Patricia Santos

When Patricia Santos provides training to her colleagues, she reminds them of a quote from Spiderman: with great power comes great responsibility. “When you have the power to transform someone’s life, you need to choose your words carefully. Many pupils are told they are no good at studying and that’s not what they need. They require care, attention and opportunities. You can also get it wrong. We all know someone who has been told they are no good, and then they proved them wrong,” explains Patricia. Selected as the best vocational training teacher in Spain on three occasions (in 2017, 2021 and 2023), her words are full of wisdom. “I was caught off-guard the first time because I didn’t expect to win and, when I was told, I thought it was a scam,” she laughs. This year, she added to her list of awards with the prize received at the 12th edition of the Women to Follow Awards (MAS) —sponsored by Iberia— in the Education category. A firm believer in vocational training as an equally valid option as university to give talent wings, Patricia has turned Challenge-Based Learning (CBL)—a method that engages students in solving real-world problems and encourages them to collaborate to find viable solutions—into her greatest ally. She is used to working in disadvantaged environments and also defends the school’s role as a home: “Some of my colleagues say: ‘Education starts at home.’ But what home? Many come from complicated backgrounds.”

When you were little, you wanted to become a judge and you studied Law, but teaching came into your life to stay for good. What sparked this passion in you?
When I was little, I used to help my classmates to study. So, I always leaned towards teaching. At university, I continued to do this (my notes went around the faculty for years) and slowly, I realized that I was turning my back on what I genuinely enjoyed doing. In my fourth year, a professor invited us to give a lecture to raise our marks, and that’s when I realized that education was my place in the world. I gave a terrible lecture, but I remember feeling that passion. I took the Spanish Teacher Training Certificate (CAP) and then fell in love with vocational training. Nevertheless, Law was a path I had to walk along. Thanks to that knowledge, I’ve been able to take part in the Ministry of Education work groups to develop the new Spanish Law for Vocational Training. My goal is to improve the quality of teaching, and the legal side plays a significant role.

You started teaching in disadvantaged environments and, even today, you prefer working in them. Does education consist of giving wings to those who need them most?
Yes, this is how I see it now, but it has been a process. I’ve had to build the teacher I am today. The first time I was sent to a disadvantaged school, it wasn’t my choice. I was a substitute teacher at schools nobody wanted to go to. I started teaching the way I was taught—forgetting about how I felt when I was a student—, until a series of circumstances made me realize that wasn’t the kind of teacher I wanted to be. I had been an honours’ student, but that’s of little use when you are in front of youngsters with difficulties. They show you that you’re not that good. It was a lesson in humility. I will never stop teaching at these types of schools because they are a challenge, they keep your feet on the ground and remind you that you need to keep learning constantly. Often, comfort stunts growth. It also brings me great satisfaction, and I receive a lot of love.

“I had been an honours’ student, but that’s of little use when you are in front of youngsters with difficulties. They show you that you’re not that good”

With the number of distractions students have now, how do you manage to connect with them and spark their interest?
When you want to listen, the first thing you have to do is stop hearing yourself. That is the key. Teachers need to empathize; we need to put ourselves in the students’ place. Reality as you know it isn’t the same as what they experience and you need to get closer to their points of interest. Connect to their realities, listen to what they like and what they are motivated by. That is the starting point so that they also become interested in what you have to say. There’s a great divide between us and them, and we need to bridge that gap, so it doesn’t seem like we live in different worlds. For me, encouraging their interest to learn is more important than the educational content itself. The key is planting that seed.

Patricia Santos poses with the 2025 MAS Award in the Education category. On her left, Sonia Díez (EducAcción); on her right, Silvia Ocaña (MAS). © Courtesy of MAS

Patricia Santos alongside her students at IES Profesor Isidoro Sánchez in Málaga and the three awards for Best vocational training teacher in Spain. © Courtesy of Patricia Santos

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You have mentioned before that it is not always idyllic and some students dodge your influence. How do you deal with those cases emotionally?
At one of my first schools, I remember dropping the chalk and asking my pupils: “Don’t you want to pass?” They replied: “We don’t care about this.” That’s when I asked them to tell me things and how we started to create a strong bond. One day, one of them told me: “Teacher, we have talked about it, and we have decided that today we are going to learn whatever you want.” They had reached the point where they wanted me to like them. The dynamic shifted and we started doing activities. Not long after, that boy missed class, and I asked the others where he was. They told me he’d been arrested that night. I felt terrible… I thought that, if I’d got there sooner, I could have prevented his arrest. Over time, you realize that’s out of your control. My purpose is to give them opportunities and change lives. With that ambition, it’s normal for things not to work out sometimes, but that helps me to learn.

When we talk about innovation, we don’t usually associate it to the world of education. Can you be innovative in such a regulated field?
Of course. Innovation goes hand in hand with technology, and, in the field of education, we have the chance to incorporate all those advances to optimize both the time in class and learning processes. Educational innovation doesn’t mean having a futurist classroom full of virtual reality goggles because, without a strategy behind it, it remains an empty concept. If you don’t use technology in an educational sense, it’s not going to be suitably implemented in the classroom.

“My purpose is to give them opportunities and change lives. With that ambition, it’s normal for things not to work out sometimes, but that helps me to learn”

Teachers aren’t used to awards, but you’re an exception. What do they mean to you?
The truth is that the best awards I have received are messages from my students. I really mean it, they move me and I usually read them when I feel down. I have a little plaque they gave me after a trip we took to New York, and I love what it says: “Nos has demostrado que con esfuerzo se puede conseguir cualquier cosa”. [You have proven to us that, with hard work, we can achieve anything.] The real rewards are in class—seeing how they learn, how they become part of the group, how they write good assignments…—and we teachers shouldn’t lose sight of that.

During your acceptance speech at the MAS Awards, you assured the audience that “vocational training is a place for talented students who have been told too often that they are not.” Do we need to defend vocational training?
Classes are adapted to a classical model that rewards having a good memory. And not everyone has that talent. When someone doesn’t have it, they are told: “You’re no good at studying.” That statement is wrong. It’s not that they are no good at studying, it’s simply that a good memory isn’t one of their talents, but they can have others. Words hold a lot of power, and we must use them with care because students receive these kinds of messages from an early age. The Pygmalion effect [when a person’s expectations influence another’s performance] is very dangerous. Many are referred to vocational training, as if we don’t study here. We need to be more self-critical in all educational stages. Another important pillar is families, who still perceive their child doing vocational training as a failure. You want them to go to university because you want them to have a good job, but life has changed and there are several paths to achieve that goal. Vocational training is one of them.