Juana wrote poetry and literature; she was a

translator of multiple languages; she founded her

own newspaper; she created and directed schools;
she outlined innovative educational policies; she
fought for women's rights becoming a precursor of
feminism in Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil. She suffered exile,
poverty, and the difficulties of supporting her two daughters alone.

She was born in Buenos Aires on June 26, 1819. After the May Revolution,
those were times of political upheavals in the Rio de La Plata and her
family had to go into exile in Uruguay and then Brazil. In all the places
where she lived, she had an impact on education from a feminist
perspective. She also began her career as a writer, publishing her poems
under pseudonyms in newspapers in Argentina and Montevideo.
Manso was a journalist who used her articles as a battleground to discuss
the prejudices of her time and gender. In Brazil between 1852 and 1854,
she edited the first newspaper in Latin America aimed at the female
public. In Buenos Aires, in 1854 she founded her newspaper Álbum de
Señoritas, very similar to its Brazilian counterpart, to encourage women to
speak up. This makes sense as she believed that education was a key to
freedom, and claimed that education should be equal: for boys and girls,
for rich and poor.
Throughout her life, she was committed to the enlightened project of
popular education and is considered an initiator of the education
movement.
Juana dedicated herself to revaluing teacher training, especially that of
kindergarten teachers. She collaborated, from 1859 to 1862, in Anales de
la Educación Común, founded by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento in 1858.
Through the magazine, Manso spread the benefits of kindergartens,
informing teachers about pedagogical orientations, and suggesting
activities, such as exercise and gymnastics. In 1865, Manso began to direct
Anales, a role she held until her death in 1875. However in 1866, she
spoke in a conference, which was not usual for women in those times and
most people didn’t like this idea. Manso was perhaps the first woman to
give lectures in Argentina. Manso’s public lectures on political and religious
issues attracted unusual violence and irritation: the throwing of stones,
requests to keep silent on religious issues, accusations of heresy, etc.
‘Ill-mannered plebs’ used to crowd against the windows of the room
where she was speaking to shout obscenities at the ladies attending the
 lectures. The ‘lectures for teachers’—for the professionalization of
teaching—suffered the same fate. They consisted of classes, readings and
exercises on the teaching of various subjects; the reaction to them
culminated with a petition to the educational authorities requesting their
suspension, even accusing the gymnastics classes Manso was trying to
introduce of being immoral. The use of the word was her main weapon
for presenting her ideas on education and discussing them with her
contemporaries.

A) READ THE TEXT AND ANSWER:

1) When and where was she born?
2) What was her job?
3) Why is she considered a pioneer in education and more?
4) If you were born at her time, would you attend her lectures?
5) Juana was accused of being immoral. Do you agree? Has this
concept changed nowadays?
6) Did you know these facts about Juana Manso? Which was most
surprising/interesting?

B) FIND IN THE TEXT:

a) 3 examples of regular past verbs
b) 3 examples of irregular past verbs
c) 2 examples of the verb “to be” in the past
d) An example of a negative past verb
e) A synonym of “people”
f) The opposite of “tranquility”
C) FIND THE MEANING OF THESE WORDS:
● Exile
● Speak up
● Heresy
● Contemporaries