Hubo futuro en el pasado?: Apuntes para una historia de la psicología del desarrollo en Colombia

The first components of developmental psychology can perhaps be traced back to the social recognition of infancy and childhood. Many historians agree that this recognition came late. The French historian Philippe Ariès argues that in medieval society there was no room for childhood or the child as theoretical constructs. They would emerge in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Thus, although a certain sensitivity towards childhood appeared between the 16th and 17th centuries, it would seem that it was only in the 18th century that the child became the object of concern for some thinkers, mostly philosophers and pedagogues. There are several authors who are referents and it is worthwhile to review them, even if only briefly. At the time, Rousseau (1712-1778), in his Emilium, proposes an education centered on the natural evolution of the child, in which he highlights his particularities and differences and places childhood as a necessary and fundamental stage for man. The pedagogue Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746-1827), sympathizes with some of Rousseau's ideas on the education of children and keeps a diary of his son's first two years, which becomes one of the first systematic observations that is assumed to be a precursor of observational methodology in early development. In line with the above, this text can only be understood as a first attempt, unfinished and open, to be continued. It is what the Anglos call a "text in progress", and that the ebook edition will allow us to reopen it without major difficulties. It is also, of course, an incitement to readers to complement it, discuss it or even controvert it. This is intended to be a living text and discussed within the community. It is possible that certain hypotheses about the facts found will give rise to controversy. A colleague warned that lightning will surely strike it as it is a provocative text. Let's hope so: as long as they are illuminating, it will have partially fulfilled its purpose. In any case, there remains a taste for scrutinizing our past more closely with a view to the future and not only to what could not be.