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
131
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.
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