Article by Heinz-Peter Gerhardt1 Paulo Reglus Neves Freire was born in Recife, the capital of Brazil’s north east province, one of the most impoverished parts of this large Latin American nation. Although raised in a middle-class family, Freire became interested in the education of the poor people in his region. He qualified as a lawyer […]
Article by Louis Legrand1 An exceptional life Célestin Freinet was born on 15 October 1896 in Gars, a small town on the slopes of the Alpes Maritimes in France. His early days, like those of any village child of the time, were spent among labourers in the fields, in a poor region where the climate, despite […]
Article by Daniel Hameline1 Of all figures who enjoyed an indisputable international reputation between the wars, Adolphe Ferrière is probably one of those who has suffered most from the ‘ravages of time’, and the current neglect of his books is not the worst of these. When Ferrière’s name happens to come up in a quotation or […]
Article by Francine Dubreucq1 An unforeseen career Nothing in Jean-Ovide Decroly’s early life would have led to a forecast of a career in education. Coming from a strict provincial background in the small Belgian town of Renaix, he had to face the demands of his parents, who were obsessed with the academic success of the […]
Article by Jean Piaget1 Nothing is easier, or more dangerous, than to treat an author of 300 years ago as modern and claim to find in him the origins of contemporary or recent trends of thought. A typical example of the difficulties this kind of interpretation meets with is the controversy about the significance of […]