Independent teaching work to cooperative teaching: A new paradigm introduced in the Portuguese educational system (1894–1895)

Abstract

With this article we intend to fill a large gap that exists in the field of educational research – examining the history of teaching. We chose a critical historical moment that initiated the great labour transformation in the exercise of the teaching profession. In this context, we investigated the pedagogical benefits introduced by the Portuguese educational system by the class regime promulgated in the 19th century with the reform that introduced the class system, enacted in the nineteenth century.

This change is a landmark in the history of teaching. We tried to study what had changed in the workplace to realise the division of teaching. How did teachers relate to each other and to their work in each working system? What social links are required by each of the working systems and what implications do they have for how teachers behave? What place (role) does the teacher play in the production chain? What skills (competences) are required in their working position?

The system change that was enacted in the nineteenth century created a new division of labour that called for dynamic labour, diametrically opposed to the traditional and established practice. This curriculum revolution not only brought new demands in teaching but also had consequences in terms of professional identity. From that point forward, being a teacher no longer had the same reference, “if you know – you do it well”. This has radically changed. Being a professional in education is no longer a purely individual act involving inter-subject intervention. They now have to act inter-individually with the intention of being multi-, inter- and trans-disciplinary. They have to break through subject boundaries and dualities. The professional skills required by the job in the new employment scheme launched a new challenge in learning (teacher training) and in the exercise of the profession. Reflection on the new type of qualifications is still necessary and remains to be explored. Are the educational workers aware of this?

Keywords:

• teaching
• reform of secondary education in Portugal in 1894–1895
• subject system
• class system

Notes

¹Fernando Elias, A Escola e o Desenvolvimento profissional dos docentes (Vila Nova de Gaia: Fundação Manuel Leão, 2008).

²Executive Law, 22 December 1894.

³Georges Lefranc, História do trabalho e dos trabalhadores (Odivelas: Europress, 1988).

⁴Jorge Vala, “Mudanças os valores associados ao trabalho e satisfação com o trabalho,” in Trabalho e cidadania, ed. Manuel Cabral, Jorge Vala and, João Freire (Lisboa: Edição Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade, 2000), 73–95.

⁵António Nóvoa, “Os professores e as histórias de vida,” in Vidas de professores, ed. António Nóvoa (Lisboa: Porto Editora, 1992), 13–30.

⁶ Boletim da Associação do Magistério Secundário Oficial, 1–3, no. 1 (1904): 32–3.

⁷The Regulation of Secondary Education Reform.

⁸Ibid., 7.

⁹Ibid., 7.

¹⁰It is not our objective, nor does it lie in the purpose of this work, to explain the diversity of criticisms and the plurality of contentions about this diploma. We will not focus on the controversy arising from the innovative provisions that give to this diploma a touch of modernity because they are, with specific focus, well established by historical research. See for example Aurea Adão, “O Grémio do Professorado Livre Português: Uma oposição à «Reforma de Jaime Moniz»,” in Ensaio em homenagem a Joaquim Ferreira Gomes (Coimbra: Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação da Universidade de Coimbra, Núcleo de Análise e Intervenção Educacional, 1998), 103–111; João Barroso, “A influência do regime de classes na organização pedagógica e na administração do liceu”, in Para a história do ensino liceal em Portugal. Actas dos colóquios do I centenário da Reforma de Jaime Moniz (1894–1895), ed. Rogério Fernandes and Justino Magalhães (Braga: Universidade do Minho, 1999), 17–38; Jorge Ramos d’ Ó, O governo de si mesmo. Modernidade pedagógica e encenações disciplinares do aluno liceal (último quartel do século XIX- meados do século XX (Lisboa: Educa, 2003); Maria Cândida Proença, A reforma de Jaime Moniz (Lisboa: Edições Colibri, 1997).We will limit ourselves to allude to some contemporary opinions and reactions on the subject of this study, focused on the class regime – set up, as already stated, by Jaime Moniz.

¹¹Agostinho de Campos, Educação e ensino (Lisboa: Livraria Aillaud, 1910), 168–171.

¹² O Século, no. 5997 (1898).

¹³Maria Cândida Proença, A reforma de Jaime Moniz (Lisboa: Edições Colibri, 1997).

¹⁴ O Ensino Livre, no. 1 (1897): 2.

¹⁵Ibid., 2.

¹⁶Ibid., 2.

¹⁷ Educação Nacional, no. 60 (1897), 68.

¹⁸The petition to Parliament is transcribed by Adão in “O Grémio do Professorado Livre Português,” 109–10.

¹⁹Ibid., 106.

²⁰ Educação Nacional, no. 70 (1898),148–9.

²¹Congressmen also demanded the withdrawal of Decree of 22nd December 1894 because it established the monopoly of official education and the freedom to choose textbooks after approval by a committee.

²² O Ensino Livre, no. 1 (1897): 4.

²³ Revista de Educação e Ensino, no. 6 (1898), 253–57.

²⁴ Educação Nacional, no. 76 (1898), 201–02.

²⁵Diário da Câmara dos Senhores Deputados, Sessional Papers, 1896, 4 May 1896, no. 71, p. 1531.

²⁶Ibid., 1531.

²⁷Ibid., 1531.

²⁸On this reform see José Viegas Brás and Maria Neves Gonçalves, “Os saberes e poderes da Reforma de 1905,” Revista Lusófona de Educação, no. 13 (2008): 101–21.

²⁹Vasco Pulido Valente, O estado liberal e o ensino: os liceus portugueses (1834–1930) (Lisboa: Gabinete de Investigações Sociais do Instituto Superior de Economia, 1973).

³⁰Maria Cândida Proença, A reforma de Jaime Moniz (Lisboa: Edições Colibri, 1997), 121.

³¹Claude Dubar, A socialização. Construção das identidades sociais e profissionais (Porto: Porto Editora, 1997), 129.

³²João Freire, Variações sobre o tema trabalho (Porto: Edições Afrontamento, 1997), 29.