Social Transformation and Creation of Meaning in Teacher’s and Student’s Testimonies at the Second Stage of the Freinet Movement in Spain

Abstract

This paper begins with a brief overview of who was Celestin Freinet and how their pedagogy was spread throughout the thirties at the Republican Spain and then focuses on how their ideas were used again at schools during the Spanish democratic transition through three testimonies. The reflections of two teacher members of Movimiento Cooperativo de Escuela Popular (MCEP) and one student of the Valencian school that achieved to meet the more Freinet's teachers following this perspective in their classrooms, will be the leitmotif of some key issues of Freinet's pedagogy and will lead us to detect renovating questions that Freinet formulated and which remain in force today. Some of them are not fulfilled while others are part of the teacher's imaginary, such as inserting the assembly with students, connecting the school with the environment by going out for environmental research or having a library in the class.