PINAR DEL RÍO -They say that it is looking like new, that many hands have worked hard to erase the traces of time, that hard work has been done and that the results are palpable.
Half a century after its creation by Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, Tania la Guerrillera Pedagogical School is reborn.
The permanent hustle and bustle of men and women going from one side to the other putting the finishing touches to plumbing and electrical work, painting or cleaning, confirms it.
Jorge Alejandro González, Director, assures that by September 1, when the new school year begins, the center will have a completely renovated image.
Just on that date, in 1975, Fidel arrived at this huge building to inaugurate a work that would mark a before and after in the education system in Vueltabajo.
Since then, more than 15,000 teachers have left it on their way to the classrooms of Pinar del Río.
Some to go to the most remote places. Others, to guarantee the continuity of the teaching process in the school, like Jorge Alejandro himself.
At 28 years of age, he says that taking over the direction of the institution where he was trained as an educator is an honor and an enormous challenge.
"I always wanted to be a teacher, ever since I was in elementary school. I entered here when I was 15 years old, and my memory of the school is so great that, despite this responsibility I now hold, sometimes I walk through the corridors and feel like I still have my uniform on."
In love with his profession, he comments that even though the years go by and every time has its own particularities, there are things that remain intact.
Among them, the academic rigor and the eagerness to form good men and women.
Before returning to "Tania", he had worked, after graduation, in other schools in the city of Pinar del Río and in the Municipal Directorate of Education.
However, he confesses that coming back here meant "an immense joy".
"This is still a collective dedicated to its students".
This is also the opinion of Nieves Petrona Gorgoy, another of the institution's graduates, who has been working there for 14 years, teaching the subject of Didactics of Mathematics.
"I am proud to be able to help train new teachers in the same school where I studied".
TEACHERS FOR THE CITY AND THE COUNTRYSIDE
Evelio Herrera Padrón, Provincial Director of Education in Pinar del Río, explains that "the great educational revolution that the country undertook in the 1970s could not be developed without institutions of this type, which also trained teachers.
Thousands of schools were built and this required a teaching staff".
"It gives the measure of how many generations have been educated by those thousands of teachers who have graduated from this school. In recent years the province has had a very stable result in the sector, in the fundamental indicators that measure the efficiency of the teaching and learning process and that is, to a large extent, thanks to the teachers provided by this institution. Without them this result would be impossible".
Tania also has the privilege of having been inaugurated by Fidel. The leader of the Revolution himself, in his speech on that day, recalled that initially the builders had estimated the completion date for December, but he personally spoke to them about the possibility of inaugurating the new course here, and thanks to an immense effort, the work could be completed three months ahead of schedule.
"This is one of the most beautiful teachers' schools in the country", the Commander would affirm and, anticipating what years later would be the Cuban educational missions in several friendly nations, he would add that "we aspire to a type of teacher capable of teaching not only in the city, but also in the countryside", and that, "if any day a brother country requests from us the collaboration of sending them teachers, the number of volunteer teachers who offer to go and teach in other lands will always be greater than the one we need".
Convinced that education was the future of Cuba, he commented that the number of students was increasing every year.
From 811,300 at the triumph of the Revolution, for the 1975-1976 academic year, which began on that day, an enrollment of 3,071,800 was calculated.
"That means that the population will have grown by (...) sixty percent, (...); but high school students have grown by 700%," said Fidel.
WITH THE SAME RIGOR OF THE FIRST DAY
Isabel Cruz Ruiz remembers every detail as if it were yesterday. She says that the Comandante had visited the center during its construction and that in the eagerness to be granted the venue of the national ceremony for the beginning of the school year, the teachers and students who occupied the first areas of the school that were ready - even though it had not yet been inaugurated - contributed to its completion.
"The mobilizations increased and of course we also participated in them. We taught classes in the morning and in the afternoon, and after lunch we were inserted in the works, carrying blocks, bricks, floor slabs, cleaning, collecting the wood that was removed from the formworks.
"It was very intense work, but it was done with a lot of enthusiasm and with a lot of quality."
The result, he assures, was one of the most beautiful schools in the country. "This is an immense work, made with all the conditions: its specialized classrooms for music, plastic arts, English, labor education workshops, physics, chemistry and biology laboratories. It had everything necessary for the students to be able to fulfill the objectives set for each of their years of study."
With an enrollment of 779 students for the next teaching period that will begin in a few days -including 236 who are starting their first year-, Tania continues to extend that beautiful legacy of half a century of history.
While initially dedicated exclusively to the training of primary school teachers, it now encompasses a total of 15 specialties, ranging from early childhood education to science and humanities at the secondary level.
The passage of time, however, had left its mark on this gigantic facility, as well as several of the hurricanes that have hit the territory in recent years.
Hence, in view of this new anniversary, a broad movement was initiated for its rehabilitation.
"We have been working on the assembly of the sanitary furniture in the student residences, the painting, the installation of the carpentry that was damaged or missing after the passage of Hurricane Ian, the revival of the sports fields.
"In addition, in the repair of school furniture, murals, monuments and the creation of optimal conditions for the development of the course", details its director.
At the head of a staff that combines experience and youth, he assures that, 50 years after its inauguration, the school continues to assume the important mission of training the teaching staff demanded by the Pinar del Río education system, with the same demand and the same responsibility of the first day.
That is why he affirms that teachers and students arrive at this date full of expectations.
"Personally, I would like to have more and more teachers. That when they leave here, they remain in the sector, that they feel motivated, that they love what they do and are convinced of the value of this profession."
He says it with the same passion of that child who, 23 years ago, already dreamed of teaching, and who, in his free time, back in his little elementary school at kilometer five of the road to San Juan y Martínez, always played at being the teacher.
