From singing 'Cara al Sol' to teaching about Francoist repression in all subjects: "They don't talk about it at home anymore"

BarcelonaThe photo is striking. It's the schoolyard where several students are now playing ball and chatting. In the image, however, the soccer field is full of uniformed, stiff-looking men with their hands raised. "I find it very hard to imagine that ours inste "That's how it was," says Roc. "It's shocking," admits Blanca. Both are students at the Jaume Balmes high school, the oldest secondary school in Barcelona. The image the students are discussing is from the inauguration of the school's new—and current—building in 1942, during the Franco dictatorship. This historical period is not unfamiliar to them. contrary to what many statistics say.

"There's a general lack of knowledge [about Francoism] because, due to generational changes, many people at home no longer talk about it," laments Noemí Villanueva, a history teacher at the Barcelona high school for the past five years. She criticizes the current The history curriculum in secondary education "is unattainable""It includes the entire history of the contemporary world, and that's completely impossible to do. In the end, you have to choose," he admits. In the case of Jaume Balmes, they opted to focus on repression, refugees, and exile. With this idea in mind, in the fourth year of ESO (Compulsory Secondary Education), they dedicate almost an entire term to addressing Francoist repression from practically every subject, and especially from history. During those three months, they read Roc Boronat's work in Catalan, and in Spanish, they study the figures of García Lorca and especially Antonio Machado, whose grave they visit in Collioure every year with the fourth-year students. Foreign languages also play an important role at the school. This year, they are beginning to work on linguistic and textual issues, as well as vocabulary in English, French, and German, in a very specific way: by putting themselves in the shoes of International Brigades members and sending letters describing the situation they were experiencing. "Until now, we'd been working on the First World War and recounting life in the trenches," the teacher summarizes. Regarding the history subject, Villanueva explains that she begins by explaining the situation of the first 30 years of the 20th century, giving "brief glimpses" of Primo de Rivera—she insists that for her it's very important that the students "know the people, that the names sound familiar"—and then they delve into the period. "It's true that they always ask me to do more on Francoism, but time is very limited, and I think it's more important that they know the events that led to the dictatorship," she insists. The teacher explains that they initially started doing this three-month immersion at the end of the school year, but something made them change it to the first term: the visit to the Argelès refugee camp. They always went in May, but they changed it to February to coincide with the time of the exile. "They crossed the border in February of '39, and we thought that taking them to experience the cold and feel the solitude of Argelès beach would be much more realistic," explains the teacher, who adds that they also walk part of the way to the maternity hospital in Elna. "We don't walk it because it's many kilometers, but we do visit the maternity hospital afterward," she acknowledges.

The role of families

Beyond what happens in the classroom and on field trips, at Jaume Balmes school they emphasize the importance of oral history. "Whenever we work on a historical event, we ask them to ask at home, to find out what their parents and grandparents experienced," explains Villanueva. "This has always been very present at the school because we are all victims of the Civil War, but not all victims equally, which is why historical memory is fundamental." At this point, the history teacher admits that "it used to be easier" because students were much more aware of the consequences of Franco's regime because their grandparents, and also their parents, had lived through it. "Now it's more difficult because this experience isn't so recent and they have to go further back," she acknowledges. But she warns: "I've also encountered students who have never seen an encyclopedia or who don't understand when you ask them not to write as if it were a telegram... It's a generational issue. They know other things."

In the library where Villanueva is explaining the details of Jaume Balmes' immersive project to teach about Francoist repression, there were nine students just a few minutes ago. They are Roc, Blanca, Joan, Laia, Oriol, Claudia, Milos, Joana, and Martí, all first-year high school students who last year completed fourth year of secondary school with Villanueva as their history teacher. They answer basic questions from ARA [which you can see in the video at the beginning of this article]: "Who was Franco?", "How would you describe the dictatorship?", "Why did the war start?"...

The teacher listened to them all. "Sometimes I have doubts about whether we are able to convey the importance of this period to them, but today, listening to them, I think we have succeeded to some extent, don't you? I know we are not the only school that manages to do this," she says.