Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi: biography of this Swiss pedagogue.

A review of the life of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, a very influential educator during the Enlightenment.

Throughout history there have been different people who have made important contributions in the field of education.

One of the most prominent personalities is Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, an influential Swiss pedagogue and educator. From the values of the Enlightenment, this researcher proposed that education could be used to improve the quality of life of society in general, also in terms of material living conditions.

Let us take a look at the life of this magnificent Swiss educator and learn more about his contributions in the field of pedagogy through a biography of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi.

Short biography of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi

Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, also known as Henry Pestalozzi, was born in Zurich, the capital of Switzerland, in 1746. His father was a doctor, and died when Pestalozzi was still very young (he was only 6 years old when the tragic event took place). When he was 15 years old, he entered the Gymnasium, or Collegium Humanitatis, a prestigious center where he received a complete education which included political and historical knowledge and languages such as Hebrew and Greek.

His maternal grandfather, who was a religious pastor, had a great influence on him. Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi usually accompanied his grandfather to visit parishioner farmers, and it was in the course of these activities that he became really aware of poverty, its effects, and its relationship to the world of education.its effects, and its relation to education. He realized that children were neglected by both the political and ecclesiastical powers, and it was common for them to start working at a very early age.

At first, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi was also going to become a clergyman, like his grandfather. But through his experiences and with the influence of the philosopher Rousseau, he finally decided to direct his career towards law and politics, with the aim of bringing about social change in childhood and education. He also began to relate to the world of Freemasonry.

Youth and activism

Rousseau's works were banned by the Swiss government, which feared that the population would begin to doubt the authority of the political power or the Church, and an order was even issued to imprison the author. One of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi's former teachers, together with another group of philosophers, founded the Helvetic Society.. The aim was to defend the values of freedom that Rousseau's work stood for and to bring about changes in the constitution.

Pestalozzi became involved in this new group, writing for the newspaper Der Erinnerer, which was associated with this group. Through his articles, Johann Heinrich made public different cases of corruption and prevarication. He was accused of helping one of the members of the Helvetic Society to escape, and this earned him imprisonment for several days. The newspaper was closed for being considered radical and dangerous.

As a result of these actions, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi began to win the enmity of some of the most important personalities of the political scene.This cut short his plans for a career in the legal world. This made him draw up a new, totally different plan.

Creation of the farm

Pestalozzi decided to follow in the footsteps of a fellow member of the association and take over a seemingly worthless farm to work it as a farmer. The idea was to acquire vacant land and follow the methodology that his friend, Johann Rudolf Tschiffeli, would teach him, to turn this land into a fully operational farm. He secured financing and set his plan in motion.

He used his land to build a house, called Neuhof. Unfortunately, he soon realized that it was impossible to farm on that land, and he lost the financing. As an alternative, he thought it would be a good idea to raise sheep to go into the wool business. During that time he also married Anna Schultthess, with whom he would have his only son, Jean-Jacques, who suffered from epilepsy.

Financial problems were stifling Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, and in this situation he came up with an idea that could solve both his situation and that of many children suffering from poverty. He transformed his property, Neuhof, into an industrial school.. The project seemed to get off to a good start, even obtaining financing, but after a few years he had to close it because it was economically unfeasible to continue.

Literary projects

Totally bankrupt, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi turned his attention to his literary career. He began with a work of aphorisms called "The Night Hours of a Hermit", which he published anonymously in his friend Isaak Iselin's journal Die Ephemerides. It was not a great success, initially. But then he thought of using all the knowledge about the life of the peasants that he had known together with his grandfather, and he put it into a series of four volumes of the work entitled "Leonardo y Gertrudis".

In these books, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi depicts in four characters a teacher, a clergyman, a housewife and a politician as representatives of society.In these books, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi depicts in four characters a teacher, a clergyman, a housewife, a housewife and a politician as representatives of society, and deals with the moral values the housewife instills in her children and how the other characters try to emulate them in their respective fields. The first volume had a great repercussion, but this was not the case with the rest of the publications.

He continued with this line, publishing "Christopher and Elizabeth", a work in which these characters had a series of dialogues in which the theme revolved around corruption. He also worked as an editor in a weekly newspaper, but unfortunately it closed its doors shortly after he started his collaboration.

Already in 1794, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, on a trip to Germany to visit his sister, had the opportunity to meet a number of personalities such as the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fottlieb, he had the opportunity to get in touch with a number of personalities such as the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, who saw great value in Pestalozzi's ideas about education ideas on education and suggested that he write about them. This project took him three years, and materialized in the work "My research", about the course of nature in the development of mankind. It was not widely distributed and marked the end of his literary career.

Career as an educator

After this new failure, poverty plagued Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi and his family. But in 1798, an event was to change the course of his fortunes. The French Revolution spread its ideas throughout Europe, and this led to an end to serfdom in Switzerland. As a result, Pestalozzi decided to propose an educational project to the ministry. decided to propose an educational project to the ministry, which after a while resulted in a position as an educator in an orphanage in the town of Stans..

Stans had been invaded by France, and many children had been orphaned, so the creation of this orphanage became necessary and Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi took on his role as a teacher. It was there that he was finally able to realize all his great ideas about education in a real project. His rapid and satisfactory results led to Pestalozzi's promotion to a position as an educator of older children.

As his methodology was undoubtedly good, he found himself in a position to open a new school, this time in Burgdorf, for the children of families of older children.This time he opened a new school, this time in Burgdorf, aimed at the children of middle-class families. Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi was standardizing a methodology that was to be a great success. He took the opportunity to publish How Gertrude Teaches Her Children, which was spectacularly well received. His new work made him so popular that the institute was visited by people from all over the country.

The success was such that the government itself made the Burgdorf school its own, providing Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi and his employees with a salary at state expense, and facilitating the publication of textbooks, which resulted in three new works. However, the political changes that were advancing through Europe under Napoleon were endangering the school. He wrote a document to make the emperor see the importance of this institution, but to no avail.

Institute relocations

The new government in Switzerland withdrew his right to use the castle in Burgdorf, where the school was located, and offered him the use of a monastery in Münchenbuchsee in exchange. This new institution was to be short-lived, as Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi had a bad relationship with the headmaster assigned to the school from the very beginning, so he decided to move his institute again.

The new location was in Yverdon. Here he decided to establish not one, but several schools, two of them to be able to segregate pupils according to sex, one to be able to offer education to deaf and dumb pupils and one more designed for poor children whose families could not afford a quality education. At this time, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi was appointed president of the Helvetic Society in which he was so active in his youth.

For this society he wrote his last two works, where he synthesizes the principles that have moved his educational system. In them he speaks of dealing with concrete concepts before abstract ones, working the near before the distant, starting with simple exercises before going deeper into complex ones, or always working gradually. These are simple principles, but extremely important and their importance continues to this day. Finally, Pestalozzi died in Brugg in February 1827.

Thanks to the immense work of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Switzerland practically achieved the eradication of illiteracy by the year 1830, much earlier than most developed nations.

Bibliographical references:

• Bowers, F.B., Gehring, T. (2004). Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi: 18th century Swiss educator and correctional reformer. Journal of Correctional Education.
• Silber, K. (1974). Pestalozzi: The man and his work. Schocken Books Inc.
• Tröhler, D. (2014). Pestalozzi and the educationalization of the world. Octahedron.