Kirila, Capitan, Cellar paper or teacher are some of the nicknames that his countless students have defined over the years to name Jorge Álvarez Álvarez, a teacher from Alquizar included by own merits in the history of Cuban pedagogy.

Descendant of a family where teaching is reiterated as a vocation, Jorge from a very young age joined the teachers normal school in Guanajay after having several jobs , among them, assistant of surveying in Nicaro Nickel Company.

He was in third year when the revolution triumped and he did not hesitate to respond affirmatively to the call of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro for the training of Volunteer Teachers in Minas del frio. He remembers everything about those 11 days in the Cuban East Region. It was a difficult preparation, life in the campaign and to get used to conditions in which they would later teach thousands of illiterates of the Cuban camps.

On August 30, 1960 marked the graduation date of that first contingent where his brother René was also trained. While others by decision of Che were to manage sugar mill or study Diplomacy, Jorge decided to continue improving as a teacher in a three-month course in Ciudad Escolar Libertad, with professors such as Raúl Ferrer and Herminio Almendros.

Jorge began teaching in a town of Loma del Gato, belonging to Francisco mill (Amancio Rodríguez at present). There were a hundred boys ranging from five and 15 years totally illiterate. "I divided them into two groups: the youngest ones attended lessons in the morning and the oldest ones in the afternoon, after helping their parents in the cane cutting," Jorge says.

In this place he established alliances with farmers and jokingly remembers how much he learned from them too. "We went to cut wood to build the school and I did not pay attention to their recommendations to wait for the waning moon to cut the wood. We cut like to build two schools, but for more than we did, many woods ended up spoiled. We had to go twice. "

Also there he taught his students to study and work. "I asked for a piece of land next to the school and we planted peanuts, melons, taro, and then distributed the crops in the town." Very close to there, in San José II, the Literacy Campaign ended.

From that time perhaps the clearest memory is of his marriage with María Paulina Rodríguez Pereira, his life and work companion until today. At that time she was an assistant at the Day care center , but due to the need in one of the schools where he worked, and with his own advice, she got the skills to teach reading and writing.

This couple left its traces of love and teaching in many places of the East rEgion of the country. Even Dalia María, the first-born of that marriage , knew the classrooms from the first days of her birth, when she slept in a hammock surrounded by students and next to her mother who never gave up teaching.

When the battles for Literacy in the camps were practically completed , they returned to Alquízar and Jorge began to work, first in Güira de Melena schools and then in the municipality itself, where he lived the experience of teaching children from the countryside in Leonor Pérez little school , located in a place known as El Sopapo.

"There I taught many children that I still remember fondly. They used to say that the teachers hardly went to the school because of the distance, but every day I went by bicycle to bring them the knowledge and motivate them to learn ".

Yes, because motivation and respect are key in the teacher´s ethics . "Each student deserves a respectful treatment, although at a certain moment you have to speak louder, but you always have to listen to them, be a friend. I remember one day I had to separate two boys in a fight. One of them received two spankings, but he never held a grudge against me, quite the contrary; they sent him to another school and specifically asked to go to my classroom. "

His lessons were always motivating , so evoked Kirila, a character from the Adventures, or read the story of Sissa, the chess game creator , who asked the King so many grains of wheat that even with his wealth could please him.

Discipline was also present , so every time he asked a question and did not receive an answer, he sent them to investigate and write the answer as many times as necessary, although never more than five, in a cellar paper, to preserve the notebooks.

A lover of mathematics and now of History, Jorge at 84 years of age does not give up studying or the need to teach, hence he gives his knowledge to new generations now joined to the local Association of Fighters to give lectures . During these days it will delight the audience with the particularities of the entrance of the invading Mambí column to the town and will talk about Colonel Isidro Acea.

Acknowledgments, medals and distinctions add to a file that also keeps the intangible: dedication, dedication, love of a profession, sense of duty and much consecration. But the best of their awards is not there: Maria and the three daughters Dalia, Valia and Gaul, along with the grandchildren and the countless students of yesterday and today do not fit in an album, but in the heart of this master alley.

Acknowledgments, medals and distinctions add to a file that also keeps the intangible: dedication, devotion , love of a profession, sense of duty and much consecration. But the best of his awards is not there: Maria and his three daughters :Dalia, Valia and Galia, along with the grandchildren and the countless students of yesterday and today do not fit in an album, but in the heart of this teacher from Alquizar.

Some prizes, distinctions and decorations of Jorge

Medals: Literacy, Rafael María de Mendive, Exemplary Educator.

Distinctions: Volunteer Teacher Frank País, For Cuban Education, Jesús Menéndez, Fighter of the Fight Against Bandits, 40th Anniversary of the FAR, Pepito Tey.

Master Diploma for the Fatherland 50 years of education in Revolution

Special Award from the Minister of Education

TRANSLATION BY LMMS