Today is Teachers' Day in the Islamic Republic of Iran, marking the martyrdom anniversary of Ayatollah Morteza Motahhari, a distinguished scholar, philosopher, author and thinker.
It is a day for the candles that burned so that others, in the light of their radiance, might see the world better and envision a "better world."

Among the thousands of teachers whose names are inscribed on the calendar of this day, the name of Mandana Salari is intertwined with the smell of gunpowder and blood – a teacher whose life American-Israeli missiles would not allow to remain a beacon for the innocent children of the "Shajareh Tayyebeh" school in Minab.
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In the seconds between life and death, however, Mandana did not flee. Later reports revealed that she had pressed four of her students tightly in her embrace – so tightly, so tenderly, so motherly, that when her body was pulled from the rubble at midnight, her arms were still locked around their small shoulders.

And the body of her own seven-year-old daughter, Liana, lay on the ground two meters behind her. The mother had remained until her last moment, in the absence of the mothers of those innocent boys, to hold their children to her chest and keep them from being afraid in that final, terrifying moment.
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Now Mandana no longer writes lesson plans on paper. Her final lesson – showing how to live, at the cost of her life – is inscribed in the heart of history.

Forever, in every classroom where a boy learns the alphabet and a girl learns the lessons of life, her name will be repeated: Martyr Teacher Mandana Salari; a woman who proved that one can live nobly, die nobly, and think of humanity until the very last moment, a concept known to nothing by child-killers.