Every November it is inevitable to remember someone who impressed me since I was little and who later, as time went by, I got to know more deeply. I dedicated my thesis to him to graduate as an upper secondary teacher in History, at the Enrique José Varona Higher Pedagogical Institute at that time, and which today is part of the University of Havana.

I am referring to the teacher, priest and renovator of Cuban pedagogy, Félix Francisco José María de la Concepción Varela y Morales, as written on his Catholic baptism certificate, born exactly in the Cuban capital on the 20th day of the eleventh month of the year.

During these days when we have seen how Cuban classrooms are once again filled with students eager to share knowledge in their schools, along with their teachers and classmates.

When passing by the beloved Institute of Second Education of Camagüey, the so-called Pre del Casino, Álvaro Morel Álvarez, I contemplated those images, -already distant in time-, but today they shine again; It was when I remembered Father Varela most strongly.

Near future

And then I said to myself: we will always have to resort to him, to his doctrines, to everything that one day he contributed to us, and I am sure those students that I saw enter and leave that campus, will be able to become more capable men and women than will be able to do so in the future.  They will give up entirely to professions, trades and beneficial work for this country, which every day needs more of the consecration of its people.

So for that humble man, for whom, according to another of our great pedagogues and his disciple, José de la Luz y Caballero was the first one who ” who taught us how to think “, goes my gratitude and hope to see, I’m sure, better professionals and human beings graduate, just as he predicted.

Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García