Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi: Educator Of The Senses And Emotion

12, January, 1746 in Zurich Switzerland, died on 1827

Clergyman, politican and a farmer

Sought to develop schools-like loving families, would nurture children’s development.

Influenced by Rousseau

Believed that schools could become centers of effective learning if properly organised.

Readapted Rousseau’s single-child tutorial

Developed a pre-service teacher-education program.

Believed that the mind formed concepts by abstracting data conveyed to it by it senses.

Pestalozzi’s background

Pestalozzi with the orphans in Stans

Pestalozzi’s Principles of teaching and learning

General Method1- designed to create a permissive and emotionally healthy homelike learning environment2- require teacher who-emotionally secure themselves, could gain students’ trust and affection and nurture their self esteem.

Special Method1- Object lesson2- Children studied the common objects encountered in daily environment.3- Learned form, number, and name or sound related to objects.4- Move gradually to drawing, writing, reading counting, adding, substracting, multiplying and dividing.

Pestalozzi advised teachers to begin instruction with children’s direct experiences in their environment.

Later progressive teachers incorporated Pestalozzi’s emphasis on children’s direct experience in their classes.

His pre-service teacher-preparation program. Teacher should1- Begin with concrete objects before introducing abstract concepts2- Begin with the learner’s immediate environment before dealing with what is distant and remote.3- Begin with easy and simple exercises before introducing complex one.4- Always proceed gradually and cumulatively.

Pestalozzi teaching students at his institute of Burgdorf. Switzerland; note the large wall charts used in teaching counting and arithmetic.

Education and Schooling

-Pestalozzi based learning on natural principles and stressed the importance of human emotions.

-Used group instruction rather than individual tutoring or home schooling.

-Defined “knowing” as understanding nature, its pattern and its laws.

-Stressed empirical, or sensory, learning.

-Believed children should learn gradually and understanding thoroughly what they are studying.

-Dedicated to children who are very poor, hungry and socially or psychologically handicapped.

-Believed that love of humankind as necessary for successful teaching.

Pestalozzi’s object lessons were

introduced into the American

elementary-school curriculum in the

19th century.

His belief that education should be directed to both the mind and emotions

stimulated educators to

develop instruction to encourage both

cognitive and effective learning.

His ideas, especially the general method take on renewed relevance.

His assertion that emotional security is

a necessary precondition for skill and subject learning strongly parallels the

contemporary emphasis on

supportive home-school partnerships

INFLUENCE ON EDUCATIONAL PRACTICES TODAY

Historical content

Early 19thcentury, post-Napoleonic period and beginnings of industrialism

Purpose of education

Develop the human being’s moral, mental, and physical powers harmoniously; use sense perception in forming clear ideas

Curriculum Object lessons; form; number and sound

Methods of instruction

Reliance on sensation; object lessons; simple to complex; near to far; concrete to abstract

Role of the teacher

Acts as a loving facilitator of learning by creating a homelike school environment; skilled in using the special method

significance Devised on educational method that changed instruction in elementary schools

Influence in today’s education

Schooling based in emotional security and object learning

Conclusion

• Pestalozzi was an impressive personality, highly esteemed by his contemporaries. His concept of education embraced politics, economics and philosophy, and he influence of his “method” was immense. For him, education was a vehicle for creating a more just society.