HISTORY

Origin of the name of our center

Who was Andrés Manjón i Manjón?

Andrés Manjón and Manjón was born on November 30, 1846 in Sargentes de la Lora (Burgos). Of humble origin, he is educated by his uncle, rector of Sargentes, and his mother. According to him, he was a reluctant boy to go to school despite having great qualities for the study. Finally, he studied philosophy and law. Regarding philosophy, he was greatly influenced by the ideas of the great philosopher Immanuel Kant, very committed to the postulates of the Enlightenment, especially with regard to the supremacy of reason as an instrument of intellectual, ethical knowledge and spiritual

After completing his studies, he arrived in Valladolid to practice teaching. Later, he held the chair of Roman Law at the University of Salamanca. In 1878 he won by opposition the chair of Ecclesiastical Law at the University of Santiago de Compostela. In 1880 he held the same chair in Granada, where he lived the rest of his life and where, in 1885, he ordained a priest. At the end of 1889 and as they tell, when he passed before one of the "Sacromonte" caves, he was impressed when he heard the children recite "Ave María." It is said that this assumption made it very predisposing to initiate its pedagogical work that materialized in the so-called "Schools of Ave María". His idea of education, according to some versions, was quite herculean of his Kantian conception and the prescriptions of the so-called Active School , initiated by Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi and developed by Maria Montesori .

The game in the manjian pedagogy.

The game is one of the main aspects of the pedagogy that promoted and, although Andrés was not the creator of this concept, he was able to develop it extraordinarily when he joined the curriculum of the Schools of the Ave María. This idea about the pedagogical influence of the game was based, according to this conception, on the need of the child, especially in the children's stage of play. The game, from this perspective, is postulated as an innate fact manifests itself in the child's own active nature. That's why the pedagogue will develop a broad theory, which has not been disused, in which he advocates teaching to play. Theory, which introduced in the curriculum of those activities that are susceptible to incorporate it, helping in this way a better retention of the matter in the cognitive structures of the child.

For this reason, and watching the children's games at the Ave María Schools, you will devise several "pedigree puppets" that we can divide into two groups. The first one consists of the games that will build the "squares of the cármenes" on the pavement. These have come to us due to the nature of their materiality as they were built with very resistant components, which, together with the tradition of the construction techniques used, typical of the area: granadino paved stone and mud bricks cooked, has allowed its easy maintenance and repair. Thus, we can find all kinds of games along the course of the Schools. Maps, planetaries, etc., populate a magical space that is developed in the middle of nature at the foot of the monumental complex of the Alhambra and the Generalife .

The second group consists of what we could today call toys: tabs, wooden tablets, pockets with letters and numbers ..., in short, all those objects whose purpose was to teach playing.

Principles

In another context, the life of Andrés Manjón falls into two characteristic moments of the History of Spain: "the era of the reign of Isabel II" and "the Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera". His sensitivity to the events of his time was reflected in his books. Its principles are patents in this passage that is attributed to it:

"Against ignorance, instruction as far as possible; against extreme poverty, relief to wherever you can; against the demoralization of the family, the straight constitution and ordination of Spain; against the public scandal, the influence of a severe morale and the good example; Against the inveterate and deep evils, secular and radical remedies. "

Why our school named Andrés Manjón and Manjón

Maria Lliteres and Gabriel Jordà were, in the sixties of the last century, the drivers of our first school project. Precisely because they maintained the conception of the active school, as in Andrés Manjon, and being this one of the highest representatives of the aforementioned pedagogical tendency, they decided to call the center with the name of this intellectual. The center has tried to keep its educational work uninterrupted from its inception, without renouncing many of the principles of Manjon. Obviously the school has had to adapt to the multiple, fast and successive changes that have happened, and still now, our Educational System and also the changes introduced by the different owners, especially in the last ten years.

One of the most significant changes occurred in the nineties, when the so-called LOGSE, General Organic Law of the Education System was approved. This law changed radically the previous educational system, homogenizing the structure and functions of all schooling. This meant that our center had to decide to add to the new curriculum, to the new methodology, if I wanted to continue its vocation as a concerted school.

Another important change: since 2007 the management was in the hands of a group of workers and workers of the center, teachers and service personnel, constituting itself in the Sociedad Cooperativa Educativa Manjon. With this decision, the dissolution of the school is most likely avoided. A path, however, not free of problems, increased by the changes that have been produced in the general economic and social issue of our environment. The cooperative, however, accepted the challenge. And here we are, at your service, trying to use the principles that are defined in our page and that are compatible in the current educational framework.