As someone whose mother constantly corrected her Spanish, I know it can feel as though someone’s clowning you. But at least it never happened in front of an audience, as it did for Aurelio Nuño Mayer. During an event, third-grader Andrea López Salazar corrected Mexico’s Minister of Education.
During a trip to the 36th International Book Fair for Children and Young Adults in Mexico City, Nuño – joined by a group of 5 students – addressed a crowd. “¿Van a ler? ¿Sí o no?” he asked. Though the audience replied yes, when he got to Andrea, she couldn’t let it go unaddressed. “No se dice ler, se dice leer,” the 8-year-old gently told him – a correction his mic picked up.
Since then, the internet has immortalized the school girl’s correction through memes. The moment even earned her some spot-on Hermione Granger comparisons and made Nuño the butt of many jokes.
https://twitter.com/TonyMaCru/status/798911375963627520
Like many things on the internet, this tale spun out of control, with some saying that Andrea’s school reprimanded her for correcting Nuño. On Twitter, the minister denied this was true.
Andrea has since spoken out about the incident, and maintains that she didn’t mean to humiliate him. “It wasn’t my intention to embarrass him; my intention was to correct him,” she told Sin Embargo. “That’s why I said it quietly. I don’t like that people say that I humiliated him, because I’m a respectful person. It makes it seem as though my intentions were bad.”
During her interview with Sin Embargo, she took the opportunity to offer him some words of advice. Namely, she wants him to read more so he can expand his vocabulary. She wants him to understand how children speak. And she wants him to practice in front of the mirror so that he can do better. And though she doesn’t wanna clown him, she would absolutely correct him again.
Check out the incident below: