If you decided to go for an Honors diploma, you likely know that you need to take three years of foreign language classes. At Harrison, we only have two options for foreign language classes: Spanish or American Sign Language. If you’ve completed your three years and went with Spanish, then you are guaranteed to have had Señora Patricia Martini for Spanish 3.
Martini first started teaching treinta y cuatro (34) years ago, all the way back in 1992. However, she did not originally plan to teach. Her first plan was to go into nursing, like her mother. But she found her passion for teaching after tutoring kids in college at her restaurant. Before becoming a Spanish teacher, Martini actually started as an English teacher. In high school, Martini first started to learn Spanish, but she didn’t become fully fluent until she studied abroad in Spain.
One of her favorite things about teaching is being able to see students apply what they learn in her class to projects. For example, last year in Spanish 3, we spent an entire unit learning about different shops and stores in Spanish, then we made a diorama of a store and labeled everything in the store in Spanish. Building the project was a lot of fun, and it was cien (one hundred) times better than just doing a bunch of worksheets on it.
I asked Martini for one of her favorite memories throughout her teaching career and she had this to say: “Back when I first started, kids really enjoyed taking Spanish names. One year, I memorized their Spanish names, and I got to fifth bell and one girl had a name I just couldn’t remember. Finally, I just sighed, gave up, and asked the student her name. So, the student said Margeritia, and I said “I’ve had like five margaritas today.” without realizing the connotation. Students were shocked before I clarified.”
I first had Martini my freshman year for Spanish 1 for 5th bell. Before that, I had little to no knowledge of Spanish and had originally wanted to take French instead. But what I had originally thought to be unfortunate turned out to be muy afortunado (very fortunate). Then, two years later for Spanish 3, I had Martini again. One of my favorite things about her class are the little rhymes she has for every unit. I think the most memorable of them was “Flip your vowels, don’t flip off your friends” or “Conjugate, try not to hate.”
In addition to interviewing Martini, I interviewed her fellow Spanish teacher Molly Hasenohr. Hasenohr has worked with Martini for 16 years and was even her student in high school! Her favorite thing about Martini is the absolute passion that she has for teaching.
I polled Harrison High School students to get a general consensus of their opinions on Martini. Unsurprisingly, the results were excelente (Excellent or great)! All the students who responded said nothing but great things about Martini. One student said how their favorite thing about her is her positive attitude whenever you see her. Another mentioned how excited and invested she is whenever talking to anyone – whether it be in English or Spanish.
So far, Martini has visited four different Spanish speaking countries: Mexico, Spain, Costa Rica, and Honduras. In the future, she plans on going to as many as possible!
Regardless of if you have or haven’t had Martini yet, stop by her room and say “Hola!” and she’ll be one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet.
