Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, (1746-1827)

Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Swiss social reformer and educator, is known as the Father of Modern Education. The modern era of education started with him and his spirit and ideas led to the great educational reforms in Europe in the nineteenth century.

Pestalozzi believed in the ability of every individual human being to learn and in the right of every individual to education. He believed that it was the duty of society to put this right into practice. His beliefs led to education becoming democratic; in Europe, education became available for everyone.

Pestalozzi was particularly concerned about the condition of the poor. Some of them did not go to school. If they did, the school education was often useless for their needs. He wanted to provide them with an education which would make them independent and able to improve their own lives.

Pestalozzi believed that education should develop the powers of ‘Head’, ‘Heart’ and ‘Hands’. He believed that this would help create individuals who are capable of knowing what is right and what is wrong and of acting according to this knowledge. Thus the well-being of every individual could be improved and each individual could become a responsible citizen. He believed that empowering and ennobling every individual in this way was the only way to improve society and bring peace and security to the world. His aim was for a complete theory of education that would lead to a practical way of bringing happiness to humankind.

Pestalozzi saw teaching as a subject worth studying in its own right and he is therefore known as the father of pedagogy (the method and practice of teaching, especially as an academic subject or theoretical concept). He caused education to become a separate branch of knowledge, alongside politics and other recognized areas of knowledge.

Pestalozzi’s approach has had massive influence on education, for example, his influence, as well as his relevance to education today, is clear in the importance now put on:

• The interests and needs of the child
• A child-centered rather than teacher-centered approach to teaching
• Active rather than passive participation in the learning experience
• The freedom of the child based on his or her natural development balanced with the self-discipline to function well as an individual and in society
• The child having direct experience of the world and the use of natural objects in teaching
• The use of the senses in training pupils in observation and judgment
• Cooperation between the school and the home and between parents and teachers
• The importance of an all-round education – an education of the head, the heart and the hands, but which is led by the heart
  • The use of systemized subjects of instruction, which are also carefully graduated and illustrated
• Learning which is cross-curricular and includes a varied school life
• Education which puts emphasis on how things are taught as well as what is taught
• Authority based on love, not fear
• Teacher training

Pestalozzi’s influence over the spirit, the methods and the theory of education has continued into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and most of his principles have been assimilated into the modern system of education.

Johann Pestalozzi believed in nature oriented education and the importance to follow the child’s natural development. He also believed in adult intervention to guide children’s experiences, but gave equal importance to children’s self-guided activities.

Pestalozzi came up with three principles:

1. Educate the whole child
2. Involve parents in their children’s early education
3. Multi-age grouping, so older children assist the younger children.

Pestalozzi validated the mother and the home as the most natural environment. He envisioned children learning through hands-on activities in company of their loving and affectionate mother figure. Wooden and plastic blocks, puzzles and unit blocks are among the materials that he used for his educational approach.

Robert Owens, 1771-1858

Owen’s general theory was that character is formed by the effects of the environment upon the individual. Hence, education was of central importance to the creation of rational and humane character, and the duty of the educator was to provide the wholesome environment, both mental and physical, in which the child could develop. Physical punishment was prohibited and child labor was restricted. Man, being naturally good, could grow and flourish when evil was removed. Education, as one historian has put it, was to the “the steam engine of his new moral world.”

As a successful manager of people and business, Owen displayed a skill well in advance of his day but his welfarism, which was not really that unique, had a practical side. He helped to raise real wages and the infant school enabled mothers to return to work when their children reached the age of one year. As a financier, Owen’s methods were sophisticated.

Robert Owen was concerned about impoverished children and became an advocate of educating children outside the home. He began the infant school movement. Through these schools he envisioned kind teachers encouraging large groups of children engage in activities with natural and concrete objects.

Friedrich Froebel, 1782-1852

Froebel is best known as the father of the kindergarten. He was a very religious person, which highly influenced his work.  He was a German educator who created the kindergarten. His core concept is “play is the highest expression of human development in childhood for it alone is the free expression of what is in the child’s soul.” According to Froebel, through play children develop their understanding of the world through personal and direct experience. His ideas on learning through nature and the importance of play have had a huge impact around the world (Early Education).
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Froebel considered the whole child (health, physical development, the environment, emotional well-being, mental ability, social relationships and spiritual aspects) as important. Being a mathematical and scientific oriented person, Froebel developed a set of gifts (wooden blocks 1-6) and introduced occupations, (including sticks, clay, sand, slates, chalk, wax, shells, stones, scissors, paper folding). Particularly as the gifts and occupations are open-ended and these can be used to support children’s self initiated play (Early Education).

Froebel believed that it was important to understand the principles of observation including professional practice, the multiple lenses through which they see children- and that children see their worlds, as well as offering children freedom with guidance and considering the children’s environments including people and materials as a key element of how they behave.

Because Froebel based much of his understanding of children on observing them this has changed the way we think about children’s play. We have Froebel’s insights to thank for placing child initiated activity with adults working with children to give them freedom with sensitive guidance and symbolic and imaginative play at the heart of our curriculum.

Froebelian principles as articulated by Professor Tina Bruce (1987, 1st edition and 2015, 5th edition).

1. Childhood is seen as valid in it self, as part of life and not simply as preparation for adulthood.  Thus education is seen similarly as something of the present and not just preparation and training for later.
2. The whole child is considered to be important.  Health – physical and mental is emphasised, as well as the importance of feelings and thinking and spiritual aspects.
3. Learning is not compartmentalised, for everything links.
4. Intrinsic motivation, resulting in child-initiated, self directed activity, is valued.
5. Self- discipline is emphasised.
6. There are specially receptive periods of learning at different stages of development.
7. What children can do (rather than what they cannot do0is the starting point in the child’s education.
8. There is an inner life in the child, which emerges especially under favourable conditions.
9. The people (both adults and children) with whom the child interacts are of central importance.
10. Quality education is about three things: the child, the context in which learning takes place, and the knowledge and understanding which the child develops and learns.