The four brothers who revolutionized the republican schools

ArbecaThe Vigatà family gave rise to a phenomenon that could go viral today. Four of the five siblings born at the end of the 20th century in the small town of Torregrossa (Pla d'Urgell) became school teachers, an unusual coincidence in an era when rural illiteracy was prevalent. The fifth sibling, Marcel·lí Vigatà was a councillor for the ERC party and died in the war.

The parents, Miquel Vigatà and Dolors Simó, made an extraordinary effort to provide an education and culture for all their children, even though they were not financially well-off. They all also had musical training. The father, according to an 1896 census, was Labrador, "although he worked as a shoemaker, a postman, and a waiter at the family café, where Republican and leftist sectors of the town often went," explain the local historians of the Pla d'Urgell Mascan Research CenterAC.

The teaching careers of the four Vigatà brothers were spread across different Catalan regions, but they were united by their commitment to republican values and a common teaching model, that of frank pedagogueIt's Célestin FreinetIt was a revolutionary project that gave students prominence and based its teaching on real-life experience. Obviously, the disciplinary and dogmatic spirit of Franco's regime later attempted to annihilate this approach, relegating many Freinet teachers to death, flight, or oblivion. But, in a way, the dictatorship failed in that objective.

A Freinetist cradle

The largest number of Spanish Freinet teachers during the Second Republic emerged in rural areas, paradoxically in a context where the cultural environment was very uninspiring. Many of these teachers were concentrated in Catalonia, Andalusia, and Madrid.

Freinetist principles took root, especially with the publication of school magazines using old printing presses, a phenomenon that encouraged the creation of free texts and illustrations created by children. It is a practice that takes us back to laemotivates film The teacher who promised the sea (2023), which recreates the teaching task what did he do Antoni Benaiges from Tarragona in a small town in Burgos.

This is the scenario that takes us to the Batec group, made up of a group of rural teachers from Ponent who in the 1920s met regularly "to share discussions, debate about education and the world around them," explains the journalist from Granadella, Xavier Franch, in an article recently published in the magazine Garriga from the Center ofLes Garrigues StudiesAt these meetings (which they called Batecs), they held "educational rallies," spoke with families and authorities, and supported each other in their work.

The four Vigatà brothers took an active role in these events. The eldest son, Josep, taught at various schools in Barcelona, Tarragona, Fígols d'Organyà, and for ten years in Sant Vicenç de Castellet. It was in these last two towns that he and his students promoted two highly renowned publications, Narieda and School Life. They were magazines that dealt with a variety of topics related to rural life in the 1930s from a children's perspective. Josep Vigatà "placed special value on the unique world of children, their concerns, and their written expression through the essays they wrote," explains David Sanz, a professor at the current Castellet Institute. A study on the master TorregrossYo.

For his part, the youngest of the Vigatà brothers, Miquel, was a teacher at Santa Maria d'Oló (Bages) from 1934 to 1936. He himself described those years as "a time when there was a lot of renewal among the teachers, there was enthusiasm for new procedures and new techniques." According to the book Teach to think of Salomor MarquisMiquel Vigatà had a carpenter's bench in his classroom to carry out marquetry work, an aquarium where his students put the fish they collected from the stream and the printing press that was used to publish another magazine, The Joy of Oló, which was exchanged with other schools in Catalonia and the Spanish state.

In a very similar environment the magazine emerged Children's Culture in Arbeca. Its driving force was another Vigatà, Rossend, who acquired the printing press in April 1936 thanks to a collaboration with the city council. Rossend had previously taught in Anglesola and Espluga de Serra (Tremp) and in 1933 arrived in Arbeca, a place he never left. One of his students during the Republican era, Antoni Pau, wrote that at that time, "going to school was a celebration, enlivened by an educational system that made you delight in learning; it was the joy every morning of meeting again with the teacher who worked alongside you and infused his knowledge with you with admirable perseverance and dedication." Antoni Pau described Rossend Vigatà as a "teacher of pure vocation, a dynamic professor ahead of his time."

Of Children's culture Three editions were published, between April and June 1936. The students' texts were printed in magazine format to reach a wide audience, which "involved great responsibility and care in the presentation, as well as in the design and drawings that accompanied the texts," explains Concepció Pau, daughter of the former student from Vigatà. The children who participated ranged in age from six to thirteen.

The schools that worked with the Freinet methodology maintained contact with each other, both through the exchange of journals and collaborations. Some texts, if deemed interesting, were published in journals of other Freinet schools. This is how Arbeca's journal was related to many others. For example, in issue 3 of Children's Culture Texts appear from schools in Barcelona, Lleida, Girona, Huesca, Cuenca, Cáceres, Soria and even Bañuelos de Bureba (Burgos), the place where Antoni Benaiges was later murdered.

On the back cover of this latest issue of Children's Culture, the students say goodbye like this: "With this issue we bid farewell to our dear readers until next academic year." They didn't know that this would be their last magazine and the end of an entire project. On July 18, 1936, war broke out.

Franco's ostracism

Of the four Vigatà brothers, we miss Antoni. He had not been part of the Batec group, but preferred to go it alone. After studying to become a teacher, he went off to see the world: France, Cuba, Colombia, and Venezuela. In 1932, he returned to Catalonia and taught in Torre de Capdella and at the Claver School in Lleida. He was a delegate for the Federation of Education Workers (FETE) and a member of the PSUC (Spanish Socialist Workers' Union). With the war, he went into exile in Mexico, where he first taught at the Uayalceh Regional Peasant School (in Yucatán). Later, together with other Catalan teachers, he founded the Cervantes School of Torreon under some of the Freinet principles and with a loan financed by the Spanish Republican Evacuation Service (SERE). Over the years, the center steadily gained students. In the first school year (1939-40) there were only 30, but in just a few years this number had multiplied tenfold. Currently, there are about 1,700 students, and at times, the number has exceeded 2,300.

Antoni Vigatà shared ownership of the school with the other founders from the outset, but gradually became the majority shareholder after his colleagues resigned. Since 1978, his grandson, Jaime Méndez Vigatà, has been its director and heir. His grandfather Antoni continued to assist him in the endeavor until his death in 1982 and was buried there in Torreón. "His life was the school; he wanted to live next door, and he even performed maintenance tasks himself," his grandson recalls. an interview he gave to the pedagogue Salomor Marquis.

Miquel Vigatà also disappeared from view. After the war was lost, he went to France, to the concentration camps of Arles and Argelès, and after the Nazi occupation ended, he stayed on working in various trades until 1975, upon retirement and coinciding with Franco's death, he settled in Lloret de Mar, where he died.

The one who was harshly punished and purged by the Franco regime was Josep, along with his wife Montserrat Salafranca, who taught him in Sant Vicenç de Castellet. His case was resolved under accusations of being Catalanist and anticlerical and "can propagate his ideals among his students." The couple was forced to teach in Burgos, both separated in schools in different towns. After five years, they were able to return together to Catalonia, where they continued teaching until retirement. But Sant Vicenç de Castellet continued to remember him.

Rossend suffered a similar purge. Afterwards from a brief exile in FranceUpon his return, he was imprisoned in a prison camp and later allowed to return to his teaching position at Arbeca, albeit barred from holding management or confidential positions and under forced coexistence with National Catholic doctrine. "He was a very reserved man and took great care never to speak about politics," recalls Xavier Vidal, a retired teacher from Arbeca and son of another former teacher colleague from Vigatà. He remained faithful to this silence until his death. "He must have been afraid; he had already been punished once, and he didn't want to make any comments that might raise new accusations," confirms his son, Joan Vigatà.

Despite the harsh conditions, Rossend persisted as a teacher and earned the affection of the residents. Because of his long career in Arbeca, the town named him an adopted son and named the street that runs past the current schools after him, right on the spot where the castle stood centuries ago.