For young educator Yailín Meriño Millán, teaching is a work that never ends and that implies, for the teacher, eternal discipleship in the effort to improve. With two decades in the profession of instructing and educating, she says that she approaches the profession every day with the same desire to learn from the first day.
Las Tunas, Cuba.- "My current performance has a lot to do with my teachers, who always fostered in me the thirst for knowledge, as a quality or virtue that makes us move forward. For me, to educate is to prepare for life," says the person who, for some time now, has been directing the Calixto Sarduy elementary school.
In the educational sector, the development of research that contributes to better teaching practice is of special relevance. This educator, who participated, at the provincial and national level, in the recent edition of the Pedagogy event, has her sights set on the continuous improvement of the basic education system. This defender of "Spanish" is one of the pedagogues in the province recognized for her investigative spirit and, at present, she is focusing her energies on her doctorate, an improvement that also contributes to her work at the head of educational processes.
"Times are changing and so are the ways of doing things, which is why a teacher must be a non-conformist and researcher par excellence. In this sense, the doctorate has given me the tools to lead the pedagogical collective and contribute to the quality of the teaching activity in this center. Today the family has many challenges and the school must accompany it, from its experience, in the work with adolescents". Without the example of Magalis Millán, his mother, he would not have been who he is today; she was essential in his formation and in his certainty that education prevents social ills.
"I think it is a fundamental issue for our society and the world because we live on a convulsive planet. I am interested in the interaction of students with social networks and the development of their interpersonal relationships, as well as their behavior in each space," she says.
Life is a constant learning process; on that road to the unknown, one needs a vocation of service to offer, as well as the one who receives it. "Everyone gives what they have. As long as you have love, that is what you will give. And may the students be your reason for being, may you enjoy their joys and triumphs and cry with their sadness, may they make you laugh and dream, and may you feel fulfilled when you see them grow and think: 'I contributed to their formation'; that is the greatest wealth we can have."
Immersed in a useful and creative maelstrom, this young pedagogue is one of those who bet on the practice of teaching not only to instruct but also to educate, and to form human and citizen values.
