- Biography
- Professional life
- Onomatopoeic method
- Contributions to education
- Historical knowledge
- Teaching
- Primary education
- References
Gregorio Torres Quintero was a Mexican teacher, pedagogue and developer of educational methods who was characterized by the creation of the onomatopoeic method. His improvements to teaching were recognized worldwide and his methods are still valid 80 years after his death.
He was born in a turbulent time in Mexican history and experienced the fall of the Second Mexican Empire, the establishment of the Porfiriato and the return of his nation to democratic ideology after the fall of Porfirio Díaz. His educational reforms began with the stage of school changes in Colima (his hometown) and spread throughout Mexico.
The onomatopoeic method for the teaching of reading is his most applauded creation for how innovative it was for the time, without leaving aside the effectiveness that it continues to have today in helping younger children learn to read.
Biography
Gregorio Torres Quintero was born on May 25, 1866 in Colima, Mexico. He was born into a family of humble origins and with little economic capacity. His father was a shoemaker who worked in the same city where he was born.
When he was only 17 years old, he began studying to become an educator. In view of the limited amount of economic resources that his family had, the government of Colima granted him the privilege of studying at the most prestigious institution for the training of educators in Mexico: the National School of Teachers.
He completed his training in 1891 and dedicated himself to practicing his profession as soon as he could, beginning a life of personal successes, but above all, achievements for the field of education worldwide.
Professional life
During the government of Porfirio Díaz he was a teacher at the school that bore the same name as the dictator. In addition, he held a government position as in charge of educational reforms and as responsible for seeing that all the country's institutions were working in a positive way.
When he obtained the position of chief in public instruction, he managed to carry out his most important work: the implementation of the onomatopoeic method throughout Mexico.
This would make it easier for children to learn to read, and would be recognized worldwide as one of the most revolutionary changes in education of the time.
He dedicated his entire professional life to Mexican educational advances until his death in 1934.
Onomatopoeic method
The onomatopoeic method was a revolutionary idea, in educational terms, that Torres Quintero had.
Until the moment of history in which it was created, children were taught to read by individual study of syllables. With this method it was proposed to focus on the sounds of the letters before having the children analyze combinations between them.
This method served to complement the pedagogical teachings of Enrique Rébsamen, who proposed that one should not study the letters in particular, but the sound that each one emits when said out loud.
The onomatopoeic method serves to help children learn how to read and write. The method that was in force at that time analyzed the articulation of syllables to teach children. This new method was based, on the other hand, on the system that deaf people used to learn to express themselves.
The way in which Torres Quintero adapted his teaching method was recognized worldwide, and to this day the onomatopoeic method remains one of the most effective ways to teach young people to read and write.
Contributions to education
Throughout his life he wrote more than 30 texts and held more than 6 educational positions, with which he sought to revolutionize the Mexican education system.
In addition to educational and pedagogical subjects, Torres Quintero also wrote children's stories for teaching purposes. He developed as a teacher and educator in the most important schools for both professional and student training, throughout the entire Mexican territory.
His first major reform occurred in his hometown, when he restructured the educational system of Colima with the Colima School Reform.
Historical knowledge
One of the issues that he focused on as the person in charge of modernizing the Mexican educational system was the drastic change that history had to take in primary schools.
Until then, young people were simply presented with data and names of battles to be memorized, but this was combined with a philosophical and difficult to understand system.
The change that Torres Quintero proposed was the implementation of a historical narrative that was easier for young people to understand. The idea of the pedagogue was to modify the history classes in the Mexican elementary schools so that everything was explained as a kind of story, since it was not fair to explain history to children as if they were adults.
Teaching
One of his main complaints against the system in place at the time was the ease with which teachers were replaced by textbooks.
He was a strong believer that a teacher should be present not only to impart knowledge, but to make sure that knowledge was being understood by students.
Torres Quintero saw teachers as an irreplaceable image in education, regardless of the system that was being talked about or the method with which they sought to teach students.
Primary education
The creation of the onomatopoeic method was not the only contribution that Torres Quintero made to Mexican primary education. He was one of the pedagogues who promoted its growth and created the bases for its development in the Central American country.
His ideas were based on the application of more modern methods and the use of technological advances in the educational process in Mexico.
In fact, to increase the effectiveness of educational improvements, Torres Quintero collaborated with the politician and writer Justo Sierra Méndez, who served as Secretary of Public Education in the Porfirio Díaz regime.
References
- Onomatopoeic Method of Gregorio Torres Quintero, (nd). Taken from upnvirtual.edu
- Gregorio Torres Quintero, Ecured, (nd). Taken from ecured.cu
- Gregorio Torres Quintero, Pedagogy, (nd). Taken from pedagogía.mx
- Biography of Gregorio Torres Quintero, National Autonomous University of Mexico, (nd). Taken from unam.mx
- Gregorio Torres Quintero: his life and his work (1866-1934), Génaro H. Correa, (nd). Taken from books.google.com