He aimed to develop people through education: Who is Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi?

Swiss educational reformer. He advocated educating the poor and focusing on education methods that develop students' abilities. His method has been widely adopted and many of its principles have entered modern primary education.

By William James Published on 31 Ağustos 2023 : 18:29.
He aimed to develop people through education: Who is Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi?

Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi; He is a Swiss educator, and writer (Zürich 1746-Brugg 1827). He grew up in poverty without support, leaving his theology education unfinished to study law. After reading Jean Jacques Rousseau's educational novel Emile (1762), he found the ideal of his life; committed to its mission, which aims to develop people through education and training. In 1774, he tried to establish and sustain the first school that accommodated orphans, and to make people more useful and self-sufficient with manual labor and job training. Although he had some success, his experiment was left unfinished (1779) because the money supply was not sufficiently nutritious. The disappointments of this stage were also the subject of his first book: Abendstunde eines Einsiedlers (The Evening Hours of a Lonely One) 1780. He then created his romantic narrative, which explains his Emile-influenced educational dreams: Lienhard und Gertrud (L. and G.) 1781-1787.

After the French Revolution

After the French Revolution, he was both honored with French citizenship and called to practice his ideas freely in France. Pestalozzi, who took over the management of the Orphanage in Stans, implemented applications that brought home warmth to school life and completed his attempt to transform his thoughts into easy formulas. Then the boarding school experiment in Burgdorf was born (1800-1804); together came the educational work of this period: Wie Gertrud ihre Kinder Lehrt (How G. Educates His Children) 1801. By advocating the maturation of the senses, advocating for tolerant discipline, against rote learning, the program aimed at each individual to find and develop their own talent is almost complete: Meine Nachforschungen Uber den Gangder Natur (Investigations in the Influence of Nature in the Development of Humanity) 1797.

Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (12 January 1746 – 17 February 1827) was a Swiss pedagogue and educational reformer who exemplified Romanticism in his approach.

But he found his widest and most accurate applications in the boarding school in Yverdon, reaching beautiful success stages for 20 years, attracting the attention of Europe and the world, fully proving the correctness of his thoughts. He saw that his work was damaged for various reasons, he died on his old farm, having lost most of his hopes (February 17). Efforts to realize the head, heart, and hand training of human beings in social institutions that should not be against nature are the unchanging essence of today's educational goals. All his works were first collected in 15 volumes (1819-1827); for the second time in 12 volumes between 1899 and 1912.

His thoughts

Pestalozzi took Jean-Jacques Rousseau's work Emile as an example in his curriculum. He emphasized that students should tell the lesson in their memorization as a group, not one by one; He also gave importance to collective activities such as painting, writing, singing, physical education, model making, collecting, map making, and organizing trips. He had very innovative ideas for that period, such as taking into account individual differences, grouping students according to ability rather than age, and encouraging teacher training as part of a scientific approach to education. Pestalozzi was influenced by the political conditions of his country and the educational approach of Rousseau. He abandoned his theology studies to "return to nature" and in 1769 started farming on a vacant lot (Nuehof) near the Aare River. When this attempt failed (1774), he gathered the poor children in his house; He taught these children, whom he employed in the spinning and knitting businesses, to support themselves. This financially unsuccessful project led him to gain valuable experience.

Pestalozzi, who could not find the opportunity to apply his thoughts, turned to writing this time. In his book Die Abendstunde eines Linsiedlers (1780; The Hermit's Evening Hour), in which he laid out his basic theory, he said that education should "fit with nature" and that human happiness is based on safety at home. His novel Lienhard und Gertrud (1781-87; Lienhard and Gertrud), written for "The People", achieved literary success as the first German work to realistically describe rural life. The novel is the story of an ideal woman who, by exposing corrupt practices, sets an example for the village school and community with his orderly home life. Pestalozzi frequently referred to the role of the mother in the early stages of education in his writings.

Pestalozzi, who lived on his estate in Neuhof for thirty years, wrote many works on education, politics, and economy; He proposed ways to improve the plight of the poor, but his suggestions did not receive attention. While expressing his disappointment in his main philosophical work, Meine Nachforschungen über den Gang der Natur in der Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechts (1797; My Studies on Nature's Path in the Development of Humanity), he also expressed his unwavering belief in the vastness of human nature and his He also stated that they are responsible for their mental states.

Education had to develop the abilities of the individual so that he could think for himself. After the French Revolution, Pestalozzi had the opportunity to apply his ideas after he turned 50. He was invited to organize higher education by the Helvetia Republic, which was founded in Switzerland under French pressure, but he chose to start from the beginning. He gathered the many children orphaned by the war and looked after them almost alone; he tried to re-acquire his spiritual values in a family atmosphere. Between 1800-04 he was the director of an educational institution in Burgdorf and from 1805-to 25 a boarding school in Yverdon, near Neuchâtel.

In these schools, he had the opportunity to try his methods in physical education, including vocational and civic education, as well as mental and moral education. Again, with the financial support of these schools, he was able to establish his biggest dream, the industrial (that is, the poor) school. The Yverdon Institute became famous around the world. Visiting educators such as Friedrich Froebel, J F Herbart, and Carl Ritter, who admired the school, stayed there to study Pestalozzi's method and later used it themselves.

While teaching, his dedicated assistants continued to develop the Pestalozzi method, which was the heart and soul of the institute. Wie Gertrud ihre Kinder lehrt (1801; How Gertrud Teach His Children) laid out the main principles of mental education. He said that the child must develop his innate abilities and learn to think, that is, gradually moving from observation to understanding in order to arrive at clear thoughts. Although he dealt with the teaching method in more detail, he gave the greatest importance to moral education.