Justa Freire

Justa Freire Méndez (4 August 1896 – 15 July 1965) was a Spanish educator.

Biography Justa Freire was born in Moraleja del Vino on 4 April 1896. After studying teaching at the , she passed the competitive examination for a position as a national school teacher in 1918. The same year, she joined the Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT), specifically its Federation of Education Workers. She briefly taught school in Casillas, Ávila.

In 1921, she moved to Madrid, where she obtained a position at the , a center affiliated with the Institución Libre de Enseñanza, which educated the children of workers from the Cuatro Caminos neighborhood.

After graduating from the in 1932, Freire dedicated herself to teaching pedagogy courses in Pamplona and San Martín de Valdeiglesias. In November 1933, she was appointed director of the Alfredo Calderón School Group (later renamed CEIP Padre Poveda) in Madrid's Ciudad Jardín, becoming one of the first Spanish women to lead an all-male team of teachers. She kept a diary of all pedagogical work she carried out at this educational center. Furthermore, she shared her innovative experiences with the educational community through her publications in the journal Escuelas de España (Schools of Spain). During this period, she collaborated with the .

Due to the Civil War and the proximity of the rebel army to Madrid, classes could no longer be held normally at the Alfredo Calderón School. Therefore, in December 1936, an order was given to close it and evacuate its students to the Valencian Community. There, the Spanish government commissioned Freire to participate in the creation and development of the Family Education Communities, along with other prominent educators such as . Due to her excellent work, the government promoted her several times: Inspector-Visitor of Colonies, Regional Delegate of the , and finally National Delegate.

After being released from Ventas in 1941, she gave private lessons until 1944, when she began working as a secretary and teacher at the British School. In 1952, she requested permission to rejoin the national teaching corps. The following year, she managed to regain her teaching position, but lost all previous privileges, along with her seniority, and was expressly prohibited from teaching in Madrid. Therefore, in 1954, she was appointed teacher at the Padre Algué School in the Barcelona municipality of Manresa. In 1958, she was transferred to the National Teaching Service's Didactic Guidance Center in Madrid and returned to teaching at the British School. In those final years, she contributed articles to the magazine El Magisterio Español. She died in Madrid on 15 July 1965. In May 2021, the Madrid Superior Court of Justice ruled to restore its previous name, Millán-Astray, after the head of propaganda for the fascist side in the Civil War.

She was one of the Republican teachers specifically honored at the "Diaries of Freedom: Teachers and Educators of the Republic" conference organized by UGT at the in Madrid from 14 to 16 November 2017.

In March 2022, a group of residents organized as the Platform for the Name of Maestra Justa Freire Street, created a mural in her honor, which was initially prevented from being completed by the Madrid Municipal Police. Over the following three years it was vandalized at least four times with fascist messages.

In March 2023, Fanjul Station on the Cercanías Madrid C-5 line was renamed .

In 2023, a postage stamp was dedicated to her for the #8MTodoElAño collection, with a print run of 125,000.