L’éducation en prison à la périphérie de l’éducation pour tous

International Review of Education - Prison education on the margins of education for all – Prison education is an issue which would benefit from a more active role of initiative on the part...     

Une personnalité du monde de l’Éducation nouvelle: Charles Ange Laisant (1841–1920) et son combat politique pour une éducation rationnelle fondée sur la science

In the world of nineteenth‐century educators Charles Ange Laisant occupies a special place. Laisant’s training, which was that of the French elite, opened up an administrative career but at the same time he continued to work and publish in the subject area of mathematics. His research demonstrates that he was clearly an accepted member of the scientific world, and he met the most eminent mathematicians of his day. Laisant played a major role in structuring the mathematical community, both nationally and internationally. He participated prominently in the battle that led to a change in the status and teaching of science in many countries in the early twentieth century. He is also one of those individuals who dedicated themselves to the renewal of pedagogy and to the goals of the new education. Yet, Laisant is still largely unknown; perhaps because of the profusion of his activities and interests he remains beyond the limits of traditional analysis. The author has chosen here, after retracing Laisant’s life in all its diversity, to focus on the profound unity of thought that characterised his mind. Laisant’s life as an educator allows us to understand how politics, science and teaching were inextricably linked, and to witness how personalities so diverse, even opposing, could come together to pursue common goals of educational reform.     

Correspondance entre élèves : conditions d’une activité mathématique « créative » et problématisée à la fin du lycée

In this article, we characterized the forms of reasoning of French high school students (from Terminal Scientifique) in the course of an exchange of messages around the solution of a mathematical problem. Our goal was to determine whether or not the students make use of creative and investigative forms of reasoning. The results show that in the experimental conditions of the ‘mathematical correspondence,’ the students displayed an unusual mathematical problem-solving activity, one that is indeed more creative and investigative than those typically found in a classroom activity. The results are accompanied by an effort to explain the conditions that allowed for this unusual activity to develop and to suggest some paths to use this setting in the classroom, so as to facilitate better learning in problem-solving contexts and the transition from high school to university.     

L’héritage de la méthode suédoise d’éducation physique en France: les conflits de méthode au sein de l’Ecole normale de gymnastique et d’escrime de Joinville au début du XXème siècle

The Swedish physical education method has had a singular destiny in France. Originally created by the Swedish Per Henrik Ling (1776–1839), it first spread in France thanks to German doctors. From 1902, the Swedish method became the official method of the Ecole normale de gymnastique et d’escrime de Joinville. It caused serious dissension first within the army, between Georges Hébert, a naval officer attempting to spread his own method called ‘Méthode naturelle’, and Emile Coste, a major at Joinville school who was a resolute supporter of Ling’s method; then within Joinville school, where, from 1905, Georges Demeny, renowned physiologist, tried to impose his French method ‘Eclectique’. The three protagonists would use arguments focused on the rationality of the Swedish method to legitimize or criticize it. But this explicit stake based on the validity of the link between a scientific culture – anatomy and physiology – and a physical education method does not mask the implicit stake of real power.