Uncovering the Silence

This afternoon we visited an exhibit in La Alhóndiga, a building that used to store grain and now houses cultural events and expositions in Segovia. The exhibit, called "Uncovering the Silence" or in Spanish, Desenterrando el silencio, displays copies of notebooks written by Antoni Benaiges' students. It also includes photographs of the exhumation of bodies from a mass grave dating back to the days of the Spanish Civil War. What do the two themes have in common? Antoni Benaiges' body was found in that grave. He taught in the small town of Bañuelos de Bureba where there was no electricity, no running water, no telephone, and no direct access to major roads. 

Benaiges, born in 1903 in Tarragona, followed the Freinet pedagogy, founded on the concepts of inquiry-based, child-centered, cooperative learning where students would produce class journals. In July of 1936 he wanted to take his students to see the sea for the first time, and the journal in the exhibit was what the students had written in anticipation of the trip. 

Some described that they were excited to fish while others expressed their fear of the water. Benaiges edited the journal, called "El mar: visión de unos niños que no lo han visto nunca" (The sea: visions of some children who have never seen it), and the students printed it at the school. It also starts off with a quote by Benaiges saying that he wants them to experience the sea instead of just learning information about it in the classroom.

Benaiges was not able to keep his promise to his students because he was detained in Briviesca at the beginning of what became the Spanish Civil War (July 1936) and assassinated by fascist terrorists. In 2010 his body was found in a mass grave now called La Pedraja. Many other people were exhumed at the same time as Benaiges and could also be identified by close relatives still living.

                           

Benaiges lives on through his family, his students and even people who never got to have him as their teacher. One man, Jesús Carranza, recalls that Benaiges let the students be free and would not hit them, which is what the other teachers did. He would also bring his students on many excursions, such as to neighboring towns and music sessions, all of which broadened their minds through direct experience. Along with detailed pictures of the exhumation of the mass grave, the exhibit showed pages from “El Mar”: juxtaposing the freedom of expression that Benaiges encouraged with the severity of the nationalist (fascist) forces of Spain at that time.