We start in a few days another school year in most of the Northern Hemisphere. We start in September because when school became an obligation also for children in the countryside and of factory workers, these children tended to disappear during the harvest months. The elite rulers were forced to adapt the school calendar if they wanted to train children in the institutions they created. It is therefore from September on that year after year the children had to learn to become obedient workers in accordance with the prescriptions of the rituals of instruction. For the emerging elites in the era of industrialisation in Europe, school was a good tool: if children had to go there and not to the factory, then be it to prepare them for the work market.
The reaction came mainly from radical, later socialist and anarchist, intellectual circles: they wanted to draw away the influence of the church and doctrinaire liberals in school. Education should go back to serving fascination, said Dewey, the discovery of oneself and others, said Ovide Decroly. Initiatives emerged with the disadvantage of costing money. Some, like Francisco Ferrer with his Escola Moderna in Barcelona, were able to make use of donations, keeping school fees low. Others like the Active Education colleges in Britain targeted the children of wealthy intellectuals.
In Portugal whoever started the A Voz do Operário and was interested in creating schools for the children of its members saw the advantage of cooperation and mutualism. Since the first mutualist commitments at the end of the 19th century until today, the Institution has always provided education for the children of its members who so desire.
It was only in the 1970s that the educational project that A Voz do Operário proposes to implement turned to the pedagogical communication paradigm. I had the opportunity to work and study with the team during somewhat more than a decade. Part of that study is published under de title Contributions for a welcoming school and I hope the second part wil follow briefly.
Meanwhile as member grandfather of the Voz do Operário I enjoy seeing my two grandsons happily to prepare going back to that school where they are constantly invited to share their knowledge-experience with the others and work out together with their colleagues and teachers what they want to know en do.
The reaction came mainly from radical, later socialist and anarchist, intellectual circles: they wanted to draw away the influence of the church and doctrinaire liberals in school. Education should go back to serving fascination, said Dewey, the discovery of oneself and others, said Ovide Decroly. Initiatives emerged with the disadvantage of costing money. Some, like Francisco Ferrer with his Escola Moderna in Barcelona, were able to make use of donations, keeping school fees low. Others like the Active Education colleges in Britain targeted the children of wealthy intellectuals.
In Portugal whoever started the A Voz do Operário and was interested in creating schools for the children of its members saw the advantage of cooperation and mutualism. Since the first mutualist commitments at the end of the 19th century until today, the Institution has always provided education for the children of its members who so desire.
It was only in the 1970s that the educational project that A Voz do Operário proposes to implement turned to the pedagogical communication paradigm. I had the opportunity to work and study with the team during somewhat more than a decade. Part of that study is published under de title Contributions for a welcoming school and I hope the second part wil follow briefly.
Meanwhile as member grandfather of the Voz do Operário I enjoy seeing my two grandsons happily to prepare going back to that school where they are constantly invited to share their knowledge-experience with the others and work out together with their colleagues and teachers what they want to know en do.