Pedagogues

Throughout the history of civilisation (since at least the time of the Renaissance), there have been pedagogues: those teachers and philosophers who have not only taught and helped others but also pushed the boundaries of education, developed the methodology and purpose of education, enhanced not only the population but advanced society and civilisation by bringing to practice and consciousness and understanding of how we can improve not only ourselves, but our fellow humans and society as well as advancing the entire gamut of human knowledge, endeavour and potential.

Amongst these are: Rousseau (1712-1778), Pestalozzi (1746-1827), Rudolf Steiner (1861 - 1925), Maria Montesorri (1870 - 1952) , Phyllis Wallbank (1918-2020),  Kurt Hahn (1986-1974).  I will try to describe the work of each of these and some others.

Phyllis Wallbank

Phyllis Wallbank (1918-2020) began as a Froebel-trained teacher. Working in juvenile courts as a children's officer in Buckinghamshire, however, she realised that far fewer children would become delinquent if they could be educated to assume their own personal responsibilities and so take their rightful place in society. To do this, she trained under Maria Montessori and became a personal friend. In Montessori's later years, she served as her co-examiner for both the ordinary and the advanced courses.

She also organised the last International Montessori Congress, which met in London shortly before Montessori's death. William J. Codd, Professor of Education at Seattle University, wrote of Wallbank: "The one on whom the robe of Montessori should fall to carry on the living tradition.

The Gatehouse Learning Centre was "known for its distinguished graduates as well as its integration of exceptional students into the regular classroom." Phyllis lectured at a wide variety of colleges and conferences as well as university courses and lectures under various titles. In particular, she designed the distance learning course of the College of Modern Montessori. In retirement in Dorney, she was called upon by Eton College as a visiting teacher. In 2007 and 2008, in her late eighties, she went on Montessori World Tours giving lectures on Montessori education.

The Phyllis Wallbank Educational Trust, or PWET, (a registered education charity based in London) was founded to continue her educational thinking and expertise.

I worked closely with Phyllis in the early 1980's on an particular education project in the UK for several months, and met her many times and visited the family. She was a fascinating, dynamic and incisive personality. She was lecturing worldwide into her nineties. Sadly, she recently died in London.

Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Steiner (1861 - 1925) who among many other innovative work also inspired the development of the Waldorf Schools education system).

In the 'Philosophy of Freedom', Steiner further explores potentials within thinking: freedom, he suggests, can only be approached gradually with the aid of the creative activity of thinking. Thinking can be a free deed; in addition, it can liberate our will from its subservience to our instincts and drives. Free deeds, he suggests, are those for which we are fully conscious of the motive for our action; freedom is the spiritual activity of penetrating with consciousness our own nature and that of the world, and the real activity of acting in full consciousness. This includes overcoming influences of both heredity and environment: "To be free is to be capable of thinking one's own thoughts - not the thoughts merely of the body, or of society, but thoughts generated by one's deepest, most original, most essential and spiritual self, one's individuality."

For Steiner, human individuality is centred in a person's unique biography, and he believed that an individual's experiences and development are not bound by a single lifetime or the qualities of the physical body.

In 1919, Emil Molt invited him to lecture to his workers at the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory in Stuttgart. Out of these lectures came a new school, the Waldorf school. In 1922, Steiner presented these ideas at a conference called for this purpose in Oxford by Professor Millicent Mackenzie. He subsequently presented a teacher training course at Torquay in 1924 at an Anthroposophy Summer School organised by Eleanor Merry. The Oxford Conference and the Torquay teacher training led to the founding of the first Waldorf schools in Britain. During Steiner's lifetime, schools based on his educational principles were also founded in Hamburg, Essen, The Hague and London. There are now more than 1000 Waldorf schools worldwide.

Steiner's research and writings and practice extended into bio-dynamic agriculture, philosophy, spirituality, Christianity, social reform, Anthroposophical medicine, architecture and the visual arts (he designed and built 17 buildings) and Goethean science.  

Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi 

Pestalozzi (1746-1827), was a Swiss educational innovator. Based on what he learned by operating schools at Neuhof, Stans, Burgdorf and Yverdon he emphasized that every aspect of the child's life contributed to the formation of their personality, character, and capacity to reason. His educational methods were child-centered and based on individual differences, sense perception, and the student's self-activity.

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 "exterior" 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 "exterior" 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.[

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 was "Learning by head, hand and heart". Thanks to Pestalozzi, illiteracy in 18th-century Switzerland was overcome almost completely by 1830. Today there are schools named after Pestalozzi in Switzerland, Germany, USA, Puerto Rico, Macedonia, Argentina, Peru.

Pestalozzi's method was used by the cantonal school in Aarau that Albert Einstein attended, and which has been credited with fostering Einstein's process of visualizing problems and his use of "thought experiments". Einstein said of his education at Aarau, "It made me clearly realize how much superior an education based on free action and personal responsibility is to one relying on outward authority."

Kurt Matthias Robert Martin Hahn

Kurt Hahn (5 June 1886, Berlin - 14 December 1974) was born and raised in Germany and in 1920, he and Prince Max von Baden founded the Schule Schloss Salem, but after speaking out against Hitler was forced to leave in 1933. He based his educational philosophy on respect for adolescents, whom he believed to possess an innate decency and moral sense, but who were, he believed, corrupted by society as they aged. He believed that education could prevent this corruption, if students were given opportunities for personal leadership and to see the results of their own actions. This is one reason for the focus on outdoor adventure in his philosophy. His views on education also centred on the ability to understand different cultures.

At his pioneering school (Gordonstoun), Hahn's prefects are called Colour Bearers, and traditionally they are promoted according to Hahn's values: concern and compassion for others, the willingness to accept responsibility, and concern and tenacity in pursuit of the truth.

His analysis of society led him to devise an assessment of "six declines of youth" and construct 4 principles of rescue. He then create 10 modules of learning/education ('The Expeditionary Learning Principles'):   1.Primacy of self-discovery. 2.The having of wonderful ideas. 3.The responsibility for learning. 4. Empathy and caring. 5. Success and failure. 6. Collaboration and competition. 7. Diversity and inclusion. 8. The natural world. 9. Solitude and reflection. 10. Service and compassion.

From his educational work developed the "Outward Bound" international projects and learning camp system (HRH the Prince Phillip who attended Gordonstoun then went on to found The Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme).

Hahn's work on "expeditionary learning' fired in me development of an element my own teaching philosophy: what I term "teamanship". My own technique I have devised to be essential to the effective development of the young individual as a free thinking responsible members of society: playing one's part in a group, being self-reliant, self-responsible, helping others, interaction, sharing, mutual respect, and inter-dependency, leadership skills based on trust, self-overcoming.

(other pedagogues will be included on this page)