Bringing Spain to Creston

Creston High’s newest Spanish teacher has more experience with the language than most. Normally an English teacher at Domingo Miral in Jaca, Galicia, Spain, Antton Zuazu Hernandez will spend the next three years teaching Spanish in Creston.

CHS Principal Bill Messerole said the school first looked into having a teacher from Spain this year as the school looked to fill their Spanish position.

“We knew when we had a Spanish position open that it was going to be hard to hire. I also knew that the (Iowa) Department of Ed ran a Spanish exchange teacher program in partnership with Spain,” Messerole said. “We just partnered with the Department of Ed and got on their list, and then they gave us our candidate and we just went from there.”

The program is called Exchange Visiting Teachers from Spain, or EVTS, at partners the Iowa Department of Education with the Ministry of Education and Culture in Spain. Following the Iowa school’s interview with the teacher from Spain, EVTS works with the teacher to get them an Iowa teaching license and their visa. Once the teacher is in the United States, the school is responsible in helping them find a place to live, getting a driver’s license, etc.

While there may be many steps to the process, Messerole said it wasn’t difficult. “It was incredibly easy, so kudos to the Department of Ed. I just got on a list and they said, here’s somebody we think would be good, set up an interview with them, and turned out we had an excellent candidate,” Messerole said.

Zuazu Hernandez had to put in a bit more work to come to Iowa, pausing his life in Spain to teach at Creston. However, this wasn’t his first rodeo. Zuazu Hernandez first taught in the United States about 20 years ago, using the same program to teach in North Carolina for his first job outside of college.

Zuazu Hernandez explained his first stay in the U.S. went well, but he hadn’t thought much about the program again until recently.

“This program happens every year. That first experience was getting right out of college and trying to learn a lot and travel the world a bit,” Zuazu Hernandez said. “Now it’s like, I had settled down and maybe I wanted a change seeing as the years go by and you’re doing the same thing. I had good memories of my previous stay, so I wanted to try again.”

This time, he specifically requested Iowa. “I didn’t want big towns, I wanted rural. I had heard about how nice people are in Iowa, so I chose Iowa,” Zuazu Hernandez said.

Though a language and continent away, Zuazu Hernandez said the teaching and students here aren’t too different from that in Spain.

“The teaching is basically the same, at least from my point of view. You change the subject, but it’s still focused on the well-being of the students and I care about that a lot,” Zuazu Hernandez said. “There is one difference that any Spaniard would appreciate: having our own classroom. In Spain the teachers move around and the students remain in the same room most of the time.”

Having someone like Zuazu Hernandez teach can be beneficial for the students, and not just because of his mastery of the Spanish language.

“My point of view as someone who comes from a different country, a different continent, I try to bring that to the classroom, and I feel it’s a very important part of the curriculum,” Zuazu Hernandez said. “I usually dedicate one third of every class to culture. I speak, they ask questions, I explain to them. They get to know, in my case, my home country, because that’s what I know best.”

Messerole had the same thought, saying the exchange of culture is always a good thing.

Once Zuazu Hernandez is done teaching in Creston, he will go back to his English position in Jaca. “Now, there’s a sub working in the school for me, and whenever I go back, my position is my position,” he said. “I go back to the same school, same position, same everything. They make it easy for us.”

However, Zuazu Hernandez said he’s not too focused on going home just yet. While there’s plenty of travel he wants to eventually do, he’s also simply excited to meet more people and get involved in the community.