Redimension of Lorenzo Luzuriaga’s pedagogic ideas from an educational applied vision

Abstract

To speak nowadays about the pedagogic figure of Lorenzo Luzuriaga (1889-1959),it means to go beyond the theories, experiences and educational principles proposed by him and the organizational model which he defended (Luzuriaga 1928, 1931, 1946).It implies valuing a many- sided profile that contains his facets as a pedagogue as well as these of publisher, translator, ideologist, teacher, tertullian, father, etc. in several contexts: the Spanish one and those from each of the countries where he lived and had to go into exile: England and Argentina (1936- 1959). His educational ideals were embodied in Spain through different documents as: “Basis for a public instruction program” (1918), publications and educational practices. Let’s take as an example of the above mentioned, the Pedagogic Missions in which he took part in (1931-1936). Out of his mother land, he did not stop working on the idea of the Only School in the different countries where he stayed at, in spite of the difficult economic circumstances that he had to deal with. In this article Lorenzo Luzuriaga’s figure is presented with an applied and practical dimension. We will discover the pedagogic mark that he left in those people to whom he dedicated a great part of his life in his last Argentine exile (1939-1959), with them he coexisted, worked and those who he instructed in Tucuman and Buenos Aires (Argentina) providing them the firm ideal that the progress of a country, inevitably, has to settle itself in the education based on the equality of opportunities, on the social justice and on the access to culture of the whole population. The main contribution of the work is his methodology, that is to say, the interviews as a kind of stories that we have realized to the pedagogue’s pupils and relatives, people, some of them very linked to Luzuriaga and who they have never been interviewed till now. His opinions and experiences were gathered during the summer of the year 2010 in Madrid (Spain), Tucuman and Buenos Aires (Argentina) and through them is revealed the enormous influence exercised by the pedagogue’s ideas in institutional and educational practices that continue being in force nowadays. These narrative interviews are part of a wide project of investigation: Didactic Records: itineraries and socio- historical signs in the teaching of the psychology in the educational formation. The influences in the teachers of psychology graduated from the UBA (1960-1976).Being a relevant instrument, since the informants put emphasis in the temporary, social and meaning structures very claimed in this type of studies (Kvale, 2011). In each of the stories a biographical history sustained by experiences was delivered from the double dimension; personal and professional. Across them, we obtained cognitive and linguistic approximations on the important figure of the pedagogue