Gregorio Torres Quintero: biography of this Mexican educator and politician.

Summary of the life of Gregorio Torres Quintero and his contributions to education in Mexico.

Gregorio Torres Quintero has been one of the greatest figures of Mexican pedagogy. His work in education, especially with his innovative onomatopoeic method, earned him the recognition of the entire Mexican society at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century.

In addition to being a teacher, he was a politician, poet, orator, historian and a prolific writer of works, both on pedagogy and history, which have served not only to better teach the history of his country, but also to improve the way in which students learn.

We will now take a closer look at the life of this educator, thinker and politician through a biography of Gregorio Torres QuinteroHe was known as "maestro Goyito" to his students, who made the Mexico of his time a very up-to-date country in terms of education and culture.

Brief biography of Gregorio Torres Quintero

Gregorio Torres Quintero, affectionately called by his students as "maestro Goyito", is a very important figure in the history of Mexico, is a very important figure in the history of Mexico, so much so that he is in the Rotoda de los Hombres Ilustres (Rotoda of Illustrious Men).. He was a teacher, pedagogue, politician, historian and writer and his eagerness to know how people taught abroad made him become one of the main motivators of several educational reforms, bringing innovation to the Latin American country.

He was a strong advocate that books were not a substitute for the figure of the teacher. The teacher, through his work, helps students to learn the content, which must be adapted according to their age since, according to Torres Quintero, one of the errors of the teaching of his time was to think that children learn like adults. Furthermore, he believed that if what they were taught was limited to memorizing facts, dates and battles, students would learn little.

Early years

Gregorio Torres Quintero was born in Las Palmas, in the Mexican state of Colima on May 25, 1866.. He was the son of a humble shoemaker named Ramón Torres, who is said to have arrived in Colima fleeing from a priest whom he had wounded after having impregnated his sisters. Gregorio's father had to flee from Los Reyes, Michoacán, going aimlessly throughout Mexico until he arrived in Colima and had his son there.

The young Gregorio studied at the Liceo de Varones de Colina and graduated as a preceptor in 1883, beginning his teaching profession when he was only 17 years old. After teaching in the schools of his native state for four years, in 1888 he received a scholarship to study at the Escuela Nacional de Maestros from which he graduated in 1891. At this time he would meet Enrique C. Rébsamen, a Mexican educator of whom he would become a disciple..

Return to Colima

In 1892 he returned to Colima and founded the Escuela Modelo for primary, normal and perceptual education. With the passage of time he would become the director of the Porfirio Díaz School and, later, he would become the head of the Education and Welfare Section. head of the Education and Welfare Section of the Secretary of Government, and inspector of educational establishments throughout the state of Colima.. In this position he applied a series of educational measures, the Colima School Reform, which made him well known in his country.

The XIX century had been a period of deep and great educational transformations in the state of Colima, implementing changes in the teaching perspective. It went from the traditional Lancasterian doctrines to a school reform in which the teacher was considered a key figure in learning. Torres Quintero's reform was motivated by the need to improve the educational panorama of the region.

On May 7, 1894, Gregorio Torres Quintero succeeded in getting the executive branch to enact a law he himself had drafted which determined that public instruction would henceforth be secular, free and compulsory.. In addition to making school education an obligation, the law addressed different issues such as teaching programs, types of exams, vacations, rewards and punishments and, in short, how courses and schools were to be organized.

After Rébsamen's death

During the period from 1898 to 1904 Gregorio Torres Quintero worked in the Directorate of Primary Instruction of the Federal District and Territories. He changed his position upon the death of Enrique Rébsamen in 1904, becoming Chief of the Primary and Normal Instruction Section of the Public Instruction and Fine Arts Section. Torres Quintero and Rébsamen did not differ in terms of educational creed, however, Gregorio was more in favor of objective or intuitive teaching to make it more pleasant and attractive to the students.

He was also a Professor at the Preparatory and Normal Schools for Teachers and Advisor to the Secretary of Education during this period. From 1910 onwards he became Vice President of the National Commission of Public Education and, a year later, he would become its president.. In August 1913 he returned to teaching, this time at the National Preparatory School and also at the National School of Teachers.

In 1916 he was sent by the constitutional government to the state of Yucatan with Governor Salvador Alvarado to be in charge of the Department of Public Education in the region. A little later he would take the opportunity to visit the United States and study everything related to school organization and modern pedagogical methods that were the latest trend north of the border. In 1918 he returned to Mexico City, dedicating himself once again to the writing of school textbooks.

Last years and death

His trip to the United States would not be the only one he would make during his lifetime. Motivated to learn first hand about the latest trends in education around the world, he decided to travel to Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa between 1926 and 1928, when he was already a little older.

Barely six years after his last trip out of Mexico, Gregorio Torres Quintero died in Mexico City on January 28, 1934, at the age of 70.. Two years later, on May 15, 1936, he was declared Benemérito of the State of Colima and, almost 50 years later, in 1981, his remains were transferred to the Rotonda de los Hombres Ilustres by decree of President José López Portillo y Pacheco, a sanctuary where the most important figures in the history of Mexico are buried.

Contributions to Mexican education

Among the merits of Gregorio Torres Quintero is that he was the creator of his country's Public Instruction Law.. He was a tireless critic of the textbooks of the time and the use that was being made of them, since many saw them as the perfect substitute for the figure of the teacher; however, Torres Quintero considered that the image of the teacher was fundamental in order to ensure that students acquired knowledge.

He was against teaching a philosophical history in elementary school and reducing teaching to trying to make students memorize facts, dates and battles without understanding anything. To combat this, Torres Quintero proposed a story in the form of a tale in which the way it was told greatly stimulated the interest of children, who cannot be considered adults and cannot be expected to learn as adults do. The information they are taught must be adapted. One of her best known maxims around this issue is:

• "Each age has its characteristic features and it is indispensable to know and respect them, as in biology one respects the caterpillar, the cocoon and the butterfly."

Another of his contributions, very well known in his native country, is to have created an onomatopoeic method for teaching reading and writing, which is still valid today.which is still in use today in Mexico. This method is based on natural sounds in order to learn letters, syllables and words, in addition to promoting phonetic awareness. This method, which drew much inspiration from Rébsamen's ideas, played a very important role in the literacy of Mexicans at the beginning of the 20th century.

His new conceptions in education attracted a truly golden age for education in Mexico, as he renewed the pedagogy of his native country by bringing new ideas to Mexico. renewed the pedagogy of his native country by bringing novel foreign ideas to Mexico.. He collaborated with Justo Sierra and José Vasconcelos, and took much inspiration from Maria Montessori's pedagogical method. He made Mexico acquire the most modern methods of the time, addressed current pedagogical issues and tried to make the most of the technology available in education.

Gregorio Torres Quintero: prolific writer

During his lifetime, Gregorio Torres Quintero wrote more than 30 books and articles on pedagogical, historical, folkloric and short stories topics, since in addition to being a politician and pedagogue, he was also a historian, poet and writer, he was also a historian, poet and orator.. He also collaborated with several magazines specialized in the field of education, among them "La Educación Moderna", "La Educación Contemporánea", "Yucatán Escolar" and "La Enseñanza Primaria y Educación".

Among his texts and stories we have:

• La Patria Mexicana
• Elements of National History
• Método Onomatopéyico de gramática y lectura (Onomatopoeic Method of Grammar and Reading)
• The Mexican Child Reader
• The Mexican Encyclopedic Reader
• A family of heroes
• Cuentos colimotes: descriptions, stories and events
• Aztec legends
• Aztec festivals and customs

On the language of Mexico

One aspect of Gregorio Torres Quintero that could be considered controversial has to do with his Law of Rudimentary Instruction, commissioned by order of the last Secretary of Public Instruction of Porfirio Díaz's government, Jorge Vera Estañol. This law prioritized the literacy and Castilianization of all Mexicans in order to make Spanish the national language of Mexico..

Gregorio Torres Quintero was aware of the linguistic diversity of the country, being the United Mexican States a land full of indigenous languages that were still spoken at the beginning of the 19th century. He considered that they were an obstacle to the formation of the national soul, and also thought that preserving them would imply economic difficulties, making it more profitable in his opinion to have all Mexicans speak Spanish. He believed that indigenous languages would only be relevant for antiquarians and linguists.

This opinion, in which he was in favor of the linguistic homogenization of Mexico, led him to create a rivalry with the Oaxacan professor Abraham Castellanos, an advocate of multilingualism.an advocate of Mexican multilingualism and its characteristic cultural heterogeneity. Castellanos believed that public schools should be provided with their own tools to learn agricultural work and other crafts, as this would be the best way to prepare students for adult life, since the Mexican economy was very dependent on the land at that time.

Bibliographical references

• Torres Quintero, Gregorio (1917). A family of heroes. Mexico, CDMX. Author's edition.
• Muñoz, Rubén Arturo (1977). Encyclopedia of Mexico. Volume 12. Mexico, CDMX, pp. 195-196.
• Hernández Corona, G. (2004). Gregorio Torres Quintero: His life and work (1866-1934), Universidad de Colima (2004). ISBN 970-692-153-2.