Mr. Jondee

Sólo una cosa vuelve un sueño imposible: el miedo a fracasar.

                                                                        -Paulo Coelho

Mr. Jondee (addressing his students): I was reading a newspaper article yesterday and it had this word: “thoroughfare”. What is this word? Have you heard of it?

Students (in unison, nodding to each other): Yeah.

Me: It’s like a highway.

Another student: Yeah, a main road.

Mr. Jondee: I never heard of this word. I have never seen it before. You know, when I came to this country 10 years ago – my English wasn’t so good at that time – I made it a point to write down every word in English that I came across that I didn’t understand. This helped me increase my vocabulary, and it’s what I encourage all of you to do in Spanish as well. It’s the only way to expand your knowledge of the language. And you see, even today, 10 years later, even after all that I’ve learned, I still come across words that I don’t know. There is always something to learn. You never stop learning.

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At the beginning of this blog, I introduce myself as an ophthalmologist making the most of my high school Spanish. I say, “Mr. Jondee would be proud.”  I realize now that I never explained to my blog readers who Mr. Jondee is!  Well, he was my high school Spanish teacher. Prior to classes with Mr. Jondee, I began my first Spanish studies in junior high. At that time, I had a simple introduction to the language: alphabet and vocabulary words. Pronunciation. I remember the vocabulary centered on basic things: numbers, colors, animals.  Then we focused on rooms of the house and items in those rooms. I remember being proud when I learned the difference between:

la televisión     -           the television

and

el televisor       -           the television set

So, by the time I got to high school, I had a strong foundation of basic vocabulary. Insert Mr. Jondee, who was there to teach us how to make sentences with this new vocabulary and further our communication skills. Mr. Jorge Jondee was from Perú. He didn’t talk very much about his personal life. He may have mentioned once why he came to the United States, but if he did I don’t remember now. But I do recall him saying that he hoped to move back to Perú one day. He mentioned something about his wife waiting there for him.

You know, it’s a shame, when I think about it now. I was a high school student of about, what? 15, 16 years of age? My fellow classmates and I were teenagers. Our concerns at the time were just passing the class and moving one step closer to graduation. We weren’t thinking any deeper than that. We weren’t asking the important questions in life. We didn’t ask the questions that would have given us more insight, like, “Mr. Jondee, how did you feel speaking English when you first started? How did you push past the embarrassment of making mistakes? Why did you want to learn English in the first place? How did you feel leaving your country? Was it worth giving up everything to come here to the United States? Are you pleased with the decisions you made?”

Maybe such questions would have been too probing, but language learning is more than just words and sentences.  It’s about learning cultures and mindsets. It’s about encountering everyday occurrences through another set of eyes, seen and interpreted from a very different set of experiences. It would have been interesting to delve more into Mr. Jondee’s perspective, instead of just worrying about passing his tests.

One thing in particular I do remember him remarking on: how poorly Spanish is spoken by some “bilinguals” in the U.S.

I put the word bilingual in quotes because Mr. Jondee was critical of some people in the United States claiming to be able to speak Spanish. He would say, “That’s not Spanish. It’s Spanglish! I can barely understand what they are saying!” For example:

el roofo ->       instead of  ->   el techo=         the roof

la carpeta->     instead of  ->   la alfombra=    the carpet

The only other things that come to mind about that class were my struggles to pass the oral portion of the final exam. My reading and writing comprehension were great, but my listening and speaking skills in Spanish were poor. I didn’t realize it then and I wouldn’t realize it until many years and many more Spanish courses later, that listening and speaking skills do NOT improve themselves through coursework. Those skills come with practice in life. With real people, real conversations. Navigating through real situations. I would not improve my Spanish communication until my residency and medical practice days, nearly 13 years later.

I haven’t been back to my high school since graduation, but I know that Mr. Jondee is no longer there. I know he would be retired by now and I know he’s not in the States any longer. I think after many years of teaching countless numbers of American high school students, he finally went home. I wish him well and I thank him. Espero que él haya encontrado en su vida lo que buscaba y le doy a él gracias por todo lo que él me ha enseñado. Saludos.

Credit:http://www.pescharlotte.org/assets/user/blog/lockers1.jpg