Fundamental Pedagogy Jana Doležalová

15.5 Pedagogy as Training for Life II: Modern Reformist 
Movement 
At the turn of the 19
th
and 20
th
centuries, the drawbacks of Herbart-style 
schooling, described in the previous chapter, became the target of fierce 
criticism from teachers who gathered under then banners of a reform 
movement that included figures such as John Dewey, Celestine Freinet, Maria 
Montessori, Hellen Parkhust, Rudolf Steiner and many others. The international 
reformists started from the assumption that education should be centred on the 
student. They were revolting, in a more or less latent way, against a scientific 
and technical objectification of all reality including man and child. They begin to 
see the child not as a mere object of pedagogical efforts but rather as an entity 
with individual traits and characteristics and as a being that experiences and 
participates in the educational process. Childhood is no longer seen as a 
provisory state that one must suffer through before adulthood is reached. It is a 
unique and irreplaceable period, valuable in and of itself. Building on the 
romantic and philanthropic ideals of thinkers such as Rousseau, Pestalozzi, 
Fröbel and others, the reformists call for an end of uniformity of educational 
methods, an abolition of external evaluation and motivation, a respect for the 
needs and interests of each individual. They criticise the mono-logic character 
of education and emphasis on rationality, etc. A certain unifying and 
characteristic element of this diverse movement is its 
pedocentric (learner-
centred) nature. J. Dewey talks about a Copernican revolution where the child 
becomes the Sun around which all pedagogical ‘bodies’ turn. E. Claparede 
demands a school ‘tailor-made for the child’ while E. Key publishes a book 
called 
The Century of the Child. Like traditional pedagogy, the reformists want 
to train the individual ‘for life’ but they have a radically different opinion of what 
life is. As already mentioned, the early modern period was enthralled with the 
possibilities of rational and empirical discourse. The Cartesian scientific method 
revolution resulted in the urgent need to sort and organise an immense bounty 
of new findings and facts – the first encyclopaedias and compendia of ‘all 

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human knowledge’ are being written. The primary mission of Enlightenment 
education was to mediate the mass of encyclopaedic knowledge. Only those 
who knew were considered educated and prepared for ‘the world of science 
and technology’. By contrast, the reformists recognise that knowledge alone is 
not enough. A human being is not just a pure 
ratio, it has other components 
that need to be nurtured or ‘trained’. That is why they lay so much emphasis on 
emotional and pragmatic matters. ‘
Par la vie – pour la vie’ proclaims the 
reformists’ slogan (from life, form life). The child must appreciate that 
education is a positive and useful thing.
All the reformists’ principles were undeniably justified at their time. Scientific 
remove in combination with Herbart’s methodological formalism distanced 
teaching theory from life, especially life as experienced by children. On the 
other hand, it must be said that all reformist-pedocentric motives contain a 
destructive potential if taken to the extreme. The strengths of the reformist 
approach can easily turn into weaknesses if they become the one and only 
guiding principle of pedagogical practice. For example, the practical utility of 
most of the lessons taught to children at school is not immediately apparent to 
the student precisely because the student is a child. For most children, 
appreciating the practical advantages of memorising the past perfect tense is 
difficult s they do not see the greater picture as adults do. Great effort and 
perseverance are often required. An immature individual rarely accepts this as a 
pleasant enterprise. If a child is to overcome his lack of will (or build up will) he 
must be guided, educated. In other words, liberal licence is not an alternative 
to authoritarian dogmatism.
This is closely linked to another problem inherent in the reform movement, 
the anthropological premises of this approach. Many a reform project has failed 
in the face of its humanist assumption that the human nature is by definition 
good, hence every individual’s right to self-determination. As it turns out, the 
act of authentic self-determination and self-development requires a high degree 
of maturity, which is simply not available to a child. It is also evident that 
people – including children – do not only have just positive potential that can 
flourish on its own without any educational effort, with the educator providing 
only ‘assistance’ – to use the terminology of the reformers. Laziness, 
indifference and many other negative traits are part of human nature, too. 
These negative tendencies need to be overcome, corrected or cultured through 
education and upbringing. Historically, we can sympathise with the reformists’ 
resistance to the moulding of individual character through external influences. 
On the other hand, experience has shown that the entire mechanism cannot be 
simply interiorised, putting the full responsibility for development on the 
individual. Whether one likes it or not, the art of autonomous self-development 
first demands the heteronomous influence of an educator.

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A detailed description of all reform movement and attempts exceeds the scope 
of this work. Others have treated the topic in a much better and thorough 
manner.
6
Let us conclude here with the observation that free-minded and 
experimental approaches to education were, understandably, very unpopular 
with totalitarian regimes. In Czechoslovakia, Fascism put an end to the 
attempts of Václav Příhoda and others who wanted to popularise some of the 
reform ideas imported from the West. The Communist regime, too, was hostile 
to the liberalising reformist tendencies that were considered threatening, 
bourgeois and, therefore, unwelcome.