Johann
Heinrich Pestalozzi (January 12, 1746—February 17, 1827) was a Swiss pedagogue
and education reformer who believed that every individual had the ability to
learn and the right to an education. He was also a strong believer in personal
liberty and an advocate for the poor. Many of the principles of modern pedagogy
have their roots in Pestalozzi’s philosophy and practice, including the ideas
of student-centered, inquiry-based learning; a focus on the child’s interests
and needs; cooperation and communication between the teacher and the parents;
and active, rather than passive, learning.
As a boy,
Pestalozzi traveled the countryside with his grandfather, who was a clergyman.
On these travels, he witnessed the intense poverty suffered by the peasants and
the consequences of putting children to work in the factories, as well as the ineffectiveness
of the local Catechism schools. These experiences influenced the development of
his future educational theories. Philosophically, Pestalozzi was most
influenced by Rousseau, who was imprisoned by the Swiss as a subversive during
Pestalozzi’s lifetime. Pestalozzi, himself, was imprisoned for a short time for
his supposed role in the prison escape of a colleague, a charge that was no
doubt influenced by his support for Rousseau and militant causes.
Pestalozzi
tried his hand in politics and farming before turning to education. He
attempted to create a school for the poor in the 1770s, known as Neuhof, where
peasants would be liberated from their poverty by learning to weave and by
selling their products. He believed that he could prevent children’s alienation
from the educational process by financing their own education through work.
However, Neuhof ended in financial ruin for him and his family. The experience
forced him to reconsider many of his assumptions, like the Romantic notion that
work comes naturally to man—an idea that was dashed when he overheard his
students reminiscing about the days when they were free to wander the
countryside.
In 1798 the
French army invaded the town of Stans, leaving many children without parents or
homes and Pestalozzi was asked by the Swiss government to create on orphanage
for the children. Here, with little support from the Swiss government, he
became headmaster, teacher and nurse to the children.
Pestalozzi’s
early pedagogy emphasized the combination of learning and industry. Initially,
he believed his students could build things and sell them to help support the
school. However, by the time of his involvement with the Stans orphanage, he
believed crafts and work were much more valuable for their ability to develop students’
dexterity, attention, observation, memory and social interactions.
Unfortunately, the French retook Stans in 1799 and commandeered the building in
which his orphanage was housed.
Pestalozzi’s
believed that rather than dealing with words, children should learn by doing
and they should be free to pursue their own interests and draw their own
conclusions. This was in marked contrast to the typical pedagogy of the day, in
which the children learned entirely from books, lecture and rote repetition and
memorization, often without understanding what they were repeating.
Furthermore, most teachers in those days were not even trained as teachers. Pestalozzi
eschewed the notion that teachers were there to give children answers. Thus, he
felt it was imperative for the teacher to cultivate children’s power of
observation and reasoning.
One of his
early inventions was the use of cut out letters the students could use to
construct words. He also etched letters into transparent horn-leaves, which the
students could superimpose over their own letters to see if they wrote them
correctly. Pestalozzi had so much success with his innovations that a school
inspector in Burgdorf wrote that his children learned as much in half a year as
the other teachers’ students were learning in three years.
By 1804,
Pestalozzi’s fame had spread to and people began to study and emulate his methods
in Germany, France, Italy, England, Russia and the U.S. He even received a job
offer from the Czar of Russia. He refused, and later told the Czar he should
abolish serfdom and open schools for the peasants.
Pestalozzi’s
pedagogy was also based on respect for his students’ individual personalities
and their personal dignity, as well as a deep sense in social justice and
personal liberty. He encouraged classroom visits and participation by parents
and believed strongly in regular communication with them about their children’s
progress. Yet he opposed the concept of report cards, saying “No child is to
compare himself with others.” He accepted children from all backgrounds,
including those with emotional problems, and even opened a school for hearing
impaired children. These ideas became the basis for the pedagogies of Friedrich
Froebel (inventor of kindergarten and Froebel Gifts), Francisco Ferrer (founder
of the first Modern Schools) and many of the libertarian educators that
followed.
