Pestalozzi’

Pestalozzi’s relevance today can only be determined by seeking to interpret the salient events in his life as a man and educationist in the light of today’s concerns. This helps early childhood development educators rediscover the dreams and illusions that accompanied the emergence of educational thought. But, above all, it will show a man who, after the failure of a first attempt to give substance to his philanthropic dream, still found the strength for an effort to gauge the whole historic importance of the concept of education and embody it in an attitude towards teaching that was to become the be-all and end-all of his entire existence. This essay therefore pays attention to the relevance of Pestalozzi’s ideas in the early childhood development learning process.

In Pestalozzi’s multiple theories he believed that education should develop the powers of ‘Head’, ‘Heart’ and ‘Hands’. He believed that this would help create out of children, individuals who are capable of knowing what is right and what is wrong and of acting according to this knowledge. Thus the wellbeing of every individual could be improved and each individual could become a responsible figure of society. He believed that empowering and ennobling children in this way was the only way to improve society and bring peace and security to the world (Barth 1954). His aim was for a complete theory of education that would lead to a practical way of bringing happiness to humankind (Schönebaum, H. Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. Wesen und Werk. 1954).

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 (1) The interests and needs of the child (2) A child-centered rather than teacher-centered approach to teaching (3) Active rather than passive participation in the learning experience (4) 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 (5) The child having direct experience of the world and the use of natural objects in teaching (6) The use of the senses in training pupils in observation and judgement (7) Cooperation between the school and the home and between parents and teachers (8) The importance of an all-round education – an education of the head, the heart and the hands, but which is led by the heart (Froese, L. ; Kamper, D., usw. Zur Diskussion : Der politische Pestalozzi. 1972).  Pestalozzi believed education should not put anything into a person, but rather develop something out of him, to be precise, humanity. The natural prerequisite for this is that everyone is endowed with powers and talents that are lying dormant at birth. Hence the fundamental task of teaching and education is the development of powers and talents.

According to Pestalozzi, a human develops his humaneness only face to face, only heart to heart -for example only through the experience of being loved can a child learn to love. For Pestalozzi formative education is always a personal process and it is the most important skill of the teacher to be able to be aware of each child’s individuality and to respond to its emotions lovingly. Pestalozzi believes that the moral development of the child is only possible in the basic mood of composure. This state of inner composure develops in the child on the one hand through the above-mentioned satisfaction of its needs (but not the fulfilment of its wishes) and on the other hand if the teachers radiate loving calmness.  

Pestalozzi writes in his last great work, ‘Swansong’ (1826), ‘The nature of humaneness only develops in composure. Without it love loses all the power of its truth and of its blessing. Restlessness is by its nature the result of sensual sufferings or of sensual desires; it is either the child of dire misery or - even worse - of selfishness; in any case, however, it is the mother of coldness, of godlessness and of all consequences which by their nature develop from coldness and lack of faith.’

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. The Method is certainly a necessary instrument (Schönebaum, H. Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. Wesen und Werk 1954). According to Pestalozzi ideas, it is important to observe the nature of children, to deduce the laws governing their development, to create an environment conducive to that development, to take expressly into account the social dimension of the educational relationship and to make a child’s capacity for action effective: all these things were to be further developed and technically improved by Makarenko, Montessori, Freinet and Piaget. The basic aim was to submit to unremitting scrutiny the way in which human nature functions in its various manifestations: without knowledge of that nature, no power could be exercised over it. The Method, with all its useful knowledge of children, can serve as an instrument of subjection as well as of liberation. To ensure that it liberates, it is necessary to devise a specific plan of action that will bring to bear the Method’s techniques in such a way that they really do generate freedom in autonomy. That is where educational work really begins and where the spirit rather than the letter of the Method comes into play, a spirit in which techniques are used only to produce the contrary of a technical result.