Schüler mit Verhaltensauffalligkeiten in Pestalozzis Erziehungsinstituten um 1800?

• Autores: Luca Godenzi, Norbert Grube
• Localización: Paedagogica Historica: International journal of the history of education, ISSN 0030-9230, Vol. 45, Nº. 1-2, 2009 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Children and youth at risk / coord. por Christine Mayer, Ingrid Lohmann), págs. 67-81
• Idioma: alemán
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo
• Resumen

  • Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746-1827) is usually seen as both founder of the modern school system and founder of modern social work. While newer studies have focused on the teaching activities in his institutes, little attention has been paid to the everyday life of the students. Although functioning as a means of the "new" teaching methods they rarely appear as real actors. This article challenges the dominant pattern of looking at Pestalozzi's educational enterprise by focusing on students, especially in the institute in Yverdon from its beginning in 1805 up to 1811. This micro-historical analysis is based on autobiographical notes of Pestalozzi teachers and mainly on the correspondence between Pestalozzi and the parents of the students. The authors are not only interested in the behavioural problems of some of the students who had difficulties in coping with the rules of the institute, but also in the images and ideals that teachers and parents expected from youth education. It is assumed that already in Pestalozzi's institute in Yverdon in the first decade of the nineteenth century the narrative pattern of "Youth at risk" arose-even if one can detect it more implicitly than explicitly. In the introductory section it is suggested with reference to the German historian Reinhart Koselleck that this upcoming narrative pattern might be interpreted as the result of a gap between expectations of adults regarding education on the one hand and their real experiences with children who had problems in following the educational principles on the other hand. As a result many adults were worried about an upcoming generation gap with cultural and social instability. Thus, "Youth at risk" can be seen as a symptom of sorrows and doubts of parents concerning an insecure future, the consequences of social change, and the continuity of traditional values in times of crisis after the French Revolution. To cope with these fears educators have often promised redemption by education. Against this background Pestalozzi wanted to reconcile the republican dualism between commerce and common good, of individual liberty and collective solidarity based on the ideal of family and a sort of Christian republicanism. Then a rough overview is presented of the development and the success of his educational enterprise in Yverdon. Impressed by Pestalozzi's successful self-marketing summed up in the "magic word" "method", many wealthy and distinguished parents from Spain to Russia and from America to South Africa sent their children to his educational institute. As a consequence the number of students increased in the Yverdon institute. But these students with heterogenous backgrounds and differing abilities sometimes overburdened Pestalozzi and his teachers. Around 1810, at the moment of the intensive quarrel between the teachers and a critical report issued on behalf of the Swiss Tagsatzung, the number of students decreased. This fact is interpreted in the following section as a loss of confidence of some parents towards Pestalozzi because their expectations sometimes differed from own experiences of teaching and the output of the school in Yverdon. The parents received the holistic educational concept of Pestalozzi in different ways. Some of them accepted it only partially and combined it with their own and heterogenous ambitions. Many wealthy families wished that their Sons would rapidly develop useful skills for the urban life and for jobs such as notary, merchant aid tradesman. But this request for knowledge transfer contradicted with Pestalozzi's educational aim of an undisguised natural child whose withdrawn, crude and distrustful character could easily be improved and turned into a child with active, clever, kind, self-confident, trustful and grateful attitudes. Against that Pestalozzi often judged students from urban areas and wealthy families as arrogant, bumptious, distracted and seduced by amusements. These coddled children in particular often had problems accepting the orders of the teachers and the institute as is proved by selected case studies in the fourth section. Envy and jealousy were evoked among the youth because a few rich students had a lot of money at their disposal. They spent it in pubs and other sinful locations and, what is more, they showed off with it and seduced poor children to theft. This discrepancy between rich and poor students endangered the intended solidarity and community between the children. Respect and gratefulness could not be as easily achieved as the educators planned and the parents expected. In Pestalozzi's view pampered urban students were often corpulent and sickly, their bodies not as strong and robust as those of rural children. Therefore many diseases were a risk for the students' health. This risk was aggravated because of the frequently noted lack of cleanliness of the children. These experiences of everyday life in the institute contradicted the high expectations of parents evoked by Pestalozzi. He and his teachers wanted to cope with these problems by complete control of the youth within a 1 5-hour working day. This strategy and other techniques to map the young souls are analysed in section five. Other options to exercise control were trusting talks and dialogues between teachers and children to gain knowledge of the deviant behaviour of the students, who should finally confess to this. Although Pestalozzi and the teachers believed corporal punishment of children to be ineffective in terms of reaching the intended educational aims, they sometimes laid their hand on the students. In the conclusion of this paper it is emphasised once again that the difference between intention and action, and the discrepancy between expectations and experiences was a major reason for Pestalozzi and his teachers to declare that some students were at risk. The application of this narrative pattern should be an explanation for unintended educational failures. While suggesting that a longer stay in the institute would improve students at risk Pestalozzi raised new expectations of education that could once again be disappointed. In this sense "Youth at risk" became a never-ending circle.