Enriqueta Compte y Riqué (1866-1949) was a Spanish-born Uruguayan teacher. She was the founder of the first kindergarten in South America in 1892, and famous for having contributed decisively to preschool teaching in Uruguay and Latin America. For those of you tuning in for the first time, welcome! Here’s the deal: Every weekday, we highlight the stories of iconic women in history you may not know about, but definitely should. We’re talking about women from around the world and throughout history. Each month is themed. This month we’re going back to school, highlighting educators and intellectuals.
This month, we're going back to school with stories of the most influential women educators in history.
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Hello, from Wonder Media Network I’m Jenny Kaplan and this is Womanica.
In a park in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, stands a tall statue of a woman, with a child on either side of her. The plaque at her feet describes the teacher who established the first kindergarten in Latin America. It reads: “she dreamed, created, carried out with talent and love, an imperishable work.” Please welcome Enriqueta Compte y Riqué.
Enriqueta Compte y Riqué was born in 1866 in Barcelona, Spain. She and her family fled to Uruguay 7 years later, after the fall of the First Spanish Republic. [...] Her uncle taught her to read and write, and in spite of being nearsighted, she dedicated herself to her studies.
She was just 19 when she completed her studies and qualifications as a teacher. Then, a few years later in 1889, the federal government commissioned Enriqueta to travel to Europe. She was to observe and study preschool education. She travelled through Germany, Belgium, Holland, France, and Switzerland and encountered something revelatory. The Froebel kindergarten.
Friedrich Froebel coined the term and practice of kindergarten, or children’s garden, in 1840. He countered the idea that young children did not have the ability to focus or to develop cognitive and emotional skills at a young age by creating a system of education that centered on play, observation, and time outside. Friedrich believed that “playing is the highest expression of human development. It is the free expression of what’s within a child’s soul.”
Enriqueta returned home to Uruguay with this philosophy in hand, and founded the first kindergarten in Uruguay and all of Latin America in 1892. Enriqueta didn’t plan to copy Friedrich Froebel’s, but rather to adapt his system to life in Uruguay.
A Uruguayan education expert said Enriqueta thought it necessary to know how to laugh with children. How to “feel sympathy for those who look, chat, touch, and disobey.” And not to necessarily consider the methodical child, the one “dressed as if he were a window doll” the best student.
In her classroom, Enriqueta used a method she called the ”lesson of the incident.”
Enriqueta began with something that interested the students. Perhaps it was that they were fascinated by the anthill in the garden. From that starting point she elaborated their lesson of the day, curated to what captured their imaginations. She promoted listening to the children and their experiences.
Enriqueta wrote several books and for magazines throughout her life, on methods for teaching young children that respected their individuality and personal way of learning. Her staunch humanism was evident throughout her life: she fought for women to vote in Uruguay, joined peace commissions, and in her later years, regularly visited incarcerated people to give them some support.
She affirmed that “all human beings are born good and that only an unfavorable environment can separate them from the good.”
The oldest preschool on the South American continent, the one Enriqueta founded, bears her name. She died on October 18, 1949. She was 82.
After her death, a friend published a small volume of poems Enriqueta had written. Her dedication to the creative freedom and power of her students was evident in the preface to her collection. It reads: “The children in my school are a garden filled with flowers, bees, butterflies, and birds. If you want to sing my verses, you must invent your own tunes, since I have not set them to music. You can do so if you wish, just as my children have often done, for every one of us has in his soul the power to express his feelings in drawings, words, and music.”
All month, we’re talking about women who changed the world of education.
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Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator.
Talk to you tomorrow!