ABSTRACT

In the early nineteenth century, the ideas of reform pedagogues gave rise to a didactic turn towards the visual that criticised an exclusive textual mediation of knowledge through books and lectures. To raise educational effectualness, teachers came under increasing pressure to incorporate high-profile media technologies into their lessons. Yet, top-down initiatives to implement new instructional technology often fell short of expectations when logistical and financial challenges and teachers’ practices and preferences were not taken into account. However, most of the existing studies on the introduction and proliferation of high-profile educational technology in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Western education have focused on industry-led promotional efforts or governmental initiatives to introduce commercially produced media into the classroom. As such, they lend insight into the normative discourse surrounding the construction of the ideal of the tech-savvy teacher, but have mostly overlooked teachers’ agency, as well as the difficulties teachers met in the implementation. This paper investigates how, between 1900 and 1940, Belgian secondary school teachers dealt with the tension between professional pressures and expectations on the one hand, and their individual preferences and possibilities on the other hand. It does so by comparing the discourse of educational media advocates and governmental actors with teachers’ accounts of their visual media practices as documented in teachers’ pre-class preparations and notes.

摘要

在 19 世纪初，改革教育家的思想引起了对视觉的说教转向，批评了通过书籍和讲座对知识的排他性文本中介。为了提高教育效果，教师们承受着越来越大的压力，需要将备受瞩目的媒体技术纳入他们的课程。然而，当没有考虑到后勤和财务挑战以及教师的实践和偏好时，实施新教学技术的自上而下的举措往往达不到预期。然而，大多数关于在 19 世纪末和 20 世纪初西方教育中引入和推广高知名度教育技术的现有研究都集中在行业主导的宣传努力或政府举措上，以将商业生产的媒体引入课堂。因此，他们对围绕科技型教师理想建构的规范性话语提供了洞察，但大多忽略了教师的能动性，以及教师在实施过程中遇到的困难。本文调查了 1900 年至 1940 年间，比利时中学教师如何处理一方面专业压力和期望之间的紧张关系，另一方面他们的个人偏好和可能性。