Franky Simon

The school desk: from concept to object

In the authors’ aim to go beyond the ‘silent’ school desk they returned to sources such as public contracts, photographs, advertising leaflets and (the often neglected) patents kept in the municipal archives of Brussels. In this article, they focus on the first half of the twentieth century and two phases of the ‘life‐cycle’ of the school desk, namely the design phase on the one hand and the production phase on the other hand. What desks were designed and by whom (cf. patents)? Which desks were effectively produced for use in the municipal schools of Brussels? The transition between these two phases – the place where only some designs were brought to ‘life’ – occupies a special place. The paper concludes with a case study on the school furniture of Oscar Brodsky, a designer who kindled the authors’ interest through his publicity campaign of the 1920s and 1930s.

About Pedagogization: From the Perspective of the History of Education

For history researchers, it is not a needless luxury to consider from time to time the content and the significance of the basic concepts they use, certainly if they have the ambition to interpret and/or explain history in addition to purely describing it. This self-reflection, compelled by the annually recurring dialogue with educational philosophers (cf. Smeyers & Depaepe, 2006),2 need not necessarily place an emphasis on philosophical abstraction but can just as well start from an examination of the history of one’s own research. Such an approach need not succumb to navel-gazing. Instead, such historical self-reflection possibly points to the creeping (and thereby largely unconscious) shifts in meaning that accompany various fashions (consider the swirling ‘turns’ of recent years), which affect the social scientific vocabulary (historiographic, philosophical, pedagogical, psychological sociological, etc.). By rendering such developments explicit, the epistemological wrestling with the stream of experiences we call ‘history’, a process that can be chaotic, may in the future perhaps be somewhat less sloppy. Admittedly, even the most critical concepts that emerged from our own work (which is discussed here) were not always used with methodological care and/or theoretical purity.

Inner‐scientific Reconstructions in the Discourse on Masturbation (1760–1950)

One of the main objectives of this article is to demonstrate that the onanism discourse is a constitutive part of the history of science. The authors argue that culturalist and externalist explanations of the phenomenon of masturbation are incomplete, and, on the basis of the theory of science of Thomas Nickles, they propose an inner‐scientific explanation. The article thus considers almost 200 years of the history of onanism discourse starting from the famous publication of Samuel‐Auguste Tissot (1760). Particular attention is given to the turning point that occurred after about 1810, when scientific psychology brought about the end of the medical onanism discourse.

Sources in the Making of Histories of Education: Proofs, Arguments, and Other Forms of Reasoning from the Historian’s Workplace

As we have often said in the past, historical research presents certain problems for the behavioural sciences. When we think about the history of education, can it, as the title of this book seems to suggest, be conceived of simply as a subdivision of educational research? And does the argumentative structure that is developed in this domain of knowledge automatically give rise to the construction of ‘one’, let alone, ‘the’ language of education? In our opinion, the history of education, if it wants to be valid, must in any event bear the stamp of what Michel de Certeau once called the ‘historiographical operation’ (see, e.g., Delacroix, Garcia, Dosse, & Trebitsch, 2002. And this historiography,in the literal sense of the word, does not allow itself simply to be dictated by the area to which it is applied, which of course does not prevent interdisciplinarity (commencing from the object studied) from being woven into it.

Visualising disability in the past

In recent years there has been a growth in interdisciplinary work which has argued that disability is not an isolated, individual medical pathology but instead a key defining social category like ‘race’, class and gender. 1 Seen in this way disability provides researchers with another analytic tool for exploring the nature of power. Running almost parallel in time with these academic developments has been a growing interest in the use of the visual in educational research. This growth in interest may be explained by Catherine Burke’s observation that images – line drawings, still photography, film, video and digital technologies – have accompanied the development of state education from its beginning and that ‘the camera within the School has its own historical narrative reflecting change and continuities in ways of seeing education and children over time’. 2 In 2007 a workshop was held at the European Conference on Educational Research, Ghent which brought together academics to engage in an interdisciplinary dialogue around a set of images that capture disability and pedagogical practice. 3 This article consists of three commentaries on the photographs (Devlieger; Van Hove and Vanobbergen; Grosvenor) which were given at the workshop and some reflective remarks written after the workshop (Simon). The commentators were given a maximum of 10 minutes each and their points are presented here very much as they were in the workshop, but references have been added and appear in the footnotes. 4 The article opens with some brief contextual information about the archive which holds the selected photographs and the process by which the workshop came into being. 1 See, for example, Catherine J. Kudlick, “Disability History: Why We Need Another ‘Other’,” American Historical Review 108, no. 3 (2003): 763–793. 2 C. Burke, “Visualising the body of the school child: critical reflections on spaces of representation,” unpublished paper, 2. 3 Thanks are offered to Dr Catherine Burke, lead convenor of Network 17 Histories of Education, for organising the workshop 4 There was a fourth commentary at the workshop by Dr Paul Conway, University of Cork.

Crossing the Atlantic to Gain Knowledge in the Field of Psycho-Pedagogy: The 1922 Mission of Ovide Decroly and Raymond Buyse to the USA and the Travel Diary of the Latter

In their chapter (Chap. 4), Marc Depaepe, Lieven D’hulst and Frank Simon deal with a remarkable historical example: ‘Crossing the Atlantic to Gain Knowledge in the Field of Psycho-pedagogy: The 1922 Mission of Ovide Decroly and Raymond Buyse to the USA and the Travel Diary of the Latter’. They use a recent publication (Depaepe & D’hulst, 2011) reflecting the ubiquitous American influence on the construct of psycho-pedagogical sciences in Belgium, to clarify the extent to which space, in the geographical sense of the word, has helped shape researchers’ mental structures, often for a lifetime. The publication contains the travel notes (in the original French and translated into English) of the future professor Raymond Buyse, made during his study trip to the United States—the country of choice for immigrants, at least that is the way in which it is impressed in our collective memory—together with Ovide Decroly in the spring of 1922. These notes are a gold mine for cultural-historical research into mental migration as well as into the related perception of the cultural context from which one wishes to import scientific opinions, ideas, theories, methods and techniques. On the other hand, they also reveal the reverse side of the scientific activity that these men went to study there, from the perspective of the history of science, among other things, as a consequence of their uncensored naivete and stereotyping. The article is arranged into two parts: the first deals with the study trip and its mission, in relation with the general landscape of an emerging science of education as well as with the individual careers of the travellers and scientists. With some imagination, one can put this section under the heading macro space. The second deals with some more specific aspects of the travel as reflected by the notes of Buyse. With the same imagination, one can call this the micro space of the travel diary.

Valorising the cultural heritage of the school desk through historical research

From a historical point of view it is not only possible to adopt an innovative approach concerning the way the material culture and representation of educational research are examined, but the historical study itself can also contribute to a revamping of the material scholarly culture and the way it is represented. The latter can be brought about both by means of research projects being set up with an intrinsic finality, as well as via projects contemplating an alternative way of disseminating and communicating scientific findings. In our chapter we substantiate this thesis on the basis of the example of the school desk, which we deal with at various different levels of historiography. First, we will delve into the iconic and metaphorical use of the ‘school desk’ on covers, in titles, slogans and so on. These are often historical images that have been extracted from their original context and appropriated in a way that no longer wants to represent traditional or historical practices. Historical research on the educational uses of the school desk, however, can help explain its symbolic value for the present day (which is also revealed by the fact that virtually all education museums include displays of school desks). Second, starting from a recent study on the innovative value of the school desks of Oscar Brodsky we will show how alternative paths have to be explored in order to successfully link the long tradition of uses of the desk with the process of modernization. Up to now—and this is our third issue—the historiography of the school desk has been framed almost exclusively within a Foucouldian paradigm, a research tradition which bears several inconveniences for a dynamic approach towards the historical relationship of the educational actors (teachers and pupils) with the school desk. This resulted, among other things, in the school desk primarily being conceived of as a static object, even in the historical study of the educational process. Hence, we argue in the fourth section for a more dynamic approach. In our view, instead of isolating the school desk as a source for historical research, future-oriented research should contextualize its use, not only against the background of the prevailing educational practices, but also in relation to the existing cultural-historical practices in other social fields. Studies on the ‘grammar of schooling’ and the ‘grammar of educationalization’, such as those that we have undertaken in the past, but which are also at the head of various other initiatives, constitute a good starting point for this. In the final section we discuss to what extent education museums in general and specific exhibition projects in particular can help to realize such a dynamic historical understanding. On the one hand, it is obvious that there exists within the world of education museums a great potential to valorise the cultural heritage of the materialities of schooling in relation to the history of educational practices. On the other hand, however, this same world has remained so amateurish and conservative that the danger of a romanticized and nostalgic interpretation is lurking around almost every corner, although we can certainly point to one or two promising initiatives in the direction we have described as desirable.

Persistenz einer Nischenschule: Hundert Jahre Decroly-Schule in Brüssel, Belgien

Im Fruhjahr 2007 begingen die Decrolyaner den hundertsten Grundungstag der von dem belgischen Reformpadagogen Ovide Decroly (1871–1932) in Ukkel (Brussel) errichteten Ecole de l’Ermitage (auf die wir im weiteren Verlauf als „Decroly-Schule“ verweisen). Aus diesem Anlass wurde ein reichhaltig illustriertes Buch mit dem bekannten Slogan „Fur das Leben, durch das Leben“ als Leitfaden herausgegeben. Dieses Buch will vielleicht mehr noch als fur die Ikone Decroly eine Ehrbezeugung fur die Decroly-Methode und Decrolys Anhanger, die Decrolyaner, sein, die diese Methode bis zum heutigen Tage unvermindert propagieren und in der Praxis anwenden (vgl. Guillaume et al. 2007). Ein erster Teil des Buches wendet sich anhand eines ABC dem Satzteil „durch das Leben“ zu. Dieses Verzeichnis besteht aus gut vierzig Schlusselbegriffen, die unter anderem auf Charakteristika der Decroly-Methode wie z.B. observer, association, expression und globalisation verweisen. Der Satzteil „fur das Leben“ wird im zweiten Teil anhand von 50 Portrats ehemaliger Schuler ausgearbeitet, die, wie es dort heist, inzwischen ihren Weg im Leben gefunden haben.

Reaching Adulthood. Cultural Transmission and Intergenerational Relations within the Familiy in the Netherlands in the Nineteenth Century

Only recently, historians have begun to study the question of how parents actually raised their children within their family, and how transmission of norms and values, knowledge and emotions, and patterns of behaviour within families took place.This article concentrates on the passage from adolescence to adulthood through the theme of marriage formation and partner choice. Discussion centres upon how parents viewed and reacted to the marriage plans of their children and whether parents and children agreed or disagreed on this matter. Therefore it will be seen whether the adolescents could pursue their own ambitions and develop a personal identity, or if their personal ambitions were secondary to the familys main goal of maintaining the family enterprise and remaining in the upper strata of the society of Amsterdam in the nineteenth century.The main sources used in this article are personal documents (such as diaries, letters and autobiographies) of both parents and children of leading families in ninetee...

Afterword: inexhaustible cultural learning

Mons, the 2015 European Capital of Culture, opened five new museums and a concert hall in the same year,2 providing a challenge for me to take a closer look at the artistic agenda of this material cultural explosion at the Mons exhibition sites, locations marked by a hybridity derived from the work-related migration of the Industrial Era (i.e. coal mining). Moreover, the initiatives didn’t stop at the borders of Mons but expanded to, among others, Charleroi, Namur, Brussels, and Valenciennes. The partner programmes involved Belgian and international artists, contemporary and classical art, museum projects, installations, town walks (street-corner creations), graffiti, and so on. I visited three exhibitions: La salle des pendus, a Gesamtkunstwerk by the French visual artist Christian Boltanski calling to mind the coal miners’ cloakroom, and exploring themes of memory, reminiscence, the unconscious, childhood, and death; Atopolis (a title alluding to the ideas of the Martinican writer Edouard Glissant who has philosophised on both identity and migration), a contemporary art exhibition presenting a group of artists interested in phenomena of circulation, diaspora, and cultural dislocation, installing an atopolis, or a proposal for an ideal city, connected to everyplace, or anyplace3 and Rops/Fabre-Facing Time in Namur, in which Félicien Rops posthumously invited the innovative visual artist Jan Fabre to tour his city, taking in museums and outdoor spaces. In addition to the open museum concept, already firmly in place for several decades, and establishing a clear link to the outside world, and the concept of the “imaginary museum” that intrudes upon the artwork’s genesis and its process of development, the three exhibitions also had their creative interaction with time in common.4 These are “a-historical” exhibitions, detached from traditional chronological arrangement, a phenomenon that also started in the 1980s, aiming to reveal resemblances between works from what may be distant periods and cultures.5 This is best illustrated by the Fabre/Rops imaginary dialogue and the configuration around Boltanski’s Les registres du Grand-Hornu, commemorating 3500 miners. By means of photographs, objects, and light – the traces of disappeared bodies – the French artist tries to conciliate individual and collective memory, the border between absence and presence, and challenges time and forgetting (e.g. the pile of miners’ coats evoking association with the stacked clothes of Jews murdered in Nazi concentration camps). The three exhibitions illustrate the fundamental changes undergone by museums since the 1980s (both concepts have increasingly become interchangeable). Museums have repositioned themselves in today’s culture, having become highly visible in our day-to-day social environment, among others by involving children in museum activities.6 On the other hand, their historical purpose, the acquisition, preservation, and dissemination of their collections (cf. the