If Wilfredo Osuna did not speak with his hands, he would still be a man dressed in gestures; the most eloquent of them, having dedicated himself to Education for 46 years out of the 64 he already has. Moreover, although in the other 18 there were also signs anticipating this future, he prefers to think that the sign language with which he imitated his deaf neighbor was just adolescent empathy and not a harbinger of a special teacher.

Then, and now, everything gave him away; even that lilting and soft voice does not make him lack certain skills of baritone teachers, who leave unruly children seated with a single command of a deep voice. He is fine, but above all, he has sharpness in his hands. He makes a fan of fingers that he closes at the tip of his nose and tells us "beautiful." Then he puts two dresses on his neck, rolls them forward and says "future". He talks as if we couldn't hear him and we were apprentices in a chair cultivated with patience and naturalness.

First at home, with his son Norwing, the Doctor of Science who developed a methodology for teaching sign language and that he tutored in bachelor's and master's degrees. Later with her daughter Norky, also a Master in Special Education and a beloved teacher of her deaf children. Before, with his wife, a master's degree in educational psychology and part of the faculty that he integrated at Águedo Morales Reina for 36 years now; almost half, in front of the school.

They have literally been his family and his school, and in the parallelism of his life, I do not know the order of his classes, but I do not force him to discriminate loves. Somehow, they have been the same, part of a passion that comes out of her lips, her hands and even her elbows if they spoke.

His barracks in the Ortiz neighborhood: a school too decorated, at times, among posters, flags, areca palms, and patios so smooth that one might think that the leaves of the trees are riveted with atete and never fall, even in gusts of afternoon. That is, just, the image of the entrance. Inside is he, directing a harmonious, constant orchestra. Drawing the sound with the hands. Showing by touch the six points of an alphabet that the punch, the ruler and the pegs end up revealing to blind children.

In her small chamber, made up of around 30 educators, is Ana María, 36 years old; Greyry, with 22; Susy and her daughter Norky, with 20; Inés, Esther and Daimy, at 14, the last to join... The age I am asking is what, to a certain extent, matters in a classroom: it is the time spent there, more than the time spent elsewhere.

Osuna, which is what the adults call him, has achieved that, educating for permanence. His living gospel, born at the age of 16 when, while in practice, he stood in front of a classroom and told those big guys that his name was Teacher and his last name, You.

It was his method to earn respect, he says today, aware that his mission in Nicaragua would bring it to him in abundance and that his passion has earned him better epithets inside and outside the classroom, because something always happens at school. The vaccines, the meetings of the Popular Council, how much voting is done, the methodological preparations of the municipality, the socialization of something... Almost everything comes by "appointment" and merit to Águedo Morales Reina. Very well earned, he has his title of community school and his reign in the special schools of the province and of those that, as a rule, they say, are less so.

The principal teacher, not tired yet ―and on the threshold of his retirement, as he will do so in February 2023 to make some arrangements at home and in seven or eight months he will return to his school, apparently retired― has followed the clues of the amblyopes and squints that passed by one day, the blind that he no longer saw, the deaf that he could recognize with a gesture from a distance... He came to worry about their inclusion in normal education and perhaps for that reason it hurts him that his master's thesis, aimed at that comprehensive preparation of other teachers, is not a rule for their former students.

There will be those who will never be able to see or hear it, but there are things in this life that it is enough to know, to feel. For more details: Wilfredo Osuna Rodríguez. Teacher.