Learning to read and write on the fringes of schooling: some examples of didactic devices in Mexican society in the modern era¹

¹ Paper translation for ISCHE Umeå Conference: Oscar Guerra. Translation revised and new sections translated for ISCHE publication: David M.J. Wood. Photography: Patricia Jardón

Abstract

This paper focuses on the analysis of certain didactic resources that proliferated on the fringes of schooling during the second half of the nineteenth century in Mexico. The first of these is a method that, according to its author, made it possible to teach a pupil how to read in only six lessons, dated 1830; the second is a writing method from 1870, which according to the author would enable a teacher to teach large groups, and any person to learn alone; the third, from 1880, consists of a “machine” for teaching in schools that made it possible to practise reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar and other subjects through direct experience. Each method offers the opportunity of exploring various conceptions about teaching. The first concerns the basics of teaching. The second deals with conceptions of memorising, and the third illustrates conceptions based on experience and intuition as points of departure for learning. The didactic devices selected are objects specific to teaching, inspired by the principles of the nascent nineteenth‐century project of schooling, that set in motion routines linked to the learning of the basic skills of writing, reading and general knowledge, and were produced by teachers whose inspiration was cultivated by their own experience. Yet they are far from forming part of the set of objects used in schooling: slates, pencils, blackboards, exercise books, posters, cupboards, etc.; rather they make up a less common set of ephemeral and fragmentary objects, minor or secondary objects in the landscape of the classroom; in some cases they even constitute waste products of formal schooling that, despite their marginal status – or perhaps because of it – offer us a window onto the intricate relationships and porous frontiers between the school and other social spaces. The author is particularly interested in the processes of re‐signification and hybridisation between erudite knowledges (the pedagogical knowledge of the time) and “popular knowledges”.

¹ Paper translation for ISCHE Umeå Conference: Oscar Guerra. Translation revised and new sections translated for ISCHE publication: David M.J. Wood. Photography: Patricia Jardón

Keywords:

• literacy technologies
• pedagogical responsibilities
• popular knowledges on literacy instruction
• literacy practices

Notes

¹ Paper translation for ISCHE Umeå Conference: Oscar Guerra. Translation revised and new sections translated for ISCHE publication: David M.J. Wood. Photography: Patricia Jardón

² The material selected in this article derives from a wider piece of research related to the genesis and development of educational knowledge in Mexico, published in Josefina Granja Castro, Métodos, aparatos y máquinas para la enseñanza en México en el siglo XIX. Imaginarios y saberes populares (México: Pomares Editores, 2004). In that volume I gather and analyse a dozen didactic devices designed by schoolteachers and “inventors” in general in the second half of the nineteenth century.

³ For knowledge’s genealogy see Michel Foucault, “Primera Lección, 7 de enero de 1976”. In Genealogía del racismo (Argentina: Altamira, 1996), 13–40; for the devices concept see “El juego de Michel Foucault,” in Saber y verdad, ed. J. Varela. Madrid: La Piqueta, 1991: 127–62.

⁴ See M. Lawn and I. Grosvenor, eds., Materialities of Schooling. Design, Technology. Objects. Routines: Oxford: Symposium Books, 2005). I am interested in drawing out the affinity between the approach of the history of school material cultures and Foucault’s notion of the device that I have chosen for this analysis: both treat materiality as a set of networks among objects – practices – uses, or equally, discourses – relations between subjects – signifying networks, in order to comprehend, from the perspective of the present, traces inherited from the past.

⁵ Ernesto Meneses Morales, Tendencias educativas oficiales en México 1821–1911 (México: Porrúa, 1983), 847–62.

⁶ Dorothy Tanck Estrada, La educación ilustrada 1786–1836 (México: El Colegio de México, 1984), 197.

⁷ Meneses Morales, Tendencias educativas oficiales en México, 847–62.

⁸ Ibid., 848, 854.

⁹ The first school of this type, “El Sol”, was located in premises that in earlier times had served as a “secret chamber” of the Holy Inquisition. A year later, in 1823, Mexico’s second and most important Lancasterian school, “La Filantropía”, was founded. Two decades after its establishment in Mexico, the Lancasterian Company passed into the jurisdiction of the Office for Primary Instruction, the body that was responsible for organising and supervising activities relating to teaching between 1842 and 1845. D. Tanck Estrada, “Las escuelas lancasterianas en la Ciudad de México 1822–1842,” Historia Mexicana 22, no. 4 (1973): 494–513.

¹⁰ Meneses Morales, Tendencias educativas oficiales en México, identifies nine elementary teaching syllabi for the period from 1860 to the end of the century.

¹¹ This temporal and geographical convergence notwithstanding, the Lancasterian system was appropriated and put into practice in different ways in the various countries of Spanish‐America. See the special issue of Paedagogica Historica 41, no. 6 (2005) devoted to the subject, particularly M. Caruso and E. Roldán Vera, “Pluralizing Meanings: The Monitorial System of Education in Latin America in the Early Nineteenth Century,” 645–54, and E. Roldán Vera, “Order in the Classroom: The Spanish American Appropriation of Monitorial System of Education,” 655–75.

¹² School stock‐takings describe in detail various implements, materials and staff that could be found in a classroom by the second half of the nineteenth century. There are, indeed, references to collections of posters and samples to support the teaching of writing, calligraphy, etc. Josefina Granja Castro, Formaciones conceptuales en educación (México: Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados, Universidad Iberoamericana, 1998).

¹³ The “Decreto expedido por las Cortes Españolas el 2 de octubre de 1820 para asegurar el derecho de propiedad a los que inventen, perfeccionen o introduzcan algún ramo de industria” had been in force since 1820. In 1832 independent Mexico’s government issued the “Ley de 7 de Mayo de 1832, sobre privilegio exclusivo a los inventores o perfeccionadores de algún ramo de la industria” which was ratified in 1890 with the “Ley de 7 de junio de 1890 sobre patentes de privilegio a los inventores o perfeccionadores”. Archivo General de la Nación, “Patentes de invención durante el siglo XIX en México,” Boletín del Archivo General de la Nación 34 (1988): 5–12.

¹⁴ Foucault posits a further example of this notion in Vigilar y castigar when he describes the panopticon as being “polyvalent in its applications”, serving as it does to reform prisoners, to cure the sick, to instruct schoolchildren, to guard madmen, to supervise workers, and to compel beggars and the idle to work. The theoretical principle that enables such an understanding of comparisons was expounded by Niklas Luhmann, who demonstrated that comparisons presuppose the identification of “functional equivalences” that exceed the “limits of comparison”, for example, the explanation of the difference between the speed of a falling apple and that of a falling feather. To compare apples with feathers is highly improbable, unless a functional reference is identified that can open up the comparison to other possibilities. See Niklas Luhmann, La ciencia de la sociedad (México: Anthropos – Universidad Iberomericana, 1996) and Sistemas sociales. Lineamientos para una teoría general (México: Alianza Editorial – Universidad Iberoamericana, 1991).

¹⁵ Maya Florencio Maria y Compañía, “Sobre que se le conceda privilegio por la invención de una máquina para estacigencias de escritura para la enseñanza de la juventud.” AGN. PM: 10, 582 (box, file).

¹⁶ Castilla P. Antonio, “Pide privilegio por un método para aprender a escribir.” AGN. PM: 10, 634.

¹⁷ Neve Clemente Antonio. “Pide privilegio por una máquina intuitiva para la enseñanza en las escuelas.” AGN. PM: 16, 893.

¹⁸ Guillermo Roussy does not figure in Mexican History of Education. The archives from the early decades following independence are full of the most varied and ingenious initiatives proposed by practically unknown schoolteachers: permits for opening schools, curriculum designs, offers to impart lessons in markets, prisons and public squares, suggestions of activities for raising funds and building schools, the formation of brigades for repairing schools or for refurbishing premises for using them as schools, the proposal of a range of homespun didactic materials: methods, obritas (brief tracts), posters, school furniture, etc. The unknown Guillermo Roussy was typical of teachers at the beginnings of modern schooling in Mexico: he was a teacher in charge of a private instruction establishment, and interested in testing “innovative” teaching procedures by colonising open spaces in a still barely regulated or structured educational environment.

¹⁹ “Arte de enseñar a leer reducido en seis lecciones, por G. Roussy.” AHDF. IPG: vol. 2478, exp. 337.

²⁰ María Esther Aguirre Lora, “Ciudadanos de papel, mexicanos por decreto,” in Historia cultural. Ensayos críticos sobre conocimiento y educación, ed. T.S. Popkewitz, B.M. Franklin and M. Pereyra (Barcelona: Pomares, 2003), 297–331.

²¹ Ferdinand Buisson, Dictionnaire de pedagogie et d’instruction primaire (Paris: Hachette, 1887).

²² Ibid., 1467.

²³ Ibid., 1468.

²⁴ The age ranges established for elementary teaching were frequently redefined during the nineteenth century, until the Public Education Law of 1891 decreed that the age of compulsory education should be from 6 to 12 years. I have analysed this process in Granja Castro, Formaciones conceptuales en educación.

²⁵ Successive teaching (first the reading class and afterwards writing) or simultaneous. During the nineteenth century the latter prevailed, although with variants such as “teaching the art of reading and writing at one time”, “teaching to read through writing” and, more uncommonly, “writing through reading”.

²⁶ Synthetic: starting from letters, moving on to syllables and finally the words; Analytical: from words to syllables and finally letters; Analytical‐Synthetic: breaking down a word into its basic units, and then going back to the word.

²⁷ Teaching on the basis of spelling (names of letters) or phonetics (their sounds).

²⁸ During the nineteenth century the notion of method gradually became differentiated from organisational matters (distribution of classes during the school day, sequence of activities to foment better learning, books used, type of funds used for upkeep, etc.). Towards the final decades of the century it appeared consistently as the set of procedures that should be followed in the teaching of each subject – that is, issues related to the “process of acquiring knowledge” and “the art of transmitting it”. Granja Castro, Formaciones conceptuales en educación.

²⁹ Antonio P. Castilla, of Spanish origin, came to Mexico with a valuable reputation as principal of several schools in Europe and a member of science academies. Aside from his work as a teacher, he was known mainly for his intensive activities in disseminating the most important debates on didactics of the time, through the weekly magazine La voz de la instrucción, of which he was editor in chief and publisher in 1871. The Popular Copier formed part of a wider project by of the author, an Enciclopedia de Instrucción (in Spanish) in which diverse supporting materials for elementary teaching were to be collected.

³⁰ For a comparative view of handwriting, see Tamara Thornton Plankins, Handwriting in America. A Cultural History (Michigan: Yale University Press, 1996).

³¹ Tanck, La educación ilustrada 1786–1836, 223.

³² From estarcir, to stencil.

³³ “Objective teaching” provides another example of the international dissemination of a pedagogical model, less studied than the Monitorial System of the Lancasterian School. Its “original” nucleus was the pedagogical thought of Pestalozzi on popular instruction that emphasised the function of objects and direct experience or intuition, but the particular circumstances of its appropriation in different countries would doubtless be a highly suggestive field for comparative analysis. Buisson’s Dictionary indicates that in France, the term leçons de choses was brought to light by Mme Pape‐Carpantier, who used it officially in her lectures on teaching at the 1867 Exposition, referring to a “teaching procedure” resting on the “intuitive method” based on Pestalozzi’s work. In America it was known as object teaching and object lesson. See Buisson, Dictionnaire de Pédagogie, 1528. According to Lawn, it was introduced into primary schools in Great Britain in 1875 and made compulsory two decades later (in 1895). Primary teaching manuals published between 1880 and 1910 make brief direct references to Pestalozzi. Similarly, periodicals such as Teachers’ Aid encouraged the creation of collections of objects for use in schools. See Martin Lawn, “A Pedagogy for the Public: The Place of Objects, Observation, Mechanical Production and Cupboards,” in Materialities of Schooling, 145–62. In Mexico, the integration of pedagogical concepts linked to objective teaching combined European (Pestalozzi, Denzel, Bain) and North American (Norbet Calkins) pedagogical thought. The weekly newspaper La enseñanza objetiva was published between 1879 and 1893, not only disseminating the model’s pedagogical principles, but also creating a space for schoolteachers wishing to make public their own ingenious “contributions” to objective teaching. It was declared as the compulsory teaching method in primary schools in 1891. See José Díaz Covarrubias, La instrucción pública en México (México: Imprenta de Gobierno, 1875) and Abraham Castellanos, Asuntos de metodología general relacionados con la escuela primaria (México: Librería de la Viuda de Ch. Bouret, 1905).

³⁴ Luis Ruiz E., Tratado elemental de Pedagogía (México: Oficina Tipográfica de la Secretaría de Fomento, 1900).

³⁵ Marco Jiménez García, “Análisis del discurso educativo moderno en México,” in Miradas a lo educativo. Exploraciones en los límites, ed. J. Granja (México: Plaza y Valdés, 2002), 113–32.

³⁶ Friar Víctor María Flores, “Método doméstico, ya experimentado para enseñar y aprender seguramente a leer y escribir en sesenta y seis lecciones,” in La escuela moderna (México: 1893).

³⁷ Clemente Antonio Neve was born in the State of Mexico. He qualified as a primary teacher and practised from 1857 in his home state, as well as in other parts of the country. He worked particularly hard as a founder of “pedagogical academies” in order to update teachers’ knowledge, and directed the academy in Ozumba, State of Mexico, in 1879. He wrote various treatises on Pedagogy (Gimnasio Pedagógico, Gimnasio Normal Neve, Guía del Preceptor), teaching aids (Estudio didáctico, Disertaciones sobre la Higiene) and obritas (brief tracts) for teaching the various subjects (Método Neve de Caligrafía, Cuestionario Gramatical Neve, El azteca instruido en la escuela de primeras letras).

³⁸ Clemente Antonio Neve, “Pide privilegio por una máquina intuitiva para la enseñanza en las escuelas.” AGN. PM: 16, 893.

³⁹ Manuel Guillé, La enseñanza elemental. Guía teórico práctica para la instrucción primaria (México: Tipografía Literaria, 1877), 11–12.

⁴⁰ Abraham Castellanos, Asuntos de metodología general relacionados con la escuela primaria (México: Librería de la Viuda de Ch. Bouret, 1905). The National Congresses on Public Instruction, the first in 1890 and the second in 1891, were considered at the time to be the “constituent congresses of teaching”. Indeed, the resolutions made at these events laid the foundations for the organisation of the Mexican educational system in the early twentieth century.

⁴¹ Anne‐Marie Chartier, Enseñar a leer y escribir (México: Fondo de Cultura Económico, 2004).

⁴² Adriana Puiggrós, El lugar del saber (Buenos Aires: Galerna, 2003).