Rondas Escolares and Physical Education: Between Traditions and Transitions in the Innovative Pedagogical Proposal of Music and Movement (Argentina, 1910)

ANTONELLA BERTOLOTTO; EDUARDO LAUTARO GALAK

Budapest

Conferencia; Histories of Education and Reform: Traditions, tensions and transitions; 2023

International Standing Conference for the History of Education (ISCHE)

This research aims to investigate the pedagogical proposal of the “Rondas Escolares” (schoolrounds), an Enrique Romero Brest initiative as part of his Argentine System of PhysicalEducation. This idea was developed especially during the 1910s, based on analyzing the book“Elementos de Gimnástica Fisiológica” (1911) and the Revista de la Educación Física in 1912.Despite being an innovative proposal in physical education and education in general, andappealing for its articulation of musical techniques with body techniques that condensedpowerful discourses about the body and subjectivities, it did not significantly transcend beyondthe tasks carried out by Romero Brest himself or his disciples.How can music be used to educate the body? How does artistic movement techniquesharmonize with those of physical exercises? How to conceive of a physical culture thatembodies gymnastics, games, and dance? These are some of the questions that this proposalwould seem to answer. Consequently, we will briefly analyze its structure, the use of sequencedimages for its explanation, and the production of differentiated discourses around theintroduction of childhood to a world of work, entertainment, and recreation.