Ana Maura, two great passions in one profession

If we were to summarize the life of the Cuban Ana Maura Aguilar Novena, one outstanding element would undoubtedly be the more than three decades devoted to educating.

In the life of this woman, who lives in the province of Granma, two passions merged to channel her professional future: love for children and music.

Although her CV includes various responsibilities since she graduated as a daycare center educator in the neighboring province of Holguín, her performance as a music instructor is outstanding, as she told ACN.

Perhaps motivated by the example of her elder sister, who worked in one of those places, from an early age she acquired a taste for teaching and showing affection to little children, attributes which she deems essential to face a class.

“When the young trainees arrive for their pre-professional practice, I ask them first of all: ‘Do you like children? If so, you can continue, otherwise you should choose another career, because you won't be able to understand them or teach them’,” she says with the certainty of experience.
In addition to this passion, essential in her job, she has a special gift for music that she tries to instill in her students together with a proper sense of artistic appreciation.

“First I get them to listen to the songs, then I help them grasp the message of each melody. That is how I develop in them the tools that will later allow them to understand and express themselves through music.

“The task of music educator is not limited to infants; it also includes guidance to families on how to promote aesthetic taste in children, as the household is a vital space to foster what they learned at the center. (…) It is also comforting to be part of the education and discover the artistic potential of so many children, many of whom today are professionals and still have fond memories of me," said Ana Maura.

Among her favorite experiences, she mentioned a little girl who had a speech disorder but an exceptional talent for playing music in a rhythmic band. She is also fond of the daycare center’s current dentist, one of Ana Maura’s former students, who told her of her utopian eagerness to return to childhood and be her pupil again.

While sometimes it is difficult for her to travel from where she lives to the daycare center in the provincial capital city Bayamo and at the same time cope with other problems and sacrifices typical of her profession, Aguilar Novena enjoys her daily encounters with the children, which do not end when she returns home, she said, because as a rule she relates to many others who live in her neighborhood.

She always welcomes them with a smile in her home, the place she calls "my other daycare center," she added.