Fernando Alcoforado*
This article aims to present the innovations that have occurred in education throughout the history of humanity. The word innovation essentially means novelty. The word innovation refers to an idea, method or object that is created and that bears little resemblance to previous standards.. Innovation can also be defined as doing more with fewer resources, by allowing efficiency gains in processes, whether productive, administrative or financial, or in the provision of services. Innovation can occur either through a perfectly planned action or by simple chance. However, empirically it has been found that few innovations arise by chance. Most innovations in education, especially the most successful ones, have resulted from a conscious and intentional search for opportunities to innovate by introducing something new. Innovations in education can be classified into two large groups: a) Radical or Disruptive Innovation, which is characterized by the incessant search for something new that leads to the rupture and breaking of previous paradigms; and b) Incremental Innovation or Innovation through a Process of Continuous Improvement, which is characterized by a constant and gradual search for improvement.
1. Innovation in education in Antiquity (From the 8th century BC to the 5th century AD) [1]
In the Antiquity, the people of Phoenicia, who occupied the region of present-day Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Israel, innovated by simplifying the writing technique until they finally arrived at a purely alphabetical system. In Ancient Greece, writing was not used as a means of learning. When it first appeared, writing was reserved for other purposes such as recording important and epic events, such as wars. Despite being a slave society, it was in Ancient Greece that the innovative idea of a state school emerged, proposed at the end of the 4th century BC by the philosopher Aristotle because he understood that only with equal education for all citizens, under the responsibility of the State and public, would it be possible to achieve its goal of promoting the common good. Aristotle argued that education should be public and not private. The Roman Empire was the first to promote the innovation of an official education system, based on a centralized body and under the responsibility of the State. Education in the Roman Empire was also divided into levels, starting with primary education and continuing through to higher education. The poorest, when educated, usually completed only primary education, which provided the young people with basic writing and arithmetic skills. Wealthy young people, on the other hand, had broad access to education.
2. Innovation of education in the Middle Ages (From the 5th to the 15th centuries) [1]
The monastery was the first space for organizing and preserving knowledge in the Middle Ages. The concept of a place specifically designed for the systematization of teaching and knowledge was an innovation in education that arose from the Christian idea of evangelization present in the monastery and in the Christian schools of that time. The word escolare gave rise not only to the word school, but to the philosophical concept that guided teaching throughout the Middle Ages, which derived from this systematization of knowledge. For this reason, it was called Scholasticism. The Middle Ages are considered the age of “darkness”. Despite this, it was during this period that another great innovation in education occurred with the birth of the University in the year 1000, in Europe. Universities emerged when there was a meeting between the two parties interested in knowledge, a corporation of students and teachers operating inside the cathedrals. Regarding higher education, the oldest historical records report its existence in Italy, in Bologna to be more precise, in mid-1088. In the 12th century, the University of Paris was founded in France. Both institutions, completely disconnected from the Catholic Church and the State, were responsible for teaching medicine, astronomy, mathematics, and law, and served as a reference for the development of higher education throughout the world.
In the medieval period, a large part of the population at the time still did not have basic educational skills such as reading, writing, and doing mathematical calculations, until commerce began to grow, and these skills became a necessity for merchants, forcing the bourgeoisie to invest in a school, an institution for practical teaching that would help them grow even more financially, running their businesses with greater wisdom. In other words, the development of the school as an educational institution was an innovation in education that is closely linked to the bourgeoisie and capitalism. In addition to the university, another type of education emerged as an innovation in the Middle Ages from the year 1000 onwards: the craft guilds. The craft guilds are related to the new modes of production in which the relationship between science and manual operation is more developed and specialization is more advanced. It differs from school education in that it takes place in the workplace, where adolescent apprentices receive guidance from master shoemakers, jewelers, bakers, etc., under whose tutelage they are placed.
The innovations in education that emerged in the Middle Ages reflect a school in a mercantile society that begins to free itself completely from the Church and the Empire, sells its science, renews it and revolutionizes teaching methods. At the same time, an innovative philosophical movement emerges, Humanism, which gained strength in the 15th century and drove the Renaissance, a cultural, economic and political movement that emerged in Italy in the 14th century and lasted until the 17th century, and later, the Protestant Reformation. All of this contributed to the emergence of the Enlightenment in the 16th century, an intellectual, scientific and philosophical movement. Humanism had an aversion to medieval culture and its form of transmission, the school, under the aegis of the Catholic Church. In its criticism of medieval schools, there was a pedagogy that was against the physical punishments that were prevalent at the time and that of educating children considering their tender age and educating them according to their own nature.
In the 16th century, two proposals for education emerged: the Protestant Reformation and the Counter-Reformation led by the Catholic Church. These were the main concepts of education that were in force from the 16th century onwards and in the following centuries. The Protestant Reformation emerged with Lutheranism, which was the religious movement that had the greatest influence on schools in the early 16th century. Luther, who was a monk of the Catholic Church, broke with Catholicism and created his own church in Germany. The expansion of schools began in Europe with religious reforms, especially the Lutheran reform, which introduced as an innovation in education the requirement that boys and girls attend school without distinction of class. In turn, the Counter-Reformation was an initiative of the Catholic Church with the purpose of maintaining its dogmas in an uncompromising manner, questioned by the defenders of the Protestant Reformation and its prerogative over education. In response to the Lutheran Reformation, the Catholic Church established seminaries designed to provide religious education and instruction in ecclesiastical disciplines for new priests, as well as a study program for young people. The Jesuits were notable for combating Protestantism.
3. Innovation in education in the Modern Age (From the 15th to the 18th centuries) [1]
In the 16th and 17th centuries, education gained momentum and took on a new form with the innovation of school classes divided by age and the proposal for boys and girls to attend school, which were achievements of this era. The 16th century marked the beginning of the end of the hegemony of the Catholic Church in education, as education was no longer provided exclusively in monasteries and cathedrals. At this time, the churches created by religious reforms, especially the Lutheran reform, played a fundamental role in education with their emphasis on families sending their children to school. In the 17th century, another innovation in education occurred with the pedagogical renewal proposed by Jan Comenius of “teaching everything to everyone” based on empiricism (direct observation of things). Comenius proposed a school for life that, divided into degrees, would teach everything to everyone completely. Comenius is the founder of didactics and, in part, of modern pedagogy. He is considered one of the greatest names in Western education and pedagogy. He is the precursor of the objective method, of the most advanced teaching materials possible and of experiments carried out directly by the teacher. It was in the 17th century that the pedagogical renewal began. The pedagogy of the countries that adhered to the reform followed the inspiration of the new Protestant churches, while the pedagogy of Catholic countries was Jesuit until the 18th century.
4. Innovation in education in the 18th century (1701 to 1800) [2]
The 18th century was a landmark moment in the history of humanity because it was at this time that the Enlightenment emerged in Europe and the Industrial Revolution took place in England, transforming global society by leveraging the development of capitalism across the planet. It was also at this time that the Independence of the United States and the French Revolution took place, driven by the ideal of the Enlightenment. As expected, all of these events contributed to advances in the field of education. The 18th century was marked by numerous transformations that were greatly influenced by Enlightenment ideas. Education as a right for all, the obligation of the State to maintain schools, the right to free public education, and the guarantee that public schools would not be under the control of any religious creed (secularism) were all causes defended by the revolutionary bourgeoisie, but which were not fully put into practice after it became the ruling class.
In the centuries leading up to the Industrial Revolution in England in 1786, as Europe made its first advances in both technology and commerce, the importance of education began to increase. From this moment on, for the first time in history, there was innovation in education with the training of human resources geared towards meeting the needs of industrialization by a workforce equipped with literacy, mathematical, and mechanical skills. Workers developed skills mainly through on-the-job training. Industrialization (1st Industrial Revolution in 1786 and 2nd Industrial Revolution in 1850) triggered a revolution in mass education in several countries in Europe and the United States. The development of certain skills was necessary for the creation of an industrial society. Industrialized countries around the world supported the provision of public education.
The 1st Industrial Revolution and the birth of factories created space for the emergence of the modern public school institution. The factory and the school were born together, and the laws that created state schools came together with the laws that suppressed corporate learning. The Catholic influence on education began to decline, and its decline increased in the 19th century, with the end of the Jesuit order. In the 18th century, the process of secularization of education advanced with the elimination of religious influence. From the 18th century onwards, it was considered a requirement for a worker to be at least literate and able to operate the machines that were the symbol of the industrial revolution, and the right to education was recognized for women and the people in general, an education that would free them from conditions of backwardness and psychological and cognitive marginalization and place them as productive elements within society.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau is considered the father of modern pedagogy because his thinking was the most advanced because he sought to show man how to achieve happiness, both in relation to the individual and in relation to society. When formulating his pedagogy, he outlined the guidelines with the aim of making the child a good adult based on his belief in the natural goodness of man. For Rousseau, the objectives of education include two aspects: the development of the child’s natural potential and his distancing from social evils. The French Revolution of 1789 innovated in the field of education by promoting state intervention in education traditionally entrusted to the Catholic Church, with the adoption of a policy aimed at a school that develops the student’s abilities, establishes true equality among citizens, achieves complete freedom of education and values scientific culture. Five levels of school were established: primary, secondary, institutes, lyceums and universities (National Society for the Sciences and Arts).
After Napoleon Bonaparte came to power in France, he imposed French interests in Europe, also spreading secular, state and civil guidelines in the reorganization of education systems. Despite the revolutionary force emanating from France, innovative proposals for state intervention in the field of education had already been taking place before 1789 in several countries. It was in 1717, in Prussia, that public education was instituted as compulsory schooling for children between the ages of 5 and 12, by King Frederick William. Later, laws were passed that prevented the hiring of any child who did not complete this compulsory education. This compulsory education was of great interest to the State for the training of soldiers and workers, but it revolutionized society in several aspects. It was King Frederick William who inaugurated the Prussian compulsory education system, the first national system in Europe. In 1717, he ordered compulsory attendance for all children in state schools and, in later acts, followed through with the provision for the construction of more schools. In England, at the end of the 18th century, mutual education emerged, an innovative educational initiative promoted by private individuals in which adolescents taught directly by the teacher acted as assistants or monitors teaching other adolescents. In England, a pioneer of the industrial revolution, there was a tendency for education to be provided by private initiative using the mutual education method, unlike Germany and France, where the state initiative prevailed.
5. Innovation in education in the 19th century (1801 to 1900) [2]
In the 19th century, innovations emerged in the field of pedagogy with Pestalozzi’s pedagogies, as well as positivist and socialist pedagogies. Pestalozzi’s pedagogy revisits Rousseau’s pedagogy, which considered that man is good and needs to be assisted in his development. It considers that moral, intellectual and professional education should be developed in close connection with each other. It also considered that it is necessary for instruction to take into account the different experiences that each student must have in their own environment. Émile Durkheim’s positivist pedagogy considered education to be social learning and a means of conforming individuals to the collective norms and values of society. The socialist pedagogy proposed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels considered that education means intellectual training, physical education and technological instruction, and that it is through education that society is transformed. Marx and Engels defended the thesis that schools should be entirely secular and free from the influence of the Church and the State.
In 1833, a law revolutionized primary education in France and the world: the law that established the obligation of a primary school for children in communes with more than 500 inhabitants, in addition to a school for training primary school teachers in each French department. Jules Ferry, then Minister of Education, approved a law in 1881 that established free schooling, and in 1882 a second law that made education compulsory and secular for children aged 3 to 6. These laws served as a starting point for new laws on education that would emerge throughout the world. The French Revolution attempted to shape students based on class consciousness, which was the center of the program content. The bourgeoisie was clear about what it wanted from education: workers trained as citizens who participated in a new liberal and democratic society. England began to feel pressure for school education with the Industrial Revolution. The expansion of schools was consolidated in the 19th century when the interest in education as an element of valorization of a nation became evident.
The innovation represented by Distance Education (EAD), widely used today, mediated by technologies in which students and teachers are separated spatially and/or temporally, that is, they are not physically present in a face-to-face teaching-learning environment, has been known since the 19th century. The improvement of postal services, the streamlining of means of transportation and, above all, the technological development applied to the field of communication and information had a decisive influence on the fate of distance education. From then on, the use of a new means of communication began, the radio, invented by Marconi in 1896, which also penetrated formal education. Radio achieved great success in national and international experiments, having been widely explored in Latin America in distance education programs, including in Brazil.
6. Innovation in education in the 20th century (From 1901 to 2000) [2]
In the 20th century, the educational debate involved two major theoretical currents: the New School and the Marxist conception, the first identified with capitalism and the second with socialism. Neither of these two currents was fully applied. The New School was the pedagogical current with the greatest influence on education in the 20th century. Its theorist was John Dewey, who had Anísio Teixeira as his follower in Brazil. John Dewey defended the thesis that schools could not remain oblivious to productive transformation and economic growth, highlighted the democratic function of education and valued science as a method of democratic education. Dewey’s pedagogy is inspired by pragmatism, in a permanent contact between the theoretical and practical moments, is intertwined with research in experimental sciences and, in particular, psychology and sociology, and is committed to constructing a philosophy of education aimed at forming citizens with a modern, scientific mindset and open to collaboration. Dewey’s pedagogy is part of a movement called “active school” or “new school” from the end of the 19th century to the 1930s. Dewey’s pedagogy values the child, placing him or her at the center of the didactic activity, opposing the authoritarian characteristics of the traditional school.
Marxist pedagogy established a connection between education and society because all educational practices incorporate values and ideological interests linked to the economic and political structure of society. It adopted educational strategies that considered the centrality of work in the formation of people focused on the future and the priority role that it should assume, emphasizing the value of the integral human education of all people freed from conditions of submission and alienation. In the pre-Stalinist era, Soviet schools were profoundly influenced by the pedagogy of Anton Makarenko, the greatest Russian pedagogue, who emphasized work, the collective, collaboration, the perspective of “joy in tomorrow” and happiness for all, and not just the happiness of the individual, as advocated by Rousseau and the revolutionaries of the Enlightenment. While John Dewey’s New School became a reference in capitalist countries, Marxism influenced education in the Soviet Union and in the socialist countries of Eastern Europe. Neither the New School was imposed in capitalist countries, nor did Marxist pedagogy take hold in the Soviet Union or in Eastern European countries.
The Marxist ideologist Antonio Gramsci formulated a richer pedagogical model. In his theorizing, he valued human activity that interprets and transforms reality. Gramsci believed that it is possible to bring together classes or social groups interested in building social change to build a cultural and political hegemony that opposes capitalism. Gramsci believed that cultural hegemony is built through the action of many educational institutions that must encompass every citizen. Gramsci developed the pedagogical proposal of the “single school” seeking to equate intellectual work and productive work, developing the ability to think and knowing how to direct oneself in life. As for the educational principle and content, he defended socialist humanism and the “single school of general culture” (intellectual work and manual work) followed by specialized (professional) schools.
In the 20th century, there were several original pedagogical innovations in developing countries that resonated in Europe and the United States, such as the adult education campaign applying innovative awareness-raising models, as Paulo Freire did in Brazil. According to Paulo Freire, within the few existing schools, a teaching-learning concept prevailed based on pedagogical content that was completely dissociated from the concrete socioeconomic reality experienced by Brazilian society at the time. Paulo Freire developed his “pedagogy of the oppressed”. For him, the transition from a “closed society” (agrarian) to an “open society” (urban-industrial) necessarily demanded the eradication of illiteracy, since the condition of existence of the illiterate implied the manifestation of a naïve consciousness in relation to the surrounding world and, therefore, reproduced the old agrarian social “status quo”. For Paulo Freire, it was therefore necessary to free the man who lived trapped in the “closed society” through access to the knowledge historically accumulated by humanity.
7. Innovation in education in the 21st century (2001 to the present) [2]
In the contemporary era, education has ceased to be solely in-person and has also become non-in-person or partially in-person with distance learning (EAD), which is, in modern times, a form of education mediated by technology in which students and teachers are separated spatially and/or temporally, that is, they are not physically present in a face-to-face teaching-learning environment. Today, education can be processed in person, semi-in-person, and distance learning. In-person education corresponds to regular courses where teachers and students always meet at an educational institution. Semi-in-person education takes place partly in the classroom and partly at a distance, using information technology. Currently, EAD allows the student to be included as the subject of his/her learning process, with the advantage that he/she also discovers ways to become an active subject of research and share content. In distance learning, there is no difference between its methodology and that used in in-person education. What changes, basically, is not the teaching methodology, but the form of communication. In this learning process, as in regular education, the learning advisor or tutor acts as a “mediator”, that is, the one who establishes a multidirectional communication and learning network.
Today, the possibilities of distance learning are broad. A distance learning course can be taken in practically the same format as a face-to-face course, with students watching teachers’ classes online, with audiovisual content displayed. Assessments can be done in real time, also online, with a set time for completion. The teaching methodology, the way of assessing student learning and the role of the teaching staff in distance learning have undergone a revolution. Abroad, there is a tendency of the end of the border between distance and face-to-face education. Courses that were previously exclusively face-to-face now include a part that is taught remotely. In Brazil, since the founding of the Monitor Institute in 1939, several distance learning experiences have been initiated and carried out with relative success. There have been many Brazilian experiences, both governmental and private, and in recent decades they have represented the mobilization of large contingents of resources. Currently, distance learning is mobilizing the pedagogical resources of almost the entire world, both in industrialized nations and in developing countries. New and more complex courses are being developed, both within the scope of formal education systems and in the areas of professional training.
Technological progress has facilitated the dissemination of knowledge, obscuring the centrality of the school, making it necessary to redefine its role in the contemporary era. The school is no longer the only locus that transmits knowledge. In the contemporary era, however, it is up to the school to fully educate people. The great challenge of education in the future is represented by the rapid changes that are occurring in the world of work due to technological advances, especially the impact of artificial intelligence, which emerged from Computer Science and is an extremely multidisciplinary area that involves Psychology, Neuroscience, Decision Theory and Economics, which could lead to the end of some professions and mass unemployment among skilled and unskilled workers. All of this suggests that we are experiencing a transition that is placing enormous strain on the economy and society. Education offered in its current format to workers and students preparing to enter the job market is likely to be ineffective. In other words, education systems are preparing workers for a world of work that is no longer existing.
These changes are requiring the adoption of new measures aimed at qualifying the workforce, which must know how to use technology as a complement, a tool, and not as a substitute for their skills. Some functions are being assigned to intelligent machines and systems. New functions for human beings are emerging in this new scenario. It is up to education system planners to identify the role of human beings in the world of work in a future with the presence of intelligent machines in order to carry out a broad revolution in education at all levels, including teacher qualifications and the structuring of teaching units to prepare their students for a world of work in which people will have to deal with intelligent machines. The curricula of teaching units at all levels must be profoundly restructured to achieve these objectives.
In order to adapt to the changes in the economy and society driven by technological advances, a revolution in education systems is already taking place in the contemporary era with regard to the adoption of new teaching methodologies such as those described below:
1. Classrooms – Instead of being intended for theory, classrooms will be aimed at practice. Students learn theory at home and practice in the classroom with the help of a teacher/mentor.
2. Personalized learning – Students will learn with tools that adapt to their own capabilities, and can learn at different times and places. This means that above-average students will be challenged with more difficult exercises and those with more difficulty will have the opportunity to practice more until they reach the desired level. This process will make teachers more capable of clearly seeing what type of help each student needs.
3. Free choice – Students will have the freedom to modify their learning process, choosing the subjects they want to learn based on their own preferences and will be able to use different devices, programs and techniques that they deem necessary for their own learning.
4. Practical applicability – Knowledge will not remain just in theory, it will be put into practice through projects so that students acquire mastery of the technique and also practice organization, teamwork and leadership.
5. EQ > IQ (emotional quotient > intelligence quotient) – Since technology brings more efficiency and is increasingly replacing human work in several areas, training should include the presence of essentially human skills and value social interactions even more. Schools should provide more opportunities for students to acquire real-world skills, which will make a difference in their work. This means more space for work programs, more collaborative projects, more practice.
6. The assessment system will change – Many argue that the way the question and answer system in tests is not effective, since many students just memorize the content and forget it the next day after the assessment. Furthermore, this system does not adequately assess what the student is actually capable of doing with that content in practice. Therefore, the trend is for assessments to occur through the implementation of real projects, with students getting their hands dirty.
Professor José Moran, one of the founders of the Escola do Futuro Project at USP (University of São Paulo), researcher and designer of innovative projects in education with an emphasis on values, active methodologies, flexible models and digital technologies, believes that the education of the future should have the following characteristics:
1. A single model, proposal or path for education should not be adopted. Working with challenges, with real projects, with games seems to be the most important path today, which can be carried out in various ways and in different contexts. Teaching can be done through problems and projects in a disciplinary model and in models without isolated disciplines; with more open models – with more participatory and procedural construction – and with more scripted models, prepared in advance, planned in their smallest details.
2. Some components are essential for successful learning: creating challenges, activities, and games that truly bring out the skills needed for each stage, that ask for relevant information, that offer stimulating rewards, that combine personal journeys with meaningful group participation, that are part of adaptive platforms, that recognize each student and at the same time learn through interaction, all using appropriate technologies. The articulator of the individual and group stages is the teacher, with his or her ability to monitor, mediate, analyze processes, results, gaps, and needs, based on the journeys taken by students individually and in groups. This new role of the teacher is more complex than the previous one of transmitting information. It requires preparation in broader skills, in addition to knowledge of the content, such as knowing how to adapt to the group and to each student; planning, monitoring, and evaluating meaningful and different activities.
3. Teaching and learning can be done in a much more flexible, active way, based on the pace of each student. The most interesting and promising model for using technology is to concentrate basic information in the virtual environment and more creative and supervised activities in the classroom. The combination of learning through challenges, real problems, and games is very important for students to learn by doing, learn together, and learn at their own pace. It is also crucial to give more value to the role of the teacher as a manager of rich processes of meaningful learning and not as a simple transmitter of information. If we change the mindset of teachers to be mediators, they will be able to use nearby resources, simple technologies, such as those found on cell phones, a camera to illustrate, a free program to combine images and tell interesting stories with them, and students to be authors and protagonists of their learning process.
4. The challenges of changes in education are structural. It is necessary to increase the number of quality schools, schools with good managers, teachers and infrastructure, that are able to motivate students and that truly promote meaningful, complex and comprehensive learning. There needs to be a career plan, training and appreciation for educational managers and teachers. Consistent training policies are needed to attract the best teachers, pay them well and qualify them better, and innovative management policies that bring successful management models to basic and higher education.
5. Educators need to learn to fulfill themselves as people and as professionals, in precarious and difficult contexts, learn to always evolve in all areas, to be more affective and at the same time know how to manage groups. They must become inspiring and motivating educators.
The management and infrastructure existing in an educational unit are important in teaching at any level. However, the success of student learning depends on the teacher, who, in the education of the future, would no longer be a mere transmitter of information to students and would take on the role of teaching coordinator in individual and group activities with his/her ability to monitor, mediate, analyze processes, results, gaps and needs, based on the paths taken by students individually and in groups. It has been proven worldwide that the teacher is the key to quality teaching and, therefore, improving student performance.
8. Conclusions
In Antiquity, from the 8th century BC to the 5th century AD, the major innovations in education were the development of writing in Sumeria, given that, until then, education was based on orality, and the creation of an official education system adopted by the Roman Empire because, until then, the State had not assumed its responsibilities for education. In the Middle Ages, from the 5th century to the 15th century, the major innovations in education occurred with the monastery becoming a place specifically designated for the systematization of education, with the birth of the University, with the bourgeoisie investing in schools for practical teaching, with the Guilds of Crafts that are distinguished from school education by the fact that education takes place in the workplace, and with the Protestant Reformation, which emerged with Lutheranism and influenced schools at the beginning of the 16th century, bringing as an innovation in education the requirement for the presence of boys and girls in school without distinction of class. In the Modern Age, from the 15th to the 18th century, major innovations in education occurred with school classes divided by age and boys and girls attending school, which were achievements of that time, and with the pedagogical renewal proposed by Jan Comenius of “teaching everything to everyone” based on empiricism (direct observation of things).
In the 18th century, major innovations in education occurred with public education instituted as compulsory schooling for children between the ages of 5 and 12 by King Frederick William of Prussia in 1717, with the Enlightenment thesis of considering education as a right for all, the obligation of the State to maintain schools, the right to free public education, the guarantee that public schools are not under the control of any religious creed (secularism), with the training of human resources aimed at meeting the needs of industrialization by a workforce equipped with literacy, mathematical literacy and mechanical skills, with the 1st Industrial Revolution and the emergence of the modern public school institution, with the requirement that workers be at least literate and capable of operating the machines that were the symbol of the industrial revolution and the recognition of the right to education for women and the people in general, with the French Revolution of 1789 that innovated in the field of education by promoting State intervention in education by adopting a policy that develops the student’s capabilities, which establishes true equality among citizens, which achieves complete freedom of education and values scientific culture, and with mutual teaching, an innovative educational initiative promoted by private individuals in England in which adolescents taught directly by the teacher acted as assistants or monitors teaching other adolescents.
In the 19th century, the great innovations in education occurred with the pedagogies of Pestalozzi, as well as the positivist pedagogies of Émile Durkheim and the socialist pedagogies proposed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, with the law of 1833 that established the obligation of a primary school for children and a school for training primary school teachers in each French department, with the laws of 1881 that established free schooling and of 1882 that made education compulsory and secular for children aged 3 to 6 in France and served as a starting point for new laws on education that would emerge throughout the world, and with Distance Education (EAD) that has been known since the 19th century. In the 20th century, major innovations in education occurred with the emergence of the New School formulated by John Dewey, which defended the thesis that schools could not remain oblivious to productive transformation and economic growth, highlighting the democratic function of education and valuing science as a method of democratic education, with the Marxist conception of education that adopted educational strategies considering the centrality of work in the formation of man focused on the future and the priority role that it must assume, emphasizing the value of the integrally human education of all people freed from conditions of submission and alienation, and with the adult education campaign applying innovative awareness models as Paulo Freire did in Brazil. In the 21st century, major innovations in education occurred with the development of distance education (EAD), which is, in modern times, a form of education mediated by technologies in which students and teachers are separated spatially and/or temporally, that is, they are not physically present in a face-to-face teaching-learning environment, and with the proposals for revolution in education systems that are already happening in the contemporary era with regard to the adoption of new teaching methodologies imposed by changes in the economy and society driven by technological advances.
REFERENCES
- ALCOFORADO, Fernando.The climb of education in the world from prehistory to the contemporary era (Part 1- The evolution of education from Prehistory to the 18th century). Available on the website <https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/climb-education-world-from-prehistory-contemporary-era-alcoforado-nlvvf/>.
- ALCOFORADO, Fernando. The climb of education in the world from prehistory to the contemporary era (Part 2 – The evolution of education in the world from the 18th to the 21st century). Available on the website <https://www.academia.edu/117990959/THE_CLIMB_OF_EDUCATION_IN_THE_WORLD_FROM_PREHISTORY_TO_THE_CONTEMPORARY_ERA_Part_2_>.
* Fernando Alcoforado, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System, member of the SBPC- Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science, IPB- Polytechnic Institute of Bahia and of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer from the UFBA Polytechnic School and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development from the University of Barcelona, college professor (Engineering, Economics and Administration) and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business planning, regional planning, urban planning and energy systems, was Advisor to the Vice President of Engineering and Technology at LIGHT S.A. Electric power distribution company from Rio de Janeiro, Strategic Planning Coordinator of CEPED- Bahia Research and Development Center, Undersecretary of Energy of the State of Bahia, Secretary of Planning of Salvador, is the author of the books Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Doctoral thesis. Barcelona University, http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2015), As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016), A Invenção de um novo Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017), Esquerda x Direita e a sua convergência (Associação Baiana de Imprensa, Salvador, 2018), Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019), A humanidade ameaçada e as estratégias para sua sobrevivência (Editora Dialética, São Paulo, 2021), A escalada da ciência e da tecnologia e sua contribuição ao progresso e à sobrevivência da humanidade (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2022), a chapter in the book Flood Handbook (CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida United States, 2022), How to protect human beings from threats to their existence and avoid the extinction of humanity (Generis Publishing, Europe, Republic of Moldova, Chișinău, 2023), A revolução da educação necessária ao Brasil na era contemporânea (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2023), Como construir um mundo de paz, progresso e felicidade para toda a humanidade (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2024) and How to build a world of peace, progress and happiness for all humanity (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2024).
Site Title 