Private lessons and self-managed learning

In 1953 two schools were set up in Los Hurones town, one for boys and one for girls. The limited resources, together with the survival needs of the families, reduced the opportunity for education for many children. What’s more, in the rainy season it was impossible for some children who came on foot to school. Many children had supplementary lessons in the evenings with the same teacher from the school. And also with Lupe (Guadalupe) a teacher who gave lessons in her dining-room in the town.

Once they got their school certificate in Los Hurones, they knew that the dam would be completed in a few years and that they would have to move. What job prospects would they have? Some enrolled in boarding trade schools and spent their holidays in the town. Paquita Pan (Algar, 1946) left her hut to go to school in the morning and spent the afternoon learning embroidery with other girls at a woman called Maruja’s house. Thanks to this training she was later able to work for a dress-maker, a job deemed suitable for women at the time.

Young men who joined the workshops as apprentices had very limited training. Some, pushed by motivation, found ways of improving themselves. They went to private lessons with a friend’s mother, they did correspondence courses or studied on their own. Carmelo Cantillo (Nava de Santa María, Badajoz, 1938) left school at an early age as they made him look after the goats. Once he started working on the dam he got together with some workmates: «We used to meet in a hut. We bought a lamp and with a big encyclopaedia from the time, would set ourselves problems. And we didn’t go to bed until we had found the answer!».