De maestras, señoritas y otras peripecias pedagógicas.
Las mujeres en la historia de la educación en Antioquia 1903-1930*
Carlos Arturo Ospina Cruz[1]
Universidad de Antioquia-Colombia
Reception: 01/07/2014
Evaluation: 20/08/2014
Approval: 24/11/2014
Research
and Innovation article.
Resumen
El propósito
del artículo es dar una mirada a las condiciones en las cuales tuvieron que
desempeñarse las maestras del sistema instruccionista
oficial en el Departamento de Antioquia, al iniciar el siglo XX. Se hace una
reflexión a partir de la información obtenida en documentos oficiales, informes
y algunos textos de opinión, que tienen que ver con el sistema instruccionista nacional entre 1903 y 1930. Un contexto en
el cual, aunque las mujeres eran mayoría en el oficio de educadoras, tuvieron
una fuerte lucha para poder participar de las discusiones pedagógicas
direccionadas conceptualmente por los maestros. Hacia 1903, las mujeres
conformaban alrededor del 75% del gremio magisterial en Antioquia; sin embargo,
en los escenarios locales en que se discutía sobre aspectos metodológicos,
filosóficos y didácticos relacionados con el sistema instruccionista, se presentaban resistencias desde diversos
sectores sociales a la participación femenina. Este artículo muestra cómo, a
pesar de que las mujeres antioqueñas trabajaron activamente en la educación de
la infancia en las escuelas, a la hora de ser tenidas en cuenta para participar
en las discusiones reformistas, este hecho fue presentado como irrelevante o
que no cumplía con las condiciones suficientes para hacerlo.
Palabras clave: Maestras, historia de la
educación, sistema instruccionista, Colombia,
educación básica.
On
Teachers, Misses, and other Pedagogical Vicissitudes. Women in the History of Education in
Antioquia 1903 – 1930
Abstract
The purpose of this article is to assess the working
conditions of female teachers of the instructionist
official education system in the department of Antioquia, at the beginning of
the twentieth century. This reflection is based on the information gathered
from official documents, reports, and some opinion pieces, related to the
national education system between 1903 and 1930; a context in which, although
women were the majority in the educative workforce, they had to face a hard
struggle to gain participation in pedagogical discussions conceptually addressed
by male teachers. By 1903, 75% of the teaching profession in Antioquia was
constituted by women. However, in the local scenarios where methodological,
philosophical, and teaching issues related to the instructionist
system were discussed, resistance to female participation appeared from
different social sectors. This article shows how, despite the fact that women
from Antioquia worked actively for the education of children in schools, this
was considered irrelevant in allowing their participation in reformist debates.
Keywords: Teachers, history of education, instructionist
system, Colombia, elementary education.
D’enseignantes, demoiselles et autres
péripéties pédagogiques. Les femmes dans l’histoire de l’éducation en Antioquia
1903-1930
Résumé
L’article explore les conditions dans lesquelles ont travaillé les
enseignantes de l’Éducation Nationale dans le Département d’Antioquia, au début
du XXe siècle. On y propose une réflexion à partir de documents officiels, des
rapports et de quelques textes d’opinion, relatifs à l’éducation nationale
entre 1903 et 1930. Il s’agit d’une période dans laquelle les femmes, bien que
majoritaires dans le métier, devaient se battre pour prendre part aux
discussions pédagogiques, orientées conceptuellement par les hommes. Vers 1903,
les femmes atteignaient presque le 75% des enseignants d’Antioquia, et
cependant, dans les discussions locales à propos des questions méthodologiques,
philosophiques et didactiques, liées au système éducative,
divers secteurs sociaux se sont opposés à la participation féminine. Cet
article montre comment le rôle très actif des femmes d’Antioquia dans les
écoles élémentaires, était méprisé lorsqu’il s’agissait de discuter des
réformes.
Mots-clés: Enseignants, histoire de l’éducation, système éducatif,
Colombie, éducation primaire.
1. Introduction
The present text is part of the analysis carried out
within the doctoral research of a historical-pedagogical type based on the
analysis of documents and related to the appropriation process of Law 39 of
1903 in Antioquia, regarding primary and secondary public instruction up to the
attempt to close the Normal Schools in 1930. Here, the question about the ways
in which the reformist precepts were received and, eventually, applied by the
directors of educational institutions is also related to the interests and the
historical dynamics that Antioquia had then, in terms of policies, techniques, practices
and scholastic knowledge.
In our case, by historical pedagogy we understand it
to be a field of pedagogy that deals with itself and with education, teaching
and training in its historicity as well as its main objects[2]. This historical pedagogy, for its part,
is fed by the contributions of the New Cultural History, for which the
relationship between knowledge and society is important. The type of New
Cultural History on which we are basing ourselves is that which is interested
in the relationship between knowledge, power and social change, which deals
with knowledge as a field of cultural practices and cultural reproduction.
This New Cultural History sees history as the study of
forms, historically constructed by reason, which frame, discipline and order
our actions and participation in the world[3].
Thus, a methodic approach of social epistemology affirms the relational
and social settling of knowledge in a certain field. For that reason, it is not
possible to look for universal truths in that knowledge. With this research
project, an approach has been made to modalities of discourse that indicate to
us who are the participating subjects in the discursive dynamic, the places or
institutional environments and the polemic policies of enunciation and the
positions of the subjects in the field of appropriation of the Law 39 of 1903
in Antioquia. The historical interest that moves us is dealt with from a
symbolic region in which discursive fields are explored with the aim of
configuring knowledge regarding education in Antioquia and the peculiarities of
that knowledge.
2. Some historiographic reflexions
In the diverse histories about education
in Colombia, Law 39 of 1903, also called the Uribe Law, is frequently
mentioned. However, it has been analyzed from the point of view of the effects
and the reactions that it brought about from the moment it was put forward
until its implementation. In the field of the history of education in Colombia,
this law has been studied in the context of the modernization[4] of the country from the beginning of the
20th century. The Uribe Law appeared at a time in context of the
country and Latin American when efforts were made to consolidate the nation-state
and the unification of the nation, as well as the endowment of a minimal
infrastructure for the commercial exchange and the creation of a domestic
market[5].
The work of Marta Herrera Cortés is
located in a field of the social history of education. Her work Modernización y Escuela Nueva en Colombia (Modernization and the New School in
Colombia) is highly important to understanding “the relations between
modernization as a political project and education,” as explained by Saviani in the prologue of the cited text[6]. Herrera revisits different sources
–files, newspapers, journals, theses, oral sources, official documents, studies
on education, secondary sources and general texts- and manages to establish an
extensive argumentative field about the relations between the modernization
processes of the country and the reformist dynamics of the beginning of the 20th
century, relations by which the enactment of the Uribe Law can be understood.
Likewise, this law is framed in what Sáenz, Saldarriaga and Ospina[7] denominate as a moment of appropriations
in the level of the general discourses of pedagogical reform and of instruction
and public education between 1903 and 1934; an appropriation in which “the
absence of national production in the field of knowledge caused, as one of its
clearest effects, the uncritical appropriation of a set of notions and
statements that were quite disperse[8].” At the beginning of 20th century, the
lack of educational proposals coming from within the country was “solved,” initially,
by importing knowledge that circulated in the European as well as in the
American contexts. Humberto Quinceno, for his part, makes
a historical analysis and focuses on the time between 1900 and 1935, in which
he delves into the discourses and the practices in relation to catholic
pedagogy and the Active School[9]. This research achieves important
conceptual junctions in order to understand the temporal and social environment
in which the Uribe Law and the Active School were established in the country.
This work turns into a strong starting point, given that it leaves open the
alternative to continue going deeper into the conditions of the reformist
dynamic in Antioquia, above all in the field of the new school, an option that
was also a critical part of the pedagogical discussions in the framework of the
process of regional appropriation of the Uribe Law.
From the economic point of view, for example,
towards 1910, Antioquia, compared to other regions, was the one that led the
establishment of big textile enterprises (enterprises with more than 500
workers and close to 200 looms), breweries and other smaller ones of porcelain,
glass and smelting[10]. Although some authors such as Bejerano say that the industrial balance of the country in
1900 was pretty poor, they recognize that Antioquia was the department with the
second most enterprises, ten in total, two less than those of Bogota, while Boyacà, Bolivar and Valle, only had one each. The so-called
“pujanza antioqueña” (Antioquia
drive) was manifested in the rise of the enterprises by 1916 when it got to
have more than 25 versus 13 of Bogotà, the second on
the list[11]. In the agricultural field, Antioquia
occupied the third place in the concentration of agricultural production in
1925, with 8.17% of the cultivated area in the country, according to this same
author[12].
The above explained, in a way, what had
been indicated by Aline Helg (1987) about the
leadership that the region of Antioquia exerted in the economic field and that
had been related, in some of the historical dynamics, with the dynamic of the
regional interests to seek changes in the instructionist
scheme. In a further study, Jesùs Antonio Bejarano himself considers that the interest in our nation,
by foreign historians of the 70s, basically relied on two facts that, by then,
caught external attention for their strangeness as regards social or economic
processes: the colonization of Antioquia and the violence[13]. For its part, Medellin had been
described since 1883 as one of the richest cities in South America, in
proportion to its population, to the extent that after the Thousand Day War
between 1905 and 1908, it increased by 131%[14].
Initially, although the majority of the works mentioned refer to
Law 39 of 1903, it is not the main object of study. According to the titles and
the topics developed, some deal more specifically with infancy and others with
modernization. It has to be acknowledged, however, that to a great extent their
views on the object of study have taken place in the framework of a general
process of modernization, in which it is also important to see this law and its
effects. To the fact that this law has not been rigorously studied in the
context of Antioquia, other interests can be added, which justify its
investigation: the “Uribe Law” is the one that has been more valid, as such, in
the last two centuries (91 years, given that the changes and modifications that
took place afterwards were not part of organic law). Secondly, there is a certain
consensus among the education historians in the country with regard to this
law, as the first actually pragmatic attempt to nationally organize public
instruction. Finally, because Antioquia is seen as a region that, due to its
pretensions of industrialization and political dynamization, it actively
participated in the discussions regarding public instruction –about education
and pedagogy in general- in terms of fostering an education “for God and for
life[15].”
However,
and as was previously mentioned, up to now, there have not been any specific
works on Law 39 of 1903 –its characteristics, consequences, news, etc.- nor
have there been analyses of the conditions of its appropriation in the regional
context of Antioquia. This, mainly, is because, for the case of Antioquia, it
has to be taken into consideration that said law, in spite of being presented
as a national law, should have been appropriated, as we suppose it, in a
particular way, due to, among other things, the regional sentiment of
“semi-autonomy” which marked the development of the region, as it has been seen
in the political and economic fields.
Said law, Law 39 of 1903, the second
organic law in the history of Colombian education[16], as a reformist event, intended the
redirection of the national policies related to primary, secondary, industrial
and professional public instruction, that is to say, to the educational system
in general. This law, versus the Organic Decree of Public Instruction of 1870 –
the first Organic Law on Education, sought to strengthen state control[17] over all the educational structure,
assigning responsibilities to the departments in administrative terms (management,
protection, monitoring, control, appointment and the evaluation of teachers),
and to the municipalities, in operational terms (support, endowment and
maintenance of educational facilities). Likewise, it was stated that primary
instruction that was paid for with public funds was to be free and not
compulsory, at the same time that its universal character was promoted.
In terms of educational policy, primary and
secondary instruction were kept under the control of the Executive Power, which
monitored the fulfillment of national guidelines referring to the definition of
study plans, contents and teaching methodologies. This law ordered a National,
Public Instruction System divided into primary, secondary, industrial and
professional levels, as well as that it be established and oriented based on
the Catholic religion: “Article 1. Public instruction in Colombia will be
organized and directed in accordance with the Catholic faith.”
“To prepare for the industry and teach the
Catholic faith,” those were the two pillars of the “Uribe Law”, although –and
there lay the rejection of some catholic orthodox sectors- religion was now
displaced to a secondary plane before the modernizing needs attributed to
industrialization. The school, in such conditions, was thought of as a huge
workshop where the future citizens of the young Colombian nation-state would
acquire the basic conditions to promptly start developing in the labor market,
whether it was in the countryside or in the city. In that sense, this law
states that secondary instruction should mainly be technical[18] – said Minister Antonio José Uribe. The
tiered structure would work systematically, which meant that not only primary
instruction, but also secondary instruction were supposed to train students,
mainly, to work. And even more so was the case of secondary school, given that
it was there that those who soon would become workers and adults were. In the words of Torres Cruz,
Uribe`s reform attributed education, and
the educational system, an economic responsibility. But, above all, what stands
out is the explicit purpose of technically qualifying all the levels of labor
that were required by the industry. Perhaps it is for that reason that the
Organic Law privileged the urban primary school so arbitrarily[19].
Following that idea, within the intentions
mentioned about Law 39 of 1903, was the procurement of a National System of
Public Instruction that would provide a practical way of teaching elementary
notions, moreover, those that were necessary to exercise citizenry and prepared
students to work in agriculture, industry and commerce. According to Ríos Beltrán,
Law 39 of 1903 is the starting point of
the educational reform in the first half of the 20th century because it starts
to outline the national need to make changes, take new paths and orientations
in the instruction of children and youth in Colombia […] New knowledge and
methods are introduced in order to train teachers and the new generation geared
towards the formation of a productive, useful subject with individual
initiative and who loves to work[20].
For the specific case of the history of education
in Antioquia, the following can be mentioned: on the one hand, in the books
about general history from Antioquia there are few references to education and
the texts that do, which strictly speak about this reformist educational event
in the first quarter of the 20th century, are scarce. Some of these
stories are based on statistical data, the enumeration of documents or the list
of people who had the main public offices in the official educational sector,
as well as in reports of educational institutions. The history of education in
Antioquia in the first quarter of the 20th century is based, above
all, on the presentation of chronologies, characters, reforms, the enumeration of official documents, law, statistics,
anecdotes, and institutional transformations[21].
Examples
of this are the following works: by Conrado González, “La educación
primaria y secundaria
(1880-1950)”(Primary and seconday education
(1880-1950); by Elkin Jiménez, “Los maestros y la educación
en Medellín en el siglo XX” (Teachers and education in Medellìn in the 20th century); by Julio Cesar García, “La historia de la Instrucción Pública en Antioquia”(History of Public Instruction in
Antioquia); and by Francisco Duque, “La Historia de Antioquia” (History
of Antioquia) [22]. On
the other hand, there is the work carried out by Vladimir Zapata, “El poder en la escuela
de Antioquia 1880-1950” (The power of the school in Antioquia 1880-1950).
In it, the author analyzes different events related to education in Antioquia
where, in diverse ways, he narrates a phenomenon that he denominates as the
school power or the power in the school, its rituals, display, and efficacy.
Zapata, following Lebot, considers that “educational
policy at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th
century is translated into a set of dispositions contained in the Constitution
of 1886, the Concordato of 1887, the Plan Zerda for Normal and Primary Schools, and Law 39 of 1903,
along with its parliamentary decree of 1994[23].”
This author makes emphasis on article 11 of this law due to its precise
definition of secondary instruction as technical and classical, taking into
account that it would be in the schools supported by national, departmental, or
municipal official revenues –as a result of the selling of liquor and
cigarettes-, where technical instruction would be favored. This means that the
sectors of the population who could not access private education would receive
technical education through secondary school, as the only possible choice.
Zapata,
in his analysis, also explains other aspects of the school culture, such as the
obedience to the bell in this type of institution, and that he points out as an
initial step that could lead to obeying the siren in a factory. The instruction
meant to establish a group of future laborers which seem to be latent since
primary school:
Article
6: It is the responsibility of Departmental Governments to disseminate, in the
whole of the territory under their charge, primary instruction. This
should be delivered in such way that, as soon as possible and in a practical
way, elementary notions are taught, mainly those that are necessary to exercise
citizenry and prepare students to work in agriculture, industry and commerce[24].
In that same work, Zapata,
picks up from Antonio José Uribe[25] the formula that orients the
educational policy of the conservative governments of the first quarter of the
century in the country, that is: “Our premise has to
be consistent towards progress, within tradition[26].” For Zapata, this means that
with said law there were not many changes, but modernizations. In a work
recently denominated El concepto de Escuela en Colombia en los planes educativos
de los siglos XIX y XX (The concept of school in Colombia in the
educational plans of the 19th and 20th centuries), by Marín, Ossa and Ceballos,
it is indicated that with Law 30 of 1903 there is an “acknowledgement of new
realities or the explanation of a desire to respond to poverty and put the
country in tune with the capitalist development of the new century[27].”
Said development could not
easily be separated from the ancestral traditions that weighed in the Colombian
social structure, for example, the alliance between the clergy and the
conservatives in that period –strengthened by the Concordato in 1887- and the traditional
historic burden on women. This situation caused that the conservative dominion
of the first quarter of the century, materialized in the Uribe Law, led the
liberals to leave the official sector and place themselves strategically in the
foundation of private educational institutions granted with an air of autonomy.
Actually, it was in this context, in which Agustín Nieto Caballero opened the Gimnasio Moderno in Bogota, to experiment his
proposals in the new and active school, as an educational alternative to
official education.
Along these lines, the educational reform
of 1903 is the historical event that we use here in order to problematize the
educational intention of the state apparatus in Antioquia, in the recent
history of the country, for which we establish different conceptual orders that
allow us to access the discourse of the educational policy in Antioquia at the
beginning of the 20th century; a discourse that, as a result of the
national guidelines, is a hybrid that contains elements of the Constitution of
1886, the Concordato
of 1887, the Plan Zerda and the Uribe Law of 1903,
with its reglamentary decree 491 of 1904.
3. Female teachers, but not interlocutors
of the educative discourse: the Pedagogical Forums
In the framework of the reform of the official instructionist system by the national government and
through the Uribe Law of 1903, eventually, mechanisms and instruments were
established, which sought to maintain the institutors of Antioquia informed and
updated about the intentions of the government. In effect, Departmental Order N°
25 of 1911 stated the creation of Pedagogical Forums and Summer schools, the
same that, to the judgment of the Secretariat of Public Instruction had been
“the two most useful and convenient reforms (…) in the school regime[28]”, as they forced the institutors to
rethink their practices and the aims of their teaching. As far as in the region
was concerned, their practical results had been so surprising that it was not
an exaggeration to affirm that if said measures were kept “within a short
period of time there will be a complete transformation of Public Instruction[29].” In this way, the instructionist
management trusted the effectiveness of these mechanisms of teaching
development so much that it was the managing board itself that approved the
Rules that the Forum issued, with the objective of achieving uniformity in
their actions, in order to respond to the homogenizing intentions of the
national instructionist system as well as the
petitions of local Inspectors.
Thus, the above-mentioned Pedagogical Forums,
which arose from Departmental Ordinance N° 25 of 1911, as they were still
working in 1914, were weekly meetings in which the teachers of the municipality
or an area of the department gathered to talk about different topics, such as
instruction in the framework of the reform, or to attend the lectures of other
educators. Basically, the Pedagogical Forums were spaces to discuss the
conditions of instruction, with the pressure of the attempt to enact a reform[30].
However, a visible problem of gender exclusion
was taking place in these activities: the female teachers, despite being a
majority in the union, with about 75% of the members, were excluded from the
Pedagogical Forums. For the Directorate of Public Instruction, this degeneration
had taken place due to Ordinance 11 of 1914, in its Article 24, which had
excluded them “without anyone understanding why they could not collaborate by
teaching in those centers[31].” Part of the problem was that, through
Departmental Ordinance, it had been determined that Pedagogical Forums would be
established in the heads of the Provincial Inspections, but to them only “all
male teachers from official institutions of the head of the Province, with the exception
of those who belong to religious communities[32]” could attend. With this last exception,
it was understood that in the case of teachers with religious training, their training
was sufficient to be extended to their teaching practices.
And here, in this region of Antioquia, this preparation
for teacher training was more evident. By way of example, the invocation to
pray for public and private needs was taken into account, given that reciting
in choir, “pray all in the same way”, was the embodiment of the type of
teaching. “The girls stand up, put their hands in
prayer, except for Jesusa (…). They start in choir
the enchanting prayer faithfully reproduced by Millet: the Lord’s Angel…conceived
without sin. Pray Jacinta, the teacher says. Here is the slave (…) conceived
without sin[33].” In the same act, women were called to
continue practicing their “slavery”, the work of the teacher being an example
of this: “Oh boys, poor teachers! [34]" Both suffered in the circle they
were in: one as a philanthropic sacrifice of vocation, mission and passion, and
the others as subjects undergoing a process of formation.
But the situation of exclusion had even
deeper roots: maternity and marriage were considered to be two critical
“problems” for those who aspired to work as teachers. With regard to the first
element, the regional power of the male union was such, that in 1898 an
educator from Antioquia asked the Ministry for Public Instruction that
incompatibility between maternity and the exercise of teaching was decreed,
arguing that the duties of maternity indisposed female teachers to fulfill
their duties[35]. Of course, according to the arguments
presented, not only their duties were the problem, but also the evidence before
the children that the female teacher was a procreating human being:
“(…) apart from the special conditions in which the
mother-to-be is before giving birth, conditions that are inconvenient to
fulfill their duties, they can occasionally be a source of scandal or pernicious
curiosity for the students (…)[36].”
With regard to marriage as a problem for
women to be teachers, it was said that if the prohibition of appointing women
to the position of educators was made effective, it would be avoided that those
women were the object of preference of “so many lazy amateurs who want to marry
women who earn a good salary[37].” What was advised for women, implicitly,
was that they waited for the lucky man who wanted to marry them because “it
seemed, the only way in which a woman could marry a decent and responsible man
was avoiding that she worked, so the suitor would not look first at the assets
of his future wife[38].”
Thus, the best condition for teachers
would be to remain single, so that their whole lives were dedicated to teaching
and without any type of inconvenience as the ones that, according to the governmental
stamens, had been taking place. In fact, foreseeing such a situation and
looking for solutions, it can be observed how the following contract for
teachers[39], only item 13, is directly geared towards
their functions as institutors, whereas the remaining thirteen items are aimed at
the role of women demanded of those who aspired to obtain a title of “institutors”
in Antioquia towards 1923, as can be seen below.
TEACHERS CONTRACT IN 1923
This
is an agreement between Miss (…), teacher, and the Council of Education of the
(…) School, by which Miss (..) agrees to impart
classes for a period of 8 months starting from (…) September, 1923. The Council of Education agrees to pay Miss (..) the amount of (*75) per month. Miss
(…) agrees to:
1.
Not get
married. This contract will be automatically terminated if the teacher was to
contract marriage.
2.
Not be in
the company of men.
3.
Be in her
house between 8 pm and 6 am, unless any of the school activities demands
otherwise.
4.
Not to
attend ice cream parlors downtown.
5.
Not to
abandon the city, under any circumstance, without the President of the Council
of Delegates’ permission.
6.
Not to
smoke cigarettes; this contract will be automatically terminated if the teacher
was found smoking.
7.
Not to
drink beer, wine or whiskey (sic). This contract will be automatically
terminated if the teacher was found drinking beer, wine or whiskey (sic).
8.
Not to
travel by car with a man, except that it is her father or brother.
9.
Not to
dress in bright colors.
10.
Not to dye
her hair.
11.
To wear at
least two petticoats (underskirts)
12.
Not to
wear dresses which are more than 5 centimeters above the ankles.
13.
To keep
the classroom clean:
a.
Sweep the
floor at least once a day.
b.
Scrub the
floor with hot water at least once a week.
c.
Clean the
board at least once a day.
d.
Light the
fire at 7 am, so that the classroom is warm enough by 8 am, when the students
arrive.
14.
Not to
wear foundation, make up, or lipstick.
Source: Contract used
to hire teachers in the official instructionist
system, Antioquia 1923
Note, for example, that being a teacher and being
married was incompatible, which eventually led the “misses[40]” to consider that situation if they
aspired to have a long career in the educational field. However, the
limitations did not stop there; in addition, they had to stay away from men,
which could obviously be one of the reasons why their presence in the
Pedagogical Forums was not pertinent, as in those environments female teachers
would be surrounded by men. Here, evidently, their public image was more
important than their role as interlocutors with knowledge in the area, due to
their long-dated performance in the regional educational field.
The control was taken to such extremes
that they could not even move freely. Even, it could be said that those women,
socially known as “misses”, were prisoners in their own house from 8 pm until 6
am. They could not go out to have a cup of coffee or enjoy an ice cream in the
center of the city. And to make matters worse, they could not leave the city
without an official permit. However, if they did obtain said permit, they could
only travel by car with their fathers or brothers[41].
On the one hand, the demands that the
teachers neither smoke cigarettes nor drink beer, wine or whiskey[42] can be understood in the sense that the teacher’s
union was supposed to set the example of righteousness and good manners. This
situation makes sense and grew in importance at the beginning of the 20th
century, when it is known that a good portion of the population had problems with
alcohol. It seems to be clear: in order to preach good and healthy customs in
the fashion of Antioquia of the time, teachers had to be the embodiment of
those customs.
Another important element that can be
observed in these rules has to do with a strict and varied control over the
body of the teachers. Starting from the use of “at least two underskirts[43]”, used for dresses of dull colors, and
that were no more than five centimeters above the ankles, to the extent of not
being able to decide on the color of their hair or the use of lipstick; this was the life of the “misses”.
Now, at the school, the teacher, who was an example
and an educator, that is, a “miss”, also had to perform the tasks of a
housewife: clean, sweep the floor at least once a day, and scrub the floor of
the classroom with hot water once a week. Those were part of their duties,
apart from those of a teacher.
4. The indignity of female teachers
In such circumstances, it was not strange that there
were arguments between teachers, situations that commonly happened in front of
the students, as the Directorate of Public Instruction explained. This anomaly
was seen as part of the flawed education received by the educators in the
Normal Schools but, nevertheless, it was expected that it was in those
institutions where these problems could be solved. Normal Schools worked to try
to solve the pedagogical problem in the future, but the improvement of the
teaching body was seen as an urgent necessity[44]. These teachers (conflictive and badly
prepared) had to receive training in the Pedagogical Forums of the municipal
heads under the supervision of the Provincial Inspector. The direction and
supervision of the departmental government was materialized in that it was the
Provincial Inspectors who decided on the topics that the teachers had to write
about monthly[45] and the best answers, according to the
General Directorate of Public Instruction, were published in the education
newspaper.
Going back to the first quarter of the
20th century, what seemed to be happening was that without female teachers in
the Pedagogical Forums, institutions where the situation of the instructionist system was discussed lost “almost all their
relevance, for the idea that inspired those centers was the development of all
teachers (male and female) in the science and the art of education[46].” And this was taking place in spite the
fact that male teachers were only a fourth of the teaching staff. However, the
worst part of the situation was that the exclusion of female teachers took
place due to an official regulation. It was from this point, in view of this
paradoxical reality, that the Directorate of Public Instruction wondered:
Is it that only men have the right to
study?
Is it that female teachers do not deserve
to be part of a society of pedagogical studies, or that the male teachers do
not deserve to hear about the knowledge female teachers have
to share?
Is it, perhaps, that that institution is
considered to be suspicious, as is all that is tainted with pedagogical
progress, and a lethal strike was intended for it? [47]
Finally, as a solution to this
discriminating situation and to avoid the “complete ruin of Pedagogical Forums[48]”, and in agreement with the Inspectors,
the Directorate of Public Instruction decided that female teachers were again
called to take part in the forums. And, in 1918, some sectors recommended that
women were taken into consideration to lead the Pedagogical Forums, given that male teachers
[…]
are seen as superior, just for the fact that they are men, although it is a
fact that women are way ahead of them, in general they are incapable of using
the culture and courtesy to which they are obliged […] We were fervent
supporters that the Forums were formed by male and female teachers, because we
parted from the assumption of culture, of fine manners, of the education of
those in charge of educating children. A thorough observation has led us to
think that the best that could be done so as not to completely lose the
institution would be to take a small number of intelligent and skillful
teachers, and form the Forums with them[49].
In the meantime, and once the problem of
gender exclusion was solved, one of the questions of the government with regard
to teachers still resided in the fact that it was thought that in their work
they responded to a “preposterous empiricism.” The hope of changing this
situation was put on the Pedagogical Forums, exalted to the extent of being
seen as scientific institutions “which were fortunately established in our
Department[50]” and which were thought to be the cause
of the “end of routinism (sic), a system that could
not even be deterred in the flourishing regimes of the old days, in which the
norm was to use old-fashioned methods[51].” However, optimism led to posing that
with the recent implementation of the Pedagogical Forums
[…] more than seventy per
cent of our institutors deliver a comprehensive education to their pupils, which aims at developing all of their physical,
intellectual and moral faculties. They use disciplinary systems that are really pedagogical, giving
education a flexibility that is compatible with the special conditions of our
character[52].
To this end, Pedagogical Forums continued
to operate with certain regularity in almost all the municipalities of the
department, and were seen as important events that were helping the reform at
the same time that the routine and the empiricism were overcome[53]. The above, with the purpose that those
who had important experiences, in view of what the instructionist
reform intented to do, could share them with their
fellow teachers.
As you will be able to see, Mr. Governor,
from the reports of the Inspectors, in almost all the areas of the Department,
urban and rural male teachers have congregated once a month to see exemplary
classes, deliver conferences on pedagogical issues, exchange ideas on methodology,
school organization, pensums, etc. [54]
As was predictable, the Directorate of
Public Instruction found in these types of activities a concrete possibility of
achieving that the teachers unified their practices around the instructionist ideology posed in Law 39 of 1903; and that
was the case, taking into consideration the locative problems and the
traditional issues of the instructionist practice in
the region. In this case, the Pedagogical Forum of Medellín
was taken as an example, because
[…] it celebrated a
beautiful extraordinary session, in the month of October, in order to celebrate
Columbus Day, to which the Spanish RP De Santiago, apostle of public
instruction in Urabá, gave a vibrant speech in relation to the date. Several male and female
teachers read their meritorious compositions in prose and verse[55].”
Note, as was highlighted by the
Directorate of Public Instruction, the presence of the Catholic Church, making
emphasis on the importance of the missionary processes, installed as from the
so-called Conquest and Colony, which stand out as elements of patriotic
inspiration in the textbooks that were used to teach the children from
Antioquia. On the other hand, the presence, now allowed, of women in these
gatherings was discretely made visible due to their participation with
“meritorious compositions in prose and verse.”
Actually, continuously and in different
reports the arrival of the minutes at the Public Education Directorate was highlighted,
which confirmed the arrival of Pedagogical Forums to the municipal heads, such
as the “municipalities of the school Province of Santa Rosa and some of the
Center, Carolina, Gomez Pata and Sonsòn[56].”From those minutes, the enthusiasm of
the authorities of Antioquia could be sensed about giving the Forums the sober,
but at the same time “scientific and serious air that was required[57].” “They worked with determination and the
results were good for the teachers who trained them and for the schools where
this was implemented[58].”
In essence, the impulse to start
Pedagogical Forums beyond the first quarter of the century obeyed the need to put
under discussion the reformist assumptions of 1903 as well as the new school
ideals[59] amongst institutors. That is the reason
why the opening of Forums was a kind of validation among the teaching body of
the different transforming ideas fostered by the departmental directorate.
Under these circumstances, the push and transforming ideas found some relative
initial force; relative, as they were discussed among male teachers and female
participation was scarce. Another situation was the application of that number
of ideas that could be put into practice in the everyday of the wretched schools
in Antioquia.
5. Conclusions
Paradoxically -although effectively- women constituted
three thirds of the teachers’ union in the rural and urban areas in Antioquia,
their voices in the discussions with relation to the educational panorama, were
not precisely the strongest. Perhaps, this situation could be explained based
on the fact that since the 19th century, those women who got to be teachers, did so not only because of their training, but
also because they belonged to well-known families in the society of Antioquia.
This ensured good manners, discretion and fidelity to Catholic principles. In
that sense, the practices of these “misses”, as they were called at the time,
did not seem to suffice to give them the status of valid interlocutors in the
discussions regarding alternative situations for the educational act.
Corroborating the above, it is important
to note that towards the first quarter of the 20th century, there is not much
written evidence that allows us to see the teachers from Antioquia discussing
educational matters[60], even less having managerial positions in
the instructionist sector apart from those of school
headmistresses that, as was mentioned, would end up being instrumental
protagonists, but not as thinking subjects in the field where they developed.
To conclude, it can be said that the
controlling filter that has direct influence on the conditions in which the
appropriation of the instructionist reform of 1903 in
Antioquia took place is that we will generally call the dominant traditional pedagogical
culture, focused on salvationist clerical criteria and some ways to assume the
formational role of women: a net basically constituted by religious tradition
in Antioquia which has permeated the concepts of family, work, men and women.
Said concepts have been determinant of the social functions of men and women,
the religious role of the family and the school as the core to reaffirm such
processes. It is possible that because of that, it is understood that, despite living
in an environment of change in the instructionist
system, the image of women, at the time, was that of being moralizing and
moralized women, protective and religious, but their discourse was not voiced
in the context of the reform and neither were they seen as argumentatively
armed virgins who proposed instructionist processes.
Documental sources
Betancourt V., Pedro Pablo. “Artículo
Nº 24 de la Ordenanza Nº. 30 de 1913”. En: Instrucción
Pública Antioqueña. Imprenta Departamental de Antioquia. Nº. 51 (enero de
1914).
__________. “Artículo Nº. 25 de la Ordenanza Nº. 30 de 1913”. En: Instrucción Pública Antioqueña. Medellín:
Imprenta Departamental de Antioquia. Nº. 51 (enero de 1914).
__________. Informe que el
Director General de Instrucción Pública presenta al Gobernador de Antioquia con
motivo de la reunión de la Asamblea departamental en sus sesiones ordinarias de
1914. Medellín: Imprenta Departamental de Antioquia.
Cadavid Restrepo, Tomás. “Circular 72 de 1928”. En: Educación Pública Antioqueña. Dirección
de Instrucción Pública de Antioquia. N° 69, Serie V (1928).
Colombia. Congreso de la República. “Artículo 6º de la ley 39 del
26 de octubre de 1903, sobre Instrucción Pública”. Diario Oficial Nº 11.931, octubre 30, 1903.
De Juanes, Juan. “La maestra rural”. Revista Temas Femeninos (noviembre, 1929).
Hoyos, J. Antonio. Informe
del Director General de Instrucción Pública presentado al Sr. Gobernador del Departamento
con motivo de la reunión constitucional de la Asamblea Departamental de 1921.
Medellín: Imprenta oficial, 1921.
“Informes de los Directores de Educación Pública en 1928”. En: Educación Pública Antioqueña. Dirección de
Instrucción Pública de Antioquia Nº 71-72 (mayo, 1928).
Jiménez, Nepomuceno. Informe
del Director General de Instrucción Pública del Departamento de Antioquia.
Imprenta Departamental de Antioquia (febrero, 1911).
__________. Liceos
Pedagógicos y Escuelas de Vacaciones. Informe que el Director General de
Instrucción Pública presenta al Gobernador de Antioquia con motivo de la
reunión de la Asamblea Departamental en sus sesiones ordinarias de 1912. Medellín:
Imprenta Departamental de Antioquia, 1912.
Restrepo, Emilio. Informe
del Director General de Instrucción Pública al Sr. Gobernador del Departamento
con motivo de las sesiones ordinarias de la Asamblea Departamental en 1917.
Asamblea Departamental de Antioquia.
Rojas Tejada,
María. “Sobre el plan de estudios de las escuelas Primarias en Colombia”. En: Instrucción Pública Antioqueña.
Medellín: Imprenta Departamental de Antioquia, 1912.
Tejada Córdoba, Benjamín. “Influencia del Liceo en la Provincia”.
En: Instrucción Pública Antioqueña. Medellín:
Imprenta Departamental de Antioquia Nº 43 (septiembre, 1912).
Uribe, Antonio José. La
reforma escolar y universitaria. Informe presentado por el Ministro de
Instrucción Pública al Congreso de Colombia en 1904.
Vanegas, Eleazar. “Reseña de los trabajos de la Escuela de
vacaciones”. En: Educación Pública
Antioqueña. Dirección de Instrucción Pública de Antioquia. Nº 69, serie V
(1928).
Bibliography
Aspectos
históricos de la educación en Antioquia. El fomento de la instrucción pública
en el contexto de una sociedad católica y disciplinaria.
Medellín: Seduca, Palacio de la Cultura Rafael Uribe Uribe y Comfenalco (Ed.), 1997.
Bejarano, Jesús Antonio. “La economía”. En: Manual de Historia de Colombia. Instituto Colombiano de Cultura.
Tomo III, 2ª edición. 1982.
__________. Historia económica
y desarrollo. La historiografía económica sobre los siglos XIX y XX en Colombia,
1994.
Camelo, Alfredo. “La educación en el siglo XX. La escuela
colombiana en la primera mitad del siglo XX”. Revista Educación y Cultura Nº. 50-51 (agosto, 1999).
Duque Betancur, Francisco. Historia
de Antioquia. Segunda edición. Medellín: Ed. Albon
Interprint., 1968.
Foucault, Michel. Vigilar y
castigar. México: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 2005.
__________. “Nacimiento de la biopolítica”. Archipiélago N° 30, págs. 119-124. Traducción del francés de
Fernando Álvarez-Uría del texto Naisssance de la biopolitique, resumen del Curso en el Colegio de Francia
(1978-9), publicado en Annuaire du Colege de France, París, 1979.
García, Julio Cesar. Historia
de la Instrucción Pública en Antioquia. Medellín: Editorial Universidad de
Antioquia. Segunda edición, 1962.
Helg,
Aline. La
educación en Colombia: 1918-1957. Bogotá: Fondo editorial CEREC, 1987.
Henderson, James D. La
modernización en Colombia. Los años de Laureano Gómez. Medellín: Editorial
Universidad de Antioquia, 2006.
Herrera, Marta. Modernización
y Escuela Nueva en Colombia: 1914-1951. Santafé de Bogotá: Plaza y Janés,
1999.
“Ley Orgánica de Instrucción Pública de 1903”. Material
seleccionado por E. Díaz. Revista Lexis Nº 28 (2003).
Melo, Jorge Orlando. Historia
de Antioquia. Medellín: Presencia, 1988.
__________. Historia de la
educación de Medellín II. Medellín: Compañía Suramericana de Seguros,
1996.
Ospina Cruz, Carlos. “Infancia: humus fecundo y progreso. El
sistema instruccionista como dispositivo regenerador.
Antioquia, 1903-1930”. Revista educación
física y deporte N°31 (2012): 763-774.
Palacio Mejía, Victoria y Nieto López, Judith. Escritos sobre Instrucción Pública en
Antioquia. Medellín: Secretaría de Educación y Cultura. Departamento de
Antioquia. Editorial UPB, 1994.
Popkewitz, Thomas; Franklin, Barry y Pereyra, Miguel (comp.). Historia
cultural y educación. Barcelona: Ediciones Pomares,
2003.
Quiceno Castrillón, Humberto. Pedagogía
Católica y Escuela Activa en Colombia, 1900-1935. 2ª ed. Santafé de Bogotá:
Magisterio, 2004.
Ríos Beltrán, Rafael. “Las ciencias de la educación en Colombia.
Algunos elementos históricos sobre su apropiación e institucionalización.
1926-1954”. Revista Memoria y Sociedad.
Vol. 8, N° 17, (junio-diciembre, 2004).
Sáenz, Javier; Saldarriaga, Oscar y Ospina, Armando. “Mirar la
infancia: pedagogía, moral y modernidad en Colombia, 1903-1946”. Colciencias. Vol. 2. Colección Clío.
Medellín: Editorial U. de A, 1997.
Sevilla Soler, Rosario. “Cambio social en Colombia. Antioquia
1900-1930. IV Encuentro
de Latinoamericanistas”, 4. 1994. Salamanca / coord. Manuel
Alcántara Sáez, María Luisa
Ramos Sáinz, Antonia
Martínez, 1995, ISBN 84-7491-900-8, p. 1513-1532. En: http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=1971435.
Revisado en diciembre de 2010.
Tirado Mejía, Álvaro. Introducción
a la historia económica de Colombia. Santafé de Bogotá: El Áncora Editores,
1985.
Toro, Constanza. Medellín:
desarrollo urbano, 1880-1950.
Torres Cruz, Doris Lilia. “El papel de la escuela en la
construcción de la nacionalidad en Colombia. Una aproximación a la Escuela
Elemental, 1900-1930”. Revista Historia
de la Educación Latinoamericana Nº 13 (2009): 213-240.
Zapata, Vladimir. El poder
en la escuela de Antioquia 1880-1950. Medellín: Centro de Investigaciones
Educativas. Facultad de Educación, Universidad de Antioquia, 1984.
Zapata, Vladimir; Marín, Edilma; Ossa, Arley y Ceballos, Rubén. El concepto de escuela en Colombia en los
planes educativos de los siglos XIX y XX. Medellín: Imprenta Universidad de
Antioquia, 2004.
To cite this article:
Carlos Arturo Ospina
Cruz, “On Teachers, Misses, and other Pedagogical Vicissitudes. Women in the History of Education in Antioquia 1903 – 1930”, Historia y Memoria N°10 (January-June, 2015): 97-126.
*
This article is the product
of the research project called: El proceso de apropiación de la Ley 39 de
1903 en Antioquia en la instrucción pública primaria y secundaria hasta el
intento de clausura de las Escuelas Normales (1930), doctoral thesis in Education, Universidad
de Antioquia.
[1]
Doctor in Education, Universidad de Antioquia. Master’s degree in Pedagogy, Symbolic
systems and Cultural diversity. Professor at the Department of Pedagogy at the Universidad
de Antioquia. Member of the research group: Pedagogical and Historical
Formation and Anthropology – FORMAPH, by its acronym in Spanish- from the
Faculty of Education of the U. de Antioquia. Lines of investigation: History of
Education and Pedagogical Anthropology. Email address: carlosospinacruz@gmail.com
[2] Epistemological assumptions over which
the research group in Pedagogical and Historical Formation
and Anthropology – FORMAPH- is based on. Faculty of Education
of the U. de Antioquia.
[3] Thomas Popkewitz,
Historia
cultural y educación (Barcelona: Ediciones Pomares,
2003).
[4] Modernization is understood,
fundamentally, in the following terms: it is a project in which the
construction of a nationality justifies the great plan of integration and human
homogenization. The citizen must respond to the new paradigmatic type of
industrial society. And finally, the educational apparatus is one of the pillars
over which modernization is built and supported. In such a direction, and from
a biopolitical perspective, this modernization we are talking about here has
been part of the governmental practice since the 17th century and
intends to rationalize those phenomena posed by a group of human beings
constituted as a population, such as those related to health, hygiene, birth,
longevity and races, among others. Foucault acknowledges the growing role that
these problems represented as from the 19th century and also how, at present,
they have become crucial issues, politically and economically speaking. We
cannot ignore that the intentions of an instructionist
reform aim to establish lines of training and social control nationwide, framed
in work trends with criteria of modernization and progress. See: Michel Foucault, “Nacimiento de la biopolítica”,
in: Archipiélago, N° 30, 119-124. Translation from the French version by:
Fernando Álvarez-Uría from the text Naisssance de la biopolitique,
summary of the course in the Colege de France
(1978-9), published in Annuaire du Colege de
France, Paris, 1979, 367-372.
[5]
Marta Herrera, Modernización y Escuela
Nueva en Colombia: 1914-1951 (Santafé de Bogotá: Plaza y Janés, 1999), 61.
[6]
Marta Herrera, Modernización y Escuela…11.
[7] Javier Sáenz, Oscar Saldarriaga
and Armando Ospina, “Mirar la
infancia: pedagogía, moral y modernidad en Colombia, 1903-1946”, in: Colciencias Vol. 2. Colección Clío
(Medellín: Editorial Universidad de Antioquia, 1997), 4-7.
[8] Javier Sáenz, Oscar Saldarriaga and Armando
Ospina, “Mirar la infancia…6.
[9]
Humberto Quiceno Castrillón, Pedagogía Católica y Escuela Activa en Colombia 1900-1935. 2ª ed. (Santafé de Bogotá: Magisterio, 2004).
[10] Álvaro Tirado Mejía, Introducción
a la historia económica de Colombia (Santafé de Bogotá: El Áncora
Editores, 1985), 294.
[11] Jesús Antonio Bejarano, “La economía”, in: Manual de Historia de Colombia
(Instituto Colombiano de Cultura, Tomo III, 2ª edición. 1982), 23.
[12] Jesús Antonio Bejarano, “La economía”… 25.
[13]Jesús Antonio Bejarano, Historia
económica y desarrollo. La historiografía económica sobre los siglos XIX y XX
en Colombia (CEREC, 1994), 90.
[14]
Constanza Toro, “Medellín: desarrollo urbano, 1880-1950”, in: Jorge Orlando
Melo, (Ed.) Historia de Antioquia
(Medellín: Presencia, 1988), 300. Cited by James D Henderson, La modernización en
Colombia. Los años de Laureano Gómez (Medellín: Editorial Universidad de
Antioquia, 2006), 73. It is
clear that in the period of the civil war, particularly between 1889 and 1905,
it only increased by 26%, according to this same source. In that same sense,
other authors emphasize the fact that the region of Antioquia gathered, towards
1930, a fourth of the population of Colombia. Rosario
Sevilla Soler, Cambio social en Colombia.
Antioquia 1900-1930. IV Encuentro
de Latinoamericanistas [Computer file] 4.
1994. Salamanca / coordinated by
Manuel
Alcántara Sáez, María Luisa
Ramos Sáinz, and Antonia Martínez,
1995, ISBN
84-7491-900-8, p. 1525.
[15] Expressed by
Tomás Cadavid Restrepo, Departmental Director of Public Instruction, Revista de la Secretaría de Instrucción
Pública de Antioquia, Communication Nº 72. February, 1928.
[16] In the recent history of Colombia, three
general laws on education have been introduced. First, the Decreto Orgánico de Instrucción Pública (Organic
Decree on Public Instruction) DOIP (by its acronym in Spanish) of 1870; then,
the Ley Orgánica
de Educación (Organic Law of Education) of 1903
(in which some elements of the 1886 Constitution are included); and the Ley General de Educación
(General Law of Education) of 1994, resulting from the 1991 Constitution.
[17] The concept of control, following Michel Foucault, understood
here as a new technology developed between the 16th and 19th
centuries and consistent with what the author calls “a real set of procedures
to divide into areas, control, measure, redirect individuals and make them
docile and useful”. For Foucault, practices such as surveillance, exercises,
manoeuvres, qualifications, ranks and places, classifications, exams, and
records are ways to subjugate the bodies, dominate human multiplicities and
manipulate their strengths. According to him, these practices have been
developed throughout the course of the classic centuries in hospitals, the
army, schools, colleges and workshops. Generically, he denominates these type of practices as “the discipline.” According to Foucault,
“the 19th century invented, without doubt, the liberties: but it gave them a
deep and solid foundation – the disciplinary society on which we still depend”.
Michel Foucault, Vigilar y castigar
(Mexico: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 2005), 10.
[18] Antonio
José Uribe, “La reforma escolar y universitaria”,
Report presented by the Minister of Public Instruction to the Congress of
Colombia in 1904 IV-V.
[19] Doris
Lilia Torres Cruz, “El papel de la escuela en la construcción de la
nacionalidad en Colombia. Una aproximación a la Escuela Elemental, 1900-1930”, Revista Historia de la Educación
Latinoamericana Nº 13 (2009): 213-240.
[20] Rafael
Ríos Beltrán, “Las ciencias de la educación en Colombia. Algunos elementos
históricos sobre su apropiación e institucionalización. 1926-1954”, Revista Memoria y Sociedad Vol. 8, No.
17 (June-December, 2004): 79.
[21] Carlos
Ospina Cruz, “Infancia: humus fecundo y progreso. El sistema instruccionista como dispositivo regenerador. Antioquia,
1903-1930”, Revista Educación Física y
Deporte (2012): 764.
[22] The two first works
are found in: Jorge Orlando Melo, Historia de la educación de Medellín II
(Medellín: Compañía Suramericana de Seguros, 1996); Julio Cesar García, Historia de la Instrucción Pública en
Antioquia (Medellín: Editorial Universidad de Antioquia. Segunda edición,
1962); Francisco Duque Betancur, Historia
de Antioquia Segunda edición (Medellín: Ed. Albon
Interprint., 1968).
[23] Vladimir
Zapata, El poder en la escuela de
Antioquia 1880-1950 (Medellín: Centro de Investigaciones Educativas.
Facultad de Educación, Universidad de Antioquia, 1984), 2.
[24] Colombia.
Congress of the Republic, “Artículo 6º de la ley 39 del 26 de octubre de
1903, sobre Instrucción Pública” (Article 6, Law 39 of 26 Ocober, 1903, about Public Instruction),
Diario Oficial Nº 11.931, October 30, 1903.
[25] Whomever in the Ministry for Education made Law 39 of 1903
official, during the government of José Manuel Marroquín
(1900-1904).
[26] Vladimir
Zapata, El poder en la escuela…157.
[27] Vladimir Zapata, Edilma Marín, Arley Ossa and Rubén Ceballos, El concepto de escuela en Colombia en los
planes educativos de los siglos XIX y XX (Medellín: Imprenta Universidad de
Antioquia, 2004), 127.
[28]
Nepomuceno Jiménez, Liceos Pedagógicos y
Escuelas de Vacaciones. Report
that the General Director of Public Instruction presents to the Governor of
Antioquia due to the meeting of the Departmental assembly, in their ordinary
sessions of 1912. (Medellín: Imprenta Departamental de Antioquia. February 1912).
[29] Nepomuceno Jiménez, Liceos Pedagógicos…
[30] It is important to note that, in those
days, in the instructionist intellectual gatherings
news offered by the Gimnasio Moderno
in Bogotá (with the influence of the new school) started to appear, and it was
in the Pedagogical Forums where these types of discussions were first brought
up in this region of the country. This situation framed the encounter of the
reformist attempts of the Uribe Law and
the new Decrolyan offers, with the peculiar
conditions of the instructionist system in Antioquia.
[31]
Pedro Betancourt, Informe que el Director
General de Instrucción Pública presenta al Gobernador de Antioquia con motivo
de la reunión de la Asamblea departamental en sus sesiones ordinarias de 1914
[Report from the General Director of Public Instruction to the Governor of Antioquia.] (Medellín: Imprenta
Departamental de Antioquia), IX.
[32] Pedro
Betancourt, “Artículo Nº. 24 de la Ordenanza Nº. 30 de 1913” (Article N°24, Rule N°30, of 1913), in: Instrucción Pública Antioqueña (Medellín: Imprenta Departamental de
Antioquia, 1914), 283.
[33] Juan
De Juanes, La maestra rural
(Medellín: Tipografía Bedout, 1929), 87.
[34] Ibid.,
p. 88.
[35] Aspectos históricos de la
educación en Antioquia. El fomento de la instrucción pública en el contexto de
una sociedad católica y disciplinaria (Medellín: Seduca, Palacio de la Cultura Rafael Uribe Uribe and Comfenalco (Ed.), 1997), 28.
[36] Aspectos históricos de la educación en
Antioquia…
[37] Aspectos históricos de la educación en
Antioquia…
[38] Aspectos históricos de la
educación en Antioquia…
[39] “Ley
Orgánica de Instrucción Pública de 1903”, Material selected
by E. Díaz in: Revista
Lexis, Nº. 28. CEID-ADIDA. Medellín
(October, 2003).
[40] The denomination that was traditionally
given to women from Antioquia who had neither been with a man
or gotten married. It was considered that, given the conditions for
teachers, all the women who had such profession were considered to be “Misses.”
[41] See teachers
contract, clause 8.
[42] See teachers’ contract, clause 7.
[43] See teachers’ contract, clause 11.
[44] Nepomuceno Jiménez, Informe del Director General de Instrucción Pública del Departamento
de Antioquia [Report from the General Director of Public Instruction to the
Governor of Antioquia.] (Medellín: Imprenta Departamental
de Antioquia, 1911), 6.
[45] Pedro
Betancourt, “Artículo Nº 25 de la Ordenanza Nº 30 de 1913” (Article
N°25, Ordinance N°30 of 1913), in: Instrucción Pública Antioqueña (Imprenta
Departamental de Antioquia Nº 51, 1914), 283.
[46] Pedro
Betancourt, Informe que el Director
General…IX.
[47] Pedro
Betancourt, Informe que el Director
General…X.
[48] Pedro
Betancourt, Informe que el Director
General…X.
[49] Aspectos históricos de la
educación en Antioquia. El fomento de la instrucción pública en el contexto de
una sociedad católica y disciplinaria. (Medellín:
Seduca, Palacio de la Cultura Rafael Uribe Uribe and Comfenalco (Ed.), 1997).
[50] Emilio
Restrepo, Informe del Director General de
Instrucción Pública al Sr. Gobernador del Departamento con motivo de las
sesiones ordinarias de la Asamblea Departamental en 1917 [Report from the
General Director of Public Instruction
to the Governor of
Antioquia.] (Medellín: Asamblea Departamental de Antioquia, 1917), 18.
[51] Emilio
Restrepo, Informe del Director General…
[52]
Emilio Restrepo, Informe del Director
General…
[53]
Antonio Hoyos, Informe del Director
General de Instrucción Pública presentado al Sr. Gobernador del Departamento
con motivo de la reunión constitucional de la Asamblea Departamental de 1921
[Report from the General Director of Public Instruction to the Governor of Antioquia.] (Medellín: Imprenta oficial, 1921),
7.
[54]
Antonio Hoyos, Informe del Director General…(Report) 11.
[55] Antonio
Hoyos, Informe del Director General…(Report)
[56] Informes de los Directores de Educación
Pública en 1928. Educación Pública Antioqueña [Reports]
(Medellín: Dirección de Instrucción Pública de Antioquia, 1928), 420.
[57] Informes de los Directores de
Educación Pública en 1928…[Reports]
[58] Informes de los Directores de
Educación Pública en 1928…[Reports]
[59] The postulates on which the New School
system is supported in our country have a close relation with the historical
development of the bourgeoisie, industrialization and the growing nation-states
in the American continent. These postulates summarize, to a great extent, this
socio-pedagogical model in a motto of a lay, free, unique and compulsory
education. Lay, as the lay moral formation
was distanced from the religious and with a state orientation. The struggle for
state power with the religious sector was in its most critical moment. The
fight for state power with the religious sector was at its peak. Free, because
the state was called on to guarantee basic education for the majority of the
population; an education that, although there is no apparent cost for the
student, does report dividends for the state, due to the achievement of the
inculcation of primary principles in the citizens. Unique, as we have already
seen, it should remain under the hegemonic orientation of the state, an attempt
that had been reinforced with the promulgation of Law 39 of 1903. A sole
perspective would allow for a centralized and measurable control. Finally, compulsory, because it becomes an indispensable requisite
for the formation of the citizenry, which had to reach all the members of the
society. Naturally, following Camelo (1999, p.
30) these characteristics were not originally from the New school movement,
because since 1870 there was a lay, liberal tendency that was there since 1849
and in which, finally, it was possible to establish with the support of a
mission of German pedagogists a public, lay,
compulsory, free education, based on the separation between the Church and the
state, in the dissemination of science and the freedom of knowledge.
[60] The voices of María Rojas Tejada de Tronchi and María de los Ángeles Cano Márquez (daughter of lay educators) were honorable
exceptions; although the latter, more in the social than in the educational
sphere.
.