Teachers will be teachers… and students will be…

Now, I wouldn’t want to get anyone in trouble, but a confidential secret Deep Throat source tells me, that in the days of a Physical Education teacher named “Chacho”, a special character in the history of the CCH, Alberto Camhi told Chacho to go to Mora Fanny Sernik and tell her “Buenos dias” by saying, “Boker tov, Mora Fanny, ben zona.” You can imagine the expression on Fanny’s face. But if you ask me for the translation, “me hago el gringo.”

Here you will see Chacho in the middle with his mustache, bouncing a basketball. To the left Jaime Quintero, Xenia peeking out from behind Mr. Yankee Doodle. Then to the right, Juan de Dios Urrego, Carlos Padilla, with Maria Claudia, then psychologist. Who am I missing? Chalk drawing courtesy of our Basque
*English artist.*

Rumor has it that Mora Raquel Goldschmidt also taught this phrase to more than one. But again, we wouldn’t want to get anybody into trouble.

Danny Camhi tells me that one day all the students hid behind the lockers in the room. When Chacho came into the room, no one was to be found. He was visibly upset and went to the Rector’s office and got Maria Susana de Cabrera to come to discipline these irresponsible students. When she arrived, everybody was sitting at his desk and they all chimed, “Buenos Dias Maria Susana!” (What’s wrong with Chacho? Maria Susana must have thought.)

Another time, the school advanced in technology from lockers with keys that could be lost, to lockers that had combination locks. I don’t think I got the story straight, but a few wise guys managed to switch the locks around, or changed the combinations, and nobody could get into their lockers. Imagine all those English compositions inside the lockers and nobody could get to them! A sad day for English compositions!

And here we have… teachers who survived, some more, some less. From left to right: Clara Grotte, David Ludlow, Juanita Hernandez, Luz Angela Umaña, Mari Carmen, Carlos Padilla. Poor David only survived for a year. Less in fact! As soon as I returned from Israel, he resigned.

*Remember these brave and talented teachers?*

I am not sure how I survived, but our best English teacher was Carlos Padilla (and he could teacher just about everything else as well). Carlos had the best discipline, and the CCH kids were no match for him. He was so strict that the students would not dare speak out of turn, for fear of risking a stern scolding and perhaps worse. Consider this English saying: "You could hear a pin drop." Not even a fly would dare move.