“I always liked my students to be the first, never the last,” said teacher Catalina Valencia Navarro
Seño Cata doesn’t like pictures. ‘I am ugly,» she tells me. But her photograph contradicts her. Photo: María Reynozo.
María del Refugio Reynozo Medina
At 93 years old, Catalina Valencia Navarro walks around the house alone, leaning on a walker with an impeccable face. “I am very happy,» she says with a deep sigh.
She doesn’t need to say it, it is announced by her slow but sure steps, her beautiful luminous eyes and the gentle smile framed by her burnished hair. She wears black shoes that reveal her perfect toes, a long khaki A-line skirt and a soft almond-colored blouse.
Catalina Valencia retired at the age of 82 after 62 years as a teacher. “It’s a mistake to be in teaching if we don’t like it,» she said. In addition to being an elementary school teacher, she co-founded the Magdalena Cueva High School project in 1963 with the principal Antonia Palomares Peña. There she taught English and geography.
The first complete elementary school was started by Palomares because at that time in Jocotepec, elementary school was only up to fourth grade.
“The principal trusted me a lot, she was energetic and very prepared.”
“Cata» as her pupils called her, tells of her experiences with facts and names as if it were yesterday.
«The principal commissioned us to go all over town inviting the children house by house.” They also went to invite children in the towns of San Cristóbal, Zapotitán, Huejotitán and El Molino.
The first high school began in a borrowed building, the José Santana Elementary School. In the afternoon, after the elementary school children had finished their day, the older students attended school.
Mario González Barba taught biology and was the godfather of the first generation of students.
Priest Santiago Ramirez taught drawing and Engineer Jorge Ibarra Galvez taught chemistry.
It was a cooperative high school and the students paid 30 pesos a month. The teachers earned 15 pesos an hour if there was enough money to pay them. A board of trustees made up of people from the community managed the school and was transparent about the resources.
In 1970 the board of trustees managed to build a separate school with contributions from the efforts of the parents, the teachers, and the community, even the masons contributed their labor. The high school was a milestone in the history of Jocotepec. For many, there is a Jocotepec before the high school and Jocotepec after the high school.
In 1982, under the premise of the President of the Republic that there should be secondary schools all over the country, an authority came to Jocotepec to offer a secondary school. The municipal president at that time, responded that there was already a secondary school and allowed its appropriation for the creation of the official secondary school. That action stripped the school from the founding teachers. The teachers were fired. For Valencia Navarro and her colleagues, it was a repudiatory act. “I don’t even want to say the name of that authority because it still hurts me.»
As a high school teacher, something that always filled her with satisfaction was to see those children who, with so many difficulties, achieved their goal. Some students came from other communities, walking across the hill to get to school. The teachers adjusted the classes to the students’ schedules and even taught on Saturdays. Valencia Navarro recalls that a boy from Potrerillos would sleep in his friend’s garage so he could attend school.
«I loved the children from San Cristóbal very much because they were very noble, they left a beautiful mark on me.»
When Valencia Navarro retired, the high school had 300 students. She still remembers them.
“I don’t know if they loved me,» she says, «but many still visit me, and I love them.”
In 1987, «Seño Cata» (short for «Señorita» similar to «Ms.» or Missus) retired with 36 years of service in education. Her mission did not end there. A Zacatecan priest in San Juan Cosalá sought her out, Alberto Macías Llamas, who ran a boarding school. Valencia Navarro went for six months and stayed for 21 years serving the 200 children from rural communities.
Although Catalina was director, for her the most beautiful thing was not the important position, but the closeness with the children in the classroom as a teacher. «I always liked my students to be the first, never the last, and I would get the first places in the achievement contests.»
When I ask her to show me her awards, she agrees, but first says, “Wouldn’t it be a chocantería (impertinent)?”
We walk to the hallway where her degrees and awards hang. Those decorations and the recognition of her students are the most valuable things for her, although they are not proportional to the amount of the pension she receives.
«When I was a child, I saw my mother die. I stuttered and it wasn’t until I was nine years old that I overcame it and was accepted in elementary school.» The classroom was in what is now the Jocotepec municipal marketplace. «We were so poor in the town that we didn’t even have a school. One of the classrooms only had walls and no roof. Some teachers would take the children home and teach them there.» She remembers her teacher Felicitas Palomares with love; she was very important in her childhood. Perhaps that is why «seño Cata» is also a very dear teacher for her students.
If she were born again, she would be a teacher again.
Translated Nita Rudy
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