Simón Rodríguez
(Caracas, Venezuela, 1769 - Amotape, Perú, 1854): Educator, thinker, and politician, known as the ‘Master of the Liberator´ Simón Bolívar. However, beyond the facet of virtuous tutor and mentor, Rodríguez's legacy transcends to position him as a key figure in Latin American 19th-century pedagogical and enlightened thinking. Influenced by the novel methods of the French philosophers of the time, Rodríguez promoted the idea of building up citizenship through knowledge on numerous journeys he made across Europe and America, in order to achieve freedom through knowledge revolutions. To this end, he regarded social education as the mechanism for consolidating the republics and sociability as the ultimate goal of schools. He promoted inclusion through the idea of ‘school for all’: Training for work and the acquisition of new habits that would enable social relations befitting of a Republican system.
