Faculty of the Week: Pedro Fermin Pérez-Andreu

Photo Courtesy of exeter.edu

By  ARYAN AGARWAL, ESTER CHAE, SAMAIYA JULY, ELLINA KIM, RAY  LI, LILY RAMPE, and ISHA SASTRY

Instructor in Modern Languages Pedro Fermin Pérez-Andreu, referred to as Señor Pérez, is nothing short of a legend on Exeter’s campus. Students and faculty alike are aware of his vibrant personality, one that has been illuminating Exeter since 1999, when he first joined the school as a Spanish teacher. His deep concern with the growth of his students and optimistic character mean that not many come better than Señor Pérez. Apart from his role as Chair of the Department of Modern Languages, Pérez teaches a variety of Spanish courses, has served as a dorm head, coached both boys’ and girls’ JV soccer, and held a role on the Discipline Committee. He earned his undergraduate degree at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and a master’s in Spanish Language at Middlebury College after moving to the United States.

Originally from Málaga, Spain, Pérez first came to the States by moving to Princeton, NJ, where he started teaching. In his early years though, Pérez had only basic English skills, making it difficult for him to take on jobs requiring a high English-proficiency level. Rather than teaching, he got a job in a “cafe serving coffee, donuts, hamantaschen, etc.” Pérez said, “You should have seen me when a client asked me the first morning on the job for a hot cocoa, and I had no idea whatsoever of what a hot cocoa was. I thought the client was asking for a hot coconut, and I was about to tell him we did not sell those when I figured out it was hot chocolate!” 

Pérez, in a stroke of luck, met a German man who offered him a job at the publishing company that he worked for, Berlitz. “I wrote a bunch of stories and exercises for Spanish textbooks with that company. In one of the stories, a couple got locked in an elevator when the last episode of an exciting soap opera was going to be broadcast on television. The whole country would watch the show except for them. Oh, no! I had so much fun writing those kinds of stories, and it was the time when I went from sending the stories to the company through fax to being able to send them through emails! From that, the next step was to teach adults, moving from Princeton to Baltimore, teaching middle schoolers, starting a Spanish literature master’s degree at Middlebury College (where I coincided with señora Flores), teaching high schoolers, and, finally, arriving at Exeter at the very end of the last millennium to continue teaching high schoolers, this time the wonderful Exonians.” 

Pérez is loved at the Academy by all of his colleagues. Instructor in Modern Languages Ellen “Señora” Glassner, a Spanish teacher and Pérez’s wife, said, “I met Señor Pérez in 1988 in Madrid, Spain. I was working there, and he was still a student at university.”

Glassner continued, “Not everyone gets the chance to work closely with their spouse, and not everyone might even want to. I feel so lucky that working in the same department works for us. We often don’t even see each other during the school day as our classrooms are on different floors. We have our own separate lives even within the same department!” 

Instructor in Modern Langauges Humberto “Señor” Delgado, another Spanish teacher, said, “In 2020, after the pandemic during my first year, he was in charge of being my mentor. Every new teacher has a mentor, so he was mine. I met him when I had my campus visit three years ago. I saw his class, and that was it.” 

Instructor in Modern Languages Pilar Perez Serrano added how she met Perez. “I met him in the summer of 2019. After 20 years of teaching in higher education, the college department where I taught closed down and I was suddenly without a job. I sent out my resume and wrote emails to many high schools and universities near Haverhill, where I live. I had looked up PEA’s website and saw that Señor Pérez was from southern Spain, where I am from. Maybe we were even related! I figured, at the very least, he would answer me out of sympathy or mere obligation to a fellow expat. And he did! I came to interview for a job in August and the rest is history.” 

“He’s not only a great person, but an extraordinary person,” Delgado said. “He takes great concern with the issues in the modern languages. He is very focused. The first year I was here, he was the teacher with lots of participation and suggestions during the Modern Language meetings. He contributed all the time and he was well informed. When we needed a new chair, the other teachers proposed him because he was the one with the most information about the modern language. He has been a very good chair.”

Glassner added, “Señor Pérez has the most integrity and sense of justice than anyone I know, and I admire that so much.” 

“Señor Pérez is a kind soul with a great sense of humor and an amazing ability to always see the best in people,” Serrano agreed, “As a colleague, he is level headed and a great listener. As a department head, he is someone that builds consensus and always allows others to speak their mind. His door is always open, and he never seems put off by any of us throwing one more thing to do on his many lists. He welcomes new ideas, and he is also a great communicator of his own. He stands his ground without stepping on anybody’s toes and he can always, always, explain what he is trying to say with a nuanced metaphor or a related comment to his filmmaking days. It is a pleasure to work with him.”

Pérez has also helped many teachers in the Modern Language Department grow, both professionally and personally. “He showed me the most positive moments of the school,” Delgado said. “He is a very positive, optimistic guy. Sometimes that’s why we get along because I am the most pessimistic guy, and he is very optimistic, so we make a good team like that.”

“He sees the positive side of everything, the positive size of people. He has helped me with the vision I should have in this school. He is very focused on the learning of the students and their well-being,” Delgado continued. 

Serrano added, “I think one of Señor Perez’s best qualities is the great trust he puts in people. He elevates other people around him because he takes genuine interest in every person he meets. He talks very little about himself and is present and engaged in every conversation he starts, even if he is running late! Like others, I have been the recipient of his ‘confianza’ (or his trust) from the minute we met, and that has made my job here at the Academy much easier.” 

“I have been able to teach what I love without having to answer too many questions,” Serrano continued. “As a result, I feel a responsibility to share what I do and how I do it with him and others and to keep that conversation going. There is some sort of reciprocity to our professional and personal relationship, an easy give and take, where we can freely learn from each other. This is fertile soil for growth.  I feel that many of us in the department feel this way about Señor Pérez.” 

Senior Rima Alsheikh, who has had Pérez as a teacher multiple times and is now in his Spanish Through Digital Media class shared, “I registered for the course because I’m doing a term abroad in Madrid this winter term and wanted to keep up on my Spanish throughout the fall term. Honestly, the course just sounded like a fun way to engage with the language. When I registered for the class last spring, I didn’t know that Señor Pérez was going to be teaching it, but when I saw him on my schedule, I was pretty happy because I knew that I would be learning, but also having fun. It’s been great so far.”

Upper Nicolas Fernandez Garza, who also has Pérez in Spanish Through Digital Media, said, “He definitely stands out as a good teacher because of his unique way of teaching, adding some humor which makes the class more attentive and allows me to participate more. My favorite memory of Spanish class was when Mr. Perez pulled his lechuga and taught us about the wood fresco. I think that moment was really fun.”

“He wasn’t just trying to relate to us, but applying lessons to daily life, adjusting to who his students are, and the vibe of his students,” senior Layla Monet Whitaker similarly said. “Teaching things in a way that we would understand and not making us adjust to how he wants to teach.”

Alsheikh agreed, “I think what makes Señor Pérez a great teacher is both his passion and his sense of humor. You can tell he loves to teach and engage with his students in class. He’s always trying to get us to practice conversing in Spanish and to use both new and old vocabulary/structures, but he does it in a way that’s really fun and organic and makes you want to participate. He tells us stories about how he learned English, and he actually still has notebooks with English sentences/words written in them from when he was learning the language, which he shares with us.” 

Pérez shared, “I like dealing with challenges like teaching the subjunctive or giving historical background to awaken my students’ curiosity while trying to make them understand the world better.”

His students appreciate his dedication to helping them embrace their curiosities and learn as much as possible. “I also really admire how knowledgeable he is about a wide variety of topics from linguistics, naturally, to world history to philosophy,” Alsheikh continued, “and how willing and eager he is to share that knowledge with us. He has a really good sense of humor and comedic timing that makes his class a comfortable space to practice language and to make mistakes and learn from them. I doån’t think I’ve ever left his class without laughing at some point in the block!”

Senior Kayla Hyett added, “You want to listen and pay attention because you can see his passion! He is always full of energy, telling us stories and moving around the room. It is clear to all of us that he loves his job! I am extremely grateful to have gotten him as a teacher this term because the classroom experiences are more than worth the trek to the fourth floor.” 

Alsheikh shared her favorite memory of Pérez’s: “I think my favorite memory is when he acts out this scene at the start of each term. Essentially, it’s his way of discouraging us from writing on the Harkness table, but he acts out this scene in which he’s explaining a topic, notices a kid writing on the table, and later shows up to their house/dorm and does the same to their desk. It sounds a little harsh, but it’s entirely good fun, and the way he delivers it makes it pretty hilarious rather than serious. He really gets into the acting aspect of it and each time the scene is a little different, but I still find it funny, even though I’ve seen it three times now. I’m almost certain that if you were to ask any student who has had him as a teacher, they would know what I’m talking about.” 

Outside of the classroom, Pérez shared that he likes “to create comics, graphic art, and short movies and watch good films or series with Señora Glassner. Meeting with friends and laughing with them is also a favorite thing to do.”

Lots of teachers in the Modern Language Department have fun memories with Perez. Glassner said, “Almost all my memories with him are fun! Raising our two kids has been the absolute best thing we have done together. He’s an awesome dad!” 

Serrano added, “We laugh a lot together and with other colleagues in the department. Coming from the same region of Spain, we are able to make jokes about accents, and words, and sayings that just sound funny. Sometimes we cry laughing so hard. One of my best memories was a party we had at our house where Señor Pérez started dancing “por peteneras” (you can ask him what that is). I have a video recording if anyone is interested too. He is quite the dancer!”

Delgado also touched on Pérez’s artistic side. “Well, I’ve seen him singing. It’s funny, but he’s a good singer. We’ve been laughing for many years and we have lots of jokes. He also has a famous singer in his family.” 

Delgado continued, “He is a good cartoonist and draws very well. He has a good sense of how to create a story, like in a comic book. He has lots of plans and is a very smart and intelligent person whose mind never rests. He is learning Italian, artificial intelligence, and is trying to be in the real world.” 

“He also has this concept called the ‘lechugometer,’” Alsheikh continued. “It is based on the phrase ‘fresco como una lechuga’ in Spanish, which directly translates to ‘fresh as a lettuce,’ and it essentially means to be fresh, rested, and have energy. At the start of some classes, he’ll ask how our lechugometers are, to gauge the class’ energy level. If the lechugometer is low, we might play a game or have a lighter class day. It’s a fun little tradition, or an inside joke, I guess, but we all enjoy it.” 

Whether as a teacher, colleague, department head, coach, or friendly face on the path, Pérez’s deep kindness, extensive knowledge, and hilarious sense of humor make him an irreplaceable member of the Exeter community. In his 25 years at the Academy, Pérez has made an impact on thousands of students’ and dozens of faculty members’ lives, and he is sure to continue to do in the years to come.