Before reading the text answer the questions: 1. What does pedagogy study? 2. What famous foreign educators do you know? 3. What are the main ideas of his/ her theories? 4. Are these theories still used?
Read the text.
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi was a Swiss pedagogue and educational reformer who exemplified Romanticism in his approach.
He founded several educational institutions both in German- and French-speaking regions of Switzerland and wrote many works explaining his revolutionary modern principles of education. His motto "Learning by head, hand and heart" is still a key principle in successful 21st-century schools.
Pestalozzi was a Romantic who felt that education must be broken down to its elements in order to have a complete understanding of it. He emphasized that every aspect of the child's life contributed to the formation of personality, character, and reason. Pestalozzi's educational methods were child-centered and based on individual differences, sense perception, and the student's self-activity.
Pestalozzi had an important influence on the theory of physical education; he developed a regimen of physical exercise and outdoor activity linked to general, moral, and intellectual education that reflected Pestalozzi's ideal of harmony and human autonomy.
Pestalozzi's philosophy of education was based on a four-sphere concept of life and the premise that human nature was essentially good. The first three spheres – home and family, vocational and individual self-determination, and state and nation – recognized the family, the utility of individuality, and the applicability of the parent-child relationship to society as a whole in the development of a child's character, attitude toward learning, and sense of duty. The last sphere – inner sense – posited that education, having provided a means of satisfying one's basic needs, results in inner peace and a keen belief in God.
Maria Montessori was an Italian physician and educator best known for the philosophy of education which bears her name. Her educational method is in use today in public and private schools throughout the world.
Montessori's theory and philosophy of education were initially heavily influenced by the work of Jean Marc Gaspard Itard, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, all of whom emphasized sensory exploration and manipulatives.
Working with children in the Casa dei Bambini in 1907, Montessori began to develop her own pedagogy. Her method was founded on the observation of children at liberty to act freely in an environment prepared to meet their needs. Montessori came to the conclusion that the children's spontaneous activity in this environment revealed an internal program of development, and that the appropriate role of the educator was to remove obstacles to this natural development and provide opportunities for it to proceed and flourish.
Accordingly, the schoolroom was equipped with child-sized furnishings, "practical life" activities such as sweeping and washing tables, and teaching material that Montessori had developed herself. Children were given freedom to choose and carry out their own activities, at their own paces and following their own inclinations. In these conditions, Montessori made a number of observations which became the foundation of her work. First, she observed great concentration in the children and spontaneous repetition of chosen activities. She also observed a strong tendency in the children to order their own environment, straightening tables and shelves and ordering materials. As children chose some activities over others, Montessori refined the materials she offered to them. Over time, the children began to exhibit what she called "spontaneous discipline".
In addition, she observed four distinct periods, or "planes", in human development, extending from birth to six years, from six to twelve, from twelve to eighteen, and from eighteen to twenty-four. She saw different characteristics, learning modes, and developmental imperatives active in each of these planes, and called for educational approaches specific to each period. Over the course of her lifetime, Montessori developed pedagogical methods and materials for the first two planes, from birth to age twelve, and wrote and lectured about the third and fourth planes.
Vocabulary:
1. applicability = пригодность, применимость, при девиз, лозунг
3. obstacle = помеха, преграда, препятствие
4. premise = предположение, предпосылка
5. self-determination = самоопределение
6. sense perception = чувственное восприятие
7. to be based on smth. = быть основанным на чем-либо
8. to contribute = вносить вклад
9. to exemplify = иллюстрировать, приводить пример
10. to found = основывать
11. to posit = постулировать, утверждать
12. to provide opportunity for smth.= предоставлять возможность в чем-либо
13. to refine = облагораживать, усовершенствовать, улучшать
14. to reveal = открывать, обнаруживать
15. utility = польза, толк
