Comenius, tecnologia e educação: uma perspectiva mumfordiana

Abstract

Comenius is known, in history books, as the founder of modern education. In his Didactica Magna, published in Latin in 1657, the author proposes a detailed form of organisation as the basis for an inclusive educational system, a model based upon metaphors and analogies linked with manufacturing, a form of production in development at his time. This article discusses Comenius’ proposal as a technical solution to the democratisation of education that reveals itself an important precursor to contemporary forms of thinking about the relationship between education and technology. The text examines aspects of Comenius’ contribution from a perspective inspired by works by Lewis Mumford, a historian and philosopher of technology. In particular, the discussion adopts the mumfordian concept of the “megamachine” to analyse Comenius’ “didachography”, which is presented in the Didactica in a detailed analogy between the typography and the classroom. In this view, Comenius' educational system would be a megamachine composed essentially of mechanized human beings, although it does not dispense with artifacts as models or even anticipate the prospect of more radical mechanizations.