Marifé Arroyo: "They threatened me and the entire faculty left, but in the end, good won."

The Drova (Safor)"I was your student!" In the course of about five minutes, two people stop Marifé Arroyo on the street with gestures of gratitude and emotion. The teacher, expelled during the Transition from the school in Barx, a small town in La Safor, raises her hand and covers the faces of her former students, leaving only their eyes exposed, trying to remember what they looked like when they were children. "I don't recognize you this old and with a beard," she exclaims sarcastically.

The daughter of a Civil Guard and from a Spanish-speaking family, the teacher was a pioneer of pedagogical renewal and the introduction of teaching in Valencian. What happened in Barx was one of the most serious attacks on Valencianism, and she became a symbol of its defense. Although she avoids the spotlight, she receives the ARA at her home in Drova. "I'm not used to it," apologizes Arroyo, to whom the book The teacher, by Víctor Gómez Labrado (Bromera), first, and the eponymous song by Zoo and the documentary by Ambra Proyectos Culturales, second, brought them back into the media spotlight. It was partly thanks to this that he was able to teach one last class at that school that brought him so much joy, and also so many headaches. In fact, they had prepared a surprise for him. "The children sang me the song of The teacher. "In that moment, I forgave the people of Barx," she explains excitedly. "Of all the emotions I've experienced throughout my life, I think this is the strongest."

Although she doesn't like being on the front lines, do she feel this has made up for what they did to her?

— Of course, but the pain remains. It's like the pain of loss; it doesn't go away. But I've continued to go to the village every day with my head held high. From great harm comes great good. Moving to Gandia allowed me to serve as principal for 25 years at the largest school in the city.

She used statutes agreed upon with the students and an active, participatory teaching method during the Franco regime. She was a visionary!

— I learned from my predecessors who were changing the way we teach. It wasn't my doing.

He created a school library.

— This comes from Pep's [writer Josep Piera, her husband] knowledge. There wasn't a single book in my house!

The school was open 24 hours.

— The students came whenever they wanted, even in the summer. They had to feel like they were part of it.

What was the most important thing for you when teaching him?

— Appearing before the students with sincerity, confidence, and a willingness to help. Letting them speak so they could express themselves freely. I applied techniques I'd read about, such as the assembly and environmental awareness. And the most important thing was that they would have a good time, that is, be happy to go to school and learn.

It's similar to competency-based education, which is currently criticized for its lack of boundaries. Do you think we've gone too far?

— I couldn't be a teacher in today's world. It's too far away for me. I had to ask what algorithms were because I couldn't find the word in the dictionary. There are still some who don't agree with this whole way of doing things.

He introduced Valencian as the primary language at the Barx school without realizing it. His family was from Salamanca, right?

— I was born here, but I've always been in a Civil Guard barracks. My parents were posted to Valencia. My father wore the tricorn hat [smiles]. I was daughter of the bodyI changed when I met Josep Piera because he opened up a world I'd never known before. I was a child who had studied teaching and had no resources. I was a child of Franco's upbringing until I was 22.

When do you learn Valencian?

— When I arrive in Barx, Pepe teaches me four or five words. "Good morning," "I want you to teach me to speak like you," "Speak to me in Valencian": these are the first phrases I say to the children. They are starting to offer courses for teachers to promote Valencian in schools, and I sign up to learn to write and read it. Just as I told the students who spoke to me in Valencian, I told them: "Don't tell me dona, tell me, Marifé." There were only three private schools that taught in Valencian. I would say Barx was the first public school, but it came gradually. The first thing was to say that they spoke it, that I wasn't going to punish them.

Wasn't there a political intention then?

— It was a natural thing. Of course, we were living under a dictatorship, and there was a lot of censorship. There were people who demanded Valencian, but not only that, but also freedom, amnesty, and the Statute of Autonomy. Now, I am one of the first to sign up, along with other schools in the region, for a program to introduce the mother tongue to preschool, endorsed by the University of Valencia and the Ministry of Education. That's when I started organizing, but not until then. We formed the Safor Teachers' Collective and created manuals for teaching Valencian. We didn't have textbooks. The summer school meetings also served to raise awareness and spread the word about school in Valencian.

Franco died, the first democratic elections took place in 1977, and the persecution of Valencianism, the so-called Battle of Valencia, erupted. How did you experience it?

— It had started earlier in the city of Valencia. There had been the first threats in bookstores and the first graffiti, both in favor of the language and against it. People come to Barx to hold a sort of meeting with their parents, and they say that what's happening at school is that something from outside has been imposed, which is Catalanism.

And then the complaint appears in the newspaper The Provinces?

— It was 1982, and Pep had just won the Josep Pla Prize. The first letter is signed by the town councilor and is titled Catalonia in Bárig.

Inside it says that he was of Spanish-speaking origin, but "more Catalan than the Catalans". Was it like an insult?

— This is what happens. This is where it all begins.

There is also a group of families who don't like what he is doing.

— Very minority.

Is this what happens to families who are now asking for 25% of classes to be taught in Spanish?

— I think so. Now the war has returned, just as there are other battles. I hope not. In the Valencian Community, with the political parties we have, I think there are those who want confrontation. They're cutting subsidies for libraries, and for culture in general. The language is part of what they've stolen from us, and we want to recover what's ours. But the prohibition dates back to the Bourbon era, 1714, the Battle of Almansa, and then the Franco regime. They want one religion, one culture, that is, Spain, one, great and free Again. And the rest who return to their countries. It's insane. Because of language, religion, or color: in every place, the far right attacks for something different.

Then comes an inspection, which prohibits speaking Valencian at school, even in the playground, and they ask you to leave. How does this affect you?

— I had a really bad time because the threats were so violent. The campaign against the Barx school was terrible. They slashed a teacher's car tires, they threatened me—a father told me, "Even cutting his throat wouldn't pay for what he's doing"—and the worst comment of all: "Since he can't have children, he uses other people's children as guinea pigs." And we found graffiti on the front door of our house. Or they wouldn't let me or my classmates into the teaching room, and a councilor, a father of a student, grabbed me and threw me back a meter. In Valencia, the Education delegate told me I had to leave, that I was incompatible with the town. There were five of us teachers, and the entire teaching staff was with me. We were completely and absolutely within the law. We were carrying out a plan approved by the ministry.

The entire faculty left.

— Of course, if I left, everyone would leave. I was on leave for the remainder of the school year. All I did was go with Pep to Andalusia to see the driving force behind the Valencian language program at school, Diego Bejarano, a great inspector from Jerez de la Frontera. He had also been forced to leave Valencia.

The children of these students, who now even have grandchildren, have studied in Valencian, and many of them reclaim their language. Or as Zoo says: "Now there are people who bellow in an outlawed language."

— The seed remains. The students remember them as the best years of school. They still tell me that. The Barx school still has all its teaching in Valencian. They kicked me out, but more teachers arrived with the same approach. Then evil won, but if I go back to school and see that the school is doing well, it means good won in the end.