every child is a surprise, and that can set any theory in motion," believes Marta, always convincing, passionate, open-minded, and with a straightforward way of speaking. The best teacher of teachers.