Rural school space. The proposals of Luis Iglesias in a dialogue with the present

Abstract

Understanding the school space as both a pedagogical and architectural concern, in this writing, voices of rural school teachers are reviewed. It explores the uses and appropriations of rural school space by investigating the stories of Luis Iglesias (20th century) and those of teachers from the first decades of the 21st century, in relation to the school complex in general (building, galleries, patios), to the teaching spaces in particular (classroom layout, furniture, uses of the outside, other environments), and to the links between school, territory and rurality. This exercise of exploration in the writings of a recognized historical reference of Argentine rural education and in the voices of rural teachers of the present, is based on the hypothesis that there are characteristics of the rural school space that function as invariants at different times and territories. To do this, we analyze, on the one hand, the stories of Luis Iglesias available in the diaries and texts that he himself wrote and published (“La escuela rural unitaria” of 1957, “Diario de Ruta, los trabajos y los días de un maestro rural” of 1963, “Pedagogía creadora” of 1973, “Confieso que he enseñado” of 2004) and, on the other, the voices of teachers from rural schools of the present. The recurrences between one story and another constitute elements that allow us to develop a characterization of the rural school space in Argentina.