Antecedents of the popular education proposal of Mr. Simón Rodriguez

Abstract

This article provides a global view of the context of the antecedents to the apparition of the first great American educational proposal directed at the popular sector as carried out by the Venezuelan educator Simón Rodriguez. For several epochs Rodriquez insisted that this form of education be put into practice in schools that opened in different countries. The extent of the proposal is illustrated by means of various texts, especially the Counsel of Friends of the School of Latacunga and succinct statements from the author’s own work on republican education.

Included is an annotation of the situation of primary education in New Granada, emphasizing plans that arose after the expulsion of the Jesuits from Santa Fe, Quito and Caracas, as proposed respectively by Francisco Moreno Escandón, José Pérez Calama, Eugenio Santa Cruz Espejo, and Simón Rodriguez. Likewise, the influence of the work of Rodriguez Campomanes is included for a better understanding of the educational environment in which the ideas of Simón Rodriguez arose. Since improvements to education in 1794, projects of the schools of Caracas reflect on the difficulties of primary schools to achieve reform by the new establishment, which reveals the innovative force of the proposal as subsequently applied to various projects initiated in Colombia, Bolivia, Chile and Equator.