Author: Alma Flor Ada
This story talks about the grandmother as the teacher narrated by her grand child. Her name was Dolores, known as Lola and always taught the students with outdoor adventure, fun and story telling. She worked as the principal at two schools: an elementary public school during the day and a school for working women in the evening. She was both an intellectual and practical person. She was initiative in doing something such as cutting her hair and shortening her skirts before other in town. Also, she created a literary journal, set up schools and awakened the great passion in the poet who married her in which she brought up five children and several nephews & nieces.
According to her grand child, her story was told exactly from time to time by her three daughters (narrator’s mother and two aunts, Mireya and Virginia). She loved to teach outdoors and there was a particular story of outdoor lesson taking place when she and her husband, Medardo, ran a boarding school on hacienda[1]. One day, while she was teaching her pupils including three of her own daughter about grammar lesson, she released some thoughts about there should be just telling the truly important things; all people should get responsibility as human beings for those round us and know the needs of each other. In fact, it was just her reflection for students to learn and all students knew about it. A moment later, she pointed to the old man on the road by them and asked her students to go to know him; and a girl among her students was brave to ask his identification and his purposes to come there. Then other students followed to go to ask him, but first time he was just surprised for those girls’ action. Then he told all to the group of girls that he just tried to find somewhere for his death. All students returned to grand mother in which they were asked to do something they could do for the old man.
Finally, all the students provided him room & food and took the doctor to check his health. He was nothing wrong, except exhaustion and malnutrition. After he got better, he lived with them for many years, helped the work of family, and learned from grandmother’s lesson by sitting in the back of the class. One day, he was dead peacefully in his sleep.
