Distinguished Cuban Educators: Félix Varela Morales.

Félix Varela y Morales was the teacher who taught us to think.

We are in the Day of the Educator in Cuba and it is necessary to evoke the living memory of four illustrious Cuban educators of all times.

The scientific method is the main success introduced by Varela in teaching, considering that education and the positivist ideal of the time would solve the contradictions of classical liberalism. He reasoned that classical liberalism cannot develop individual interest without affecting the collective interest and that this problem was solved with education.

Varela practiced freedom. He always directed it to think and educate, even with respect to the Church, in its condition of protector of scholasticism, which did not stimulate research and synthesis of ideas. She also maintained that individuality should be directed towards a virtuous existence.

He expressed in his day that «The educator must live constantly in that quest for knowledge in order to be able to excite his pupils towards it». Educators must themselves develop their intellectual autonomy, take charge of their own learning and foster it in their students.

He founded the first Cuban pro-independence newspaper, El Habanero. He was a member of the Cortes de Cádiz in 1821, representing Cuba, defended the right to autonomy of the American territories and proposed the abolition of slavery on the island and the modernization of education.

He said that in the teaching-educational process of competent professionals, Cuba’s contemporary cultural and educational policy at the higher level should ensure students’ knowledge, motivation and personal resources, because it is up to them to solve problems in different contexts, with a view to transforming reality on the basis of an action in line with the requirements of their time.

With the founding of the Seminary of St. Charles and St. Ambrose in 1774, the renegation of scholasticism began when teaching was placed on the basis of experience and knowledge of nature. The professors were free to write the texts and impart their own doctrine, thus opening the way to the gnoseological, philosophical and pedagogical revolution that illustrious Cuban teachers of that time would carry out from the classrooms of the Seminary.

Varela, convinced that the youth was the hope of Cuba, of its patriotic salvation, dedicated his letters to them. History proved that the philosopher was not wrong and the successive generations that carried out the emancipation struggles took his ideal of social justice as a banner. Félix Varela y Morales was the teacher who taught us to think.

Written by Dr Osvaldo Manuel Álvarez Torres.