Max Enrique Figueroa Araujo

In a modest and cultured home in the city of Santiago de Cuba, Max Enrique Figueroa Araujo was born.

His mother, Cayita Araujo, was a teacher; his father, Ramón Figueroa, was a violinist and instructor of that instrument, who cultivated in him his love of music and took the first steps to learn to play the violin.

He was educated within a family with a strong vocation for teaching, his mother became Principal of a Primary School and his father was Director of the Academy of Fine Arts of Santiago de Cuba. His older brother, Ramón Mariano, and his younger sister, Maria Antonia, were certified teachers; he would be as well.

Very young, freshly graduated from Normal School, he was placed as a rural teacher in the sugar cane colonies of the Chaparra sugar mill, where he had to manage two multigrade classrooms. There he was able to feel firsthand the misery of the peasants and the exploitation to which the workers and owners of small colonies were subjected; thus he gained a broader vision of the terrible political, economic and social situation of Cuba and its educational problems. All of this would later allow him to make contributions to pedagogy, regarding methods and the organization of general education and especially rural schools.

His intelligence, vast culture and management ability enabled him to become Director of Primary Education, Provincial Inspector and professor at the Normal School for Primary Teachers, professor of Philosophy and Educational Sciences at the University of Oriente, and Director of the Department of Social Activities.

In 1950 he was selected to participate as a member of the delegation from the University of Oriente at the meeting for the founding of the Union of Latin American Universities, which took place in Guatemala. Some time later he represented the aforementioned University at the First UNESCO Seminar on Educational Planning, organized in Washington, United States.

It is very important to note that he carried out his pedagogical work from a very young age; the knowledge and skills acquired as a recent graduate in all aspects related to rural schools constituted an essential basis for the theoretical and practical development of valuable school materials related to the organization, planning and management of this type of center. He developed a valuable scientific instrument whose objective was to understand the material and social environment of the school and wrote about the methodology of multigrade work.

He also worked on an instrument that allowed for diagnosing a child's readiness in learning reading and writing; he studied and researched new methods for learning reading and composition; together with professor Manuel Aguilera Maceira, he guided the creation by students themselves of objects and equipment that would be used in experimental teaching of natural sciences; he developed for 5th and 6th grades new units based on active learning, which at that time was a vanguard movement in pedagogy.

His courage and social commitment made it possible for him to participate in multiple revolutionary actions, among which the following stand out:

• When the March 1935 strike occurred, he was dismissed and brutally beaten for having taken part in a protest demonstration held in front of the Government Palace of Santiago de Cuba, where he addressed the demonstrators.

• At the Normal School of Oriente he was a student leader.

• Faithful to his revolutionary political trajectory, on March 10, 1952, the same day as Batista's treacherous coup d'état, he participated in the drafting and signing of the University of Oriente's protest document.

• Hours after the glorious assault on the Moncada barracks, he helped in the heroic transfer of combatants, for which he had to leave the country and reside in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

In Honduras he continued his revolutionary work and served as an expert in teacher training and professor of Educational Sociology at UNESCO, in the Ministry of Public Education and at the Superior School of Teacher Training in Honduras.

After the revolutionary triumph he returned to Cuba and due to his professional experience, wisdom and sense of duty, he was selected to hold important positions in the Ministry of Education: National Director of General, Higher and Secondary Education and Founding Director of the National Institute of Educational Improvement (ISE). He had the honor of presiding over the Center for Educational Development and later, when it was transformed into the Central Institute of Pedagogical Sciences, he became its first Director.

In the 1970s, the idea was raised to deepen the educational revolution. The Ministry of Education had to carry out a scientific diagnosis and prognosis of the development of the National Education System; this task was directed by him.

He directed multiple investigations that formed the basis for carrying out the first improvement of the National Education System. Thus began a superior stage of work.

It is necessary to highlight that he was a member of Cuban delegations to numerous international events, for example: the General Assemblies of UNESCO in Paris, France; the Consultative Meeting of Mexico on the Main UNESCO Project for Latin America; UNESCO Seminars on Teacher Training and "Education and the World of Work," among others.

He prepared exhaustively to attend these events, and in the preparation of reports one could appreciate his capacity to discern what was essential from his broad range of knowledge; we all admired his abilities in summarizing and writing, he was a tireless reader; upon completion of these reports, valuable materials remained that could be studied both at the national and international level.

He received among other distinctions the Frank País Order, the Medal for the 20th Anniversary of the FAR, the Medal from the Ministry of Education and from the Teachers' Union, both from Poland, and the Medal for the 10th Anniversary of the Founding of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the GDR.

On September 8, 1996, Max Enrique Figueroa Araujo passed away. We remember him as a great teacher whose presence radiated wisdom; as a man who, no matter how difficult a situation was, faced it with a mixture of serenity and audacity; as a being who always fought to help form young researchers based on the experience accumulated by experienced researchers; he maintained very good human relations with teachers and researchers from Cuba and other countries, which allowed him to spread internationally the truth about the development of education in Cuba, which he loved so much and for which he fought his entire life.

Max Enrique Figueroa Araujo left behind a memorable legacy that, even in the year of his centennial, remains relevant and should be studied.