Universal revolutionary pedagogical principles. The Ferrer Guardia´s Modern School

Abstract

The Modern School was an experience that, from Barcelona, sought to spread an emancipatory culture not only locally, but worldwide. A conscientious virtual ethnography with sources of high academic level, which include doctoral theses from recent years, allows us to know how the ideas of rationalist teaching that the creator of the school, Francisco Ferrer Guardia, promulgated, were penetrating Latin America, where there were several experiences, despite the diversity of countries and specific contexts. A culture in opposition to hegemony was possible, even though some of its postulates still seem distant today. Rationalist teaching, from this perspective, had and still has the aim of destroying atavisms, teaching truths, forming characters, preventing the formation of sectarian and unconscious masses, and making every man and woman a thinking and active being, over whom no false prestige or undue authority can be placed. Education and research with similar values are also possible today.