Dr. Deborah Forteza didn’t anticipate becoming a Spanish professor. In fact, she had a very different plan for her life.
“I went to college, and my life was planned to be a missionary in Argentina,” Forteza said.
However, after many hours in school and a few unsuccessful attempts to leave the U.S., Forteza knew God was calling her in a different direction.
Dr. Forteza is the new assistant professor of Spanish at Covenant College. She was born in Uruguay, but her parents are missionaries in Argentina where she grew up. She originally came to the U.S. to attend a Bible college for a year, then later went to seminary graduate school to pursue biblical counseling and theology. Years later, after gaining a masters of divinity and counseling, a masters in English, a PHD in Anglo-Spanish literature, and taking on a few extra jobs, she went to Grove City College to teach language and literature. At Grove City, she officially fell in love with teaching Spanish.
Forteza said she enjoyed working at Grove City College, but the Hispanic population there was very small so she didn’t get as much of the community involvement she wanted.
“When I went to Grove City, I discovered Covenant. Everything I learned was pretty impressive,” Forteza said. “I really liked the idea that Chattanooga had a lot of Hispanics, and that Covenant has a lot of community involvement, so it was very attractive to me that I could teach Spanish here and partner up with community Hispanics or organizations and have real interactions with students.”
She hopes in her time at Covenant College to better connect with the Spanish community, and to help her students connect more with authentic Hispanics, their ministries, and work, locally and internationally.
Forteza didn’t originally want to teach Spanish, but her high school literature teacher helped her fall in love with language and literature. A key difference between the two of them, though, is her literature teacher was strongly atheist and did not want her to go into theology, whereas Forteza was and is a strong Christian. To her, teaching Spanish at a Christian college makes the most sense.
“Studying any foreign language is essential for Christians, because it opens up other worlds to you.” Forteza said. “I tell my students we are not just learning Spanish. Spanish is the bonus. What we are really learning is how hard it is to learn a language. We’re learning about other cultures and our culture… You open yourself up to other ways of looking at the world.”
She wants her students to recognize the world’s complexity, to learn to think critically, and to love others by listening well. One of her favorite things about teaching Spanish is showing students who come into her class solely for the core requirement how Spanish will be useful to them. She said she believes everyone can learn and come to a point where they can use the language meaningfully, some just have to work harder than others. The hard part is getting people to want to see their potential, and understanding how to best accommodate different students in each class.
However, being at Covenant has made the hard parts of the job easier for Forteza, and she has noticed the same pattern in the students' lives as well.
“It’s not that the students here are smarter, greater, better — that’s not it. I think the idea that we are all together using the tools God has given us to accomplish something he’s preparing for us, I think that’s very valuable. As a teacher and as a student, there’s some peace in that.”