Objects, Senses and the Material World of Schooling SWG invites submissions for ISCHE 39 conference. Deadline: Feb. 15, 2017

Objects, Senses and the Material World of Schooling SWG

Convenors: Kazuhisa Fujimoto (Japan, Keio), Ian Grosvenor (UK, Birmingham), Noah W. Sobe (USA, Loyola University Chicago) and Mirian Warde (Brazil, UNIFESP)

The ISCHE Standing Working Group “Objects, Senses and the Material World of Schooling”(Established 2015) invites proposals for papers that help our SWG continue mapping out the various ways that objects have been incorporated into teaching.  For the ISCHE 39 conference in Buenos Aires we have a particular  focus on how object lessons have been conceptualized and discussed in pedagogic theory.

The genesis of our SWG is the observation that the “object lesson” or the “intuitive method” was a significant nineteenth and early twentieth century pedagogical innovation in many settings around the globe yet it has generally speaking not yet received systematic, concerted history of education research attention. Of particular significance are the ways that ideas and practices related to teaching through/with objects and in relation to the senses circulated trans-nationally. Many were the ways that information about this set of innovations circulated, including for example the reports of C. Hippeau (1803-1883) and F. Buisson (1841-1932) who, like others either on their own initiative or commissioned by various governments, produced detailed reports on new developments in the educational field in America and in Europe.   Object teaching could be praised for its modernizing qualities, its alignment with the child´s nature, as well as for its effectiveness in improving teaching practice. Moreover, it is our contention that this pedagogical movement reorganized pedagogical practice in in depth and breadth that historians of education have only begun to explore.

Please send proposals to mjwarde@uol.com.br.