Knowing Much to Teach Little

Abstract This paper reports new data on the courses held in 1933 in Spain for the selection and training of secondary education teachers that constituted an alternative to the traditional format of competitive examinations. These courses took place during the Spanish Second Republic (1931–1939), a political period characterised by various initiatives directed towards modernising and internationalising education and science teaching in Spain. Here, we focus on the botany course held in Barcelona given by the prestigious professor of botany Pius Font i Quer (Lérida, 1888–Barcelona, 1964). The programme of the course and its teacher encouraged a methodology based on scientific research by means of observation, description, drawing, the creation of herbariums, laboratory practice and excursions. In addition, the course incorporated democratic values, dialogue and cooperation between the aspirants, all of which were in keeping with the educational ideas of the republicans. The courses for natural science teachers were thus a novel approach that clearly linked teacher training to the recruitment process and achieved pedagogical goals beyond those of the discipline itself.