ON THIS SIDE OF ATLANTIC: a Polish disciple of Edouard Claparède

Abstract

Taking as a starting point the arrival of Édouard Claparède to Brazil, in 1930, we stopped at the praising demonstrations in the press that surrounded the visitor and the disciples who awaited him at the port of Rio de Janeiro. The attention was at Waclaw Radecki, a Polish psychologist, living in Brazil since 1923, founder of the Psychology Laboratory at the Colony of Psychopaths of Engenho de Dentro, that, under the guidance of Claparède, completed a doctorate in Geneva in 1911. The analysis of Radecki aims to broaden the understanding of the brainstorming between Switzerland and Brazil that inspired important initiatives in Brazilian psychology and education. The results of this analysis showed that he established contact with the Institut Jean Jacques Rousseau, in 1928, where he observed laboratory practices and experiments as described by Nilton Campos in the “Trip report made to Europe for psychological studies”, a privileged source here. After welcoming the master, he expanded his objectives by transforming the Laboratory into an Institute of Psychology, aiming to establish the first Psychology Course in Brazilian territory. Claparède's teachings had an impact on the formulation of theoretical perspectives with clear implications in Pedagogy and contemporary Psychology, however, it seems to have not reached his disciple. Radecki's performance signals the premises of practical teaching of the experimental method, as well as the performance of the Institut Jean Jacques Rousseau, guiding his innovative implementations in the Laboratory and Institute of Psychology, which is an important legacy left to Brazilian psychologists and educators.