Les Escoles en el temps de la guerra : l'aplicació del CENU a l'ensenyament primari a Granollers 1936-1939 = Schools in wartime : Applying the CENU (Council for New Unified Schools) in Granollers during the Civil War (1936-39)

Abstract

In wartime, schools provide testimony about the daily life in small cities such as Granollers, which acquired the title of city in 1927, due to the fact that it could offer its inhabitants secondary school education. At that time, the life style in this progressively industrial city was based on agriculture and characterised by humbleness and hard work. In addition, the city was also involved in developing secular and social concepts that, when combined together during the nineteenth century, resulted in different school models. The city grew during the first third of the twentieth century and its pace of life increased in step with factories, potteries, the marketplace and trade. This practically ancient order, structured partly by the rhythm of the four seasons, was disrupted by a military coup d'état that took place in July 1936 and a social revolution that changed an exemplary citizenship model related to children's education and acquiring knowledge. Schools changed as a result of a remarkable teaching philosophy that sought to regenerate and improve society, make the most of children's abilities and build a new society by means of a single, public, secular and Catalan school. Applying the CENU (the Council for New Unified Schools) to the city's schools changed the educational profile of the city and the career orientation of its teaching staff. The lines of action followed in Granollers can be found in the article. The nature of the reforms is related to proposals for hygiene, health, and teaching put forward by the New School. There were practically no changes in State-run schools in terms of teaching staff. Teachers from schools that had been closed adapted to the CENU's new social and working order and there was a high turnover of teaching staff because of transfers to other towns, deployment to the front, retirement and death. However, during the Civil War this small and really quite anonymous city, where people led a simple life, became a focal point of the war. On 31 May 1938, the civilian population in the city of Granollers were bombed while going about their daily business: children on their way to school, adults off to work or heading for the ration queue in search of food to keep them in life and limb. This attack against the population threw daily life into turmoil, reducing houses and part of the Porxada to rubble. One teacher was killed when a school was hit. Children had been playing in the Plaça de Can Sínia on their way to school when the bombing began and some were injured by the blasts. The resulting upheaval lasted until the end of the war, severely compromising teaching practices and causing a high rate of school absenteeism. Unfortunately, then, the CENU's regeneration principles disappeared shortly after they had been introduced. Many years were to go by before the city could emerge from being under the shadow of Franco.