Revista Brasileira de Educação
Print version ISSN 1413-2478
Abstract
VIDAL, Diana Gonçalves and GVIRTZ, Silvina. Teaching how to write and modernizing schooling: Brazil and Argentina, 1880-1940. Rev. Bras. Educ. [online]. 1998, n.08, pp.13-30. ISSN 1413-2478.
The objective of the article is to investigate the field off learning about writing, in Brazil and Argentina, focusing how this conformed to aspects of schooling modernity. In order to do this, it analyses bow the teaching of writing was organized in the two countries in the XIX and XX centuries. If at first it seems that discussions and educational proposals in this field are similar in the 20's, Argentina and Brazil in fact present different methods and forms as to the teaching of writing. The privilege of using a calligraphy notebook in Brazil, for example, contrasts with its abolition in Argentina. The hypothesis is that methods and forms were political and didactic strategies, implemented to attend the particularities of development of the educational systems in these Latin American countries. The majority of the population in Argentina was literate by the 20's and already enjoyed an expanded and well structured system of elementary education. They could, therefore, disassociate the teaching of calligraphy from the teaching of writing. In Brazil, however, the movement towards structuring the educational system was just beginning and, from this perspective, standards of writing and a certain homogenization in letter forms seemed to be strategical for reaching schooling efficiency. In both cases, however, the methodological diversity bad but one objective: to modernize schooling.