VICTOR MERCANTE (1870–1934)

This Argentinean educator was born in Buenos Aires in 1870. According to him, Education had to be based on observation and experimentation in order to prepare children for life. He wanted to achieve a practical and utilitarian education that helped students to manage life.
What I found interesting about him is his preoccupation in developing an effective pedagogic method for the whole population. Isn’t it great that someone started being interested in how to teach so many years ago?
He also developed some laws about education which would be the principles used by teachers. The ones that I found more interesting are:
Universality Law: he thought that everyone had the need and the aptitude to learn, in short, that education should be for everyone.
Autonomy Law: he said that the teacher should help students develop autonomous thinking.
Integrity Law: education should try to foster the integrity of the student, not only psychologically speaking but also related to the integrity of the knowledge.
Finally, I would like to point out his interest in universal education, his taking into account the affective life of students and also his contribution to the renewal in pedagogy of the 20s and 30s.

If you want to know more about this educator visit the following page:

http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:pR0XFUKVYIgJ:www.ibe.unesco.org/fileadmin/user_upload/archive/publications/ThinkersPdf/mercantes.PDF+victor+mercante&hl=es&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=ar

Joaquín Víctor González

As a brief contribution to this blog, I’ve decided to tell in brief the biography of Joaquín V. González, a teacher that made the difference in our country education. He was a prominent politician, historian, philosopher and educator.
Joaquín Víctor González was born in La Rioja on March 6th, 1863. He was Governor of his province and minister several times; he also founded the University of La Plata and the most prestigious Teachers’ Training College in Buenos Aires, which today bears his name. He was member of the Royal Spanish Academy and the Permanent Court of International Arbitration at La Haya. He died a Senator in Buenos Aires on December 21st, 1923.
In 1887, being one of the most prominent jurists from Argentina, Joaquín V. Gonzalez was appointed member of the Constitutional Reform Commission and was in charge of drafting the constitution for his province. That same year he published his first work of historiography: Revolución de la Independencia Argentina and he also started working in La Prensa de Buenos Aires newspaper and was appointed the first professor in Derechos de Minas at the University and in 1894 he was appointed head of department of Leyes de Mina. In 1896 he became a member of the National Council of Education and academic head of the Arts College at the University of Buenos Aires.
The president Manuel Quintana appointed him new Minister of Justice and Public Instruction in the Pedagogical Seminary, later called Instituto Nacional del Profesorado Secundario in Buenos Aires, which had a large staff of foreign professors. The following year he created the modern University of La Plata, according to the scientific progress of the time. After the death of Quintana, President Figueroa Alcorta gave him the position of head of the University, which was later known as Rector (a position that still remains in today’s Universities). I hope you’ve found this educator’s life as interesting as I’ve found it. To me, he is a great example of a political change that started in the classrooms. And that was, is and will be my motif to try everyday to become the best teacher I can.

Reference

• Biblioteca Pública Digital (educ.ar)
• La “Universidad Nueva” de Joaquín V. González y el proyecto de 1905; Crispiani, Alejandro; editorial Universidad Nacional de La Plata, ISBN/ISSN:950-34-0130-5.
• Wikisource

Dewey

John Dewy's ideas made me think about my own experience as a teacher... What I found interesting was the role of the teacher which was to guide students to give birth to new knowledge. Teachers cannot do it for their students, they only can guide them to do so through motvation. When children do, perform, they experience and learn through this experience.
According to Dewey reality is full of confussing information and it's also complex, that's why teachers should simplify it and make students understand how it works and encourage them to put into practice their skills and capacities to co-operate and contribute within the school as well as members of the society.
At school students should learn about cooking, sewing, chemestry (among other things) since they are thought to acquire knowledge by doing and schools should foster students to enlarge these experiences within the school in order to prepare them to carry them out in the society.
Students are not considered to be blank slates. On the contrary, they are seen as active learners who have the ability to do on their own.
I would like to apply these ideas with my students since in my opinion a good teacher makes their students feel confident about their potential.

Montessori

I am not sure whether I am supposed to write here but I think this is the right place.
If I had to say in what way Montessori has influenced me I would say: as everyday I work with little children I tend to find it easier and safer to do things for them, help them all the time and tell them what to do ( most of the time). After learning about Montessori´s method I have changed ( little by little of course!) this attitude. I try to encourage them to do things by themselves, I try to let them find answers alone and I try to help them be more independent. Of course, in some aspects I still think I HAVE to be there to help them and I still try to be right next to them to guide them. I still impose ( sometimes) what i think is best for them, but I do it in a more flexible way and " helping them to put their coats on" and not " doing it for them" as I used to!

Daniel Filmus, The new "beowulf" in the educational field

I would like to choose an educator that firmly believes in education. It was necessary to me to choose a contemporary one, because educators that belong to the past means just that: they were inmerged in an era that nowadays will be difficult to understand. Technology has proved to be one of the most important reasons by which I decided not to talk about Sarmiento, for instance, but Daniel Filmus, whose career has been identified as brilliant by many of the people who are also educators like him.
While browsing through the pages in the Monitor magazine, I decided to choose an article written by him by which he shows his belief that being an educator means to prepare people to become integrated citizens, where solidarity and wisdom go hand by hand. He also says that being critical is one of the premises that a student should follow in order to be.
Evolution in all human beings bring also pain in our daily life, and Filmus tries to show how a teacher suffers during all the teaching carrer, trying to show the process of learning, trying to share experiences with his or her peers and how to act in different situations that will help to get rid of bad experiences. In his research Filmus claims that every single teacher deals with pain as best as they can. The case of Carlos Fuente Alba was one of the best example of how teachers deals with pain and how they joined when he unfairly died. He also claimed that we will never forget how violence got a victim, in this case an innocent person that wanted to claim for something fair or that they considered as fair.
Finally we certainly do not have to forget that there are many carlos Fuente Alba in every province of our country an that his death would not have been necessary if the goverment had given them at least fifty percent of what they were claiming. It is necessary to get rid of violence not only between teachers but also among our students, trying to establish the DIALOGUE as the only premise in order to fulfill all we need. We are educators, so we need to come to an agreement with all our necesities, priorities and commitments in order to make our daily work free from pain and lived with happyness, or at least we should try it, don't we?
Copywright 2008 by Osvaldo Mammino