First International Symposium Ferrer i Guàrdia
The First International Symposium Ferrer i Guàrdia is organized by the Ferrer i Guardia Foundation and the History of Education Society of the Countries of Catalan Language in collaboration with the City Council of Barcelona and other educational entities. It will be an event of reviewing and debating, based on new perspectives and contributions, the tradition and continuity of libertarian pedagogy at a national and international level. The first International Symposium Ferrer i Guàrdia will gather experts and specialists of education, pedagogy as well as history and will be held on September 8-9 at El Born – Center of Culture and Memory of Barcelona.
The Symposium’s aim is to present new researches about the educational project of the Modern School of the Catalan pedagogue, Francisco Ferrer, and its spread to different countries around the globe. The date of the event will commemorate the 120th anniversary of the inauguration of the Modern School in Barcelona. For this reason, there will be a part dedicated to remembering the school with the participation of the Mayor, Ada Colau. Among the specialists are international authors such as Sylvain Wagnon, historian and professor of Sciences Education at the University of Montpellier (France), who specializes in libertarian pedagogy. His intervention will expose the European dimension of Francisco Ferrer. The Symposium will tackle the main challenges in the educational system today, such as segregation, coeducation, secularism and the link with the environment, elements that the Modern School already incorporated.
Find speakers and the symposium’s program here.
About the Modern School
The Modern School was a new educational project founded in 1901 in Barcelona by Francisco Ferrer i Guardia. The teachings incorporated free thinking, joining genders and social classes, rejecting exams and punishments and organising activities to discover the natural environment. At that time, it was a revolutionary school model. Unfortunately, it was closed by the Spanish authorities in 1906, who assumed the secular private schools (such as the Modern School) promoted seditious ideas to children. However, the educational project was picked up in different countries around the world following the model of the Modern School even after the execution of Francisco Ferrer in 1909.