Teaching from real life...

I have been re-reading Leonard and Gertrude by Pestalozzi and have gotten to the part in which the local land owner has witnessed Gertrude's teaching of her own children and has decided to build a school based on her methods. In this you can see that the novel is inspired by Pestalozzi's own life, in his observations of the loving methodology used by his own widowed mother in providing the spark for learning, even in the midst of poverty. 

Although Gertrude thus exerted herself to develop very early the manual dexterity of her children, she was in no haste for them to learn to read and write. But she took pains to teach them early how to speak; for, as she said, "of what use is it for a person to be able to read and write, if he cannot speak?-- since reading and writing are only an artificial sort of speech." To this end she used to make the children pronounce syllables after her in regular succession, taking them from an old A-B-C book she had. This exercise in correct and distinct articulation was, however, only a subordinate object in her whole scheme of education, which embraced a true comprehension of life itself. Yet she never adopted the tone of instructor toward her children; she did not say to the; "Child, this is your head, your nose, your hand, your finger;" or: "Where is your eye, your ear?-- but instead, she would say;"Come here child, I will wash your little hands," "I will comb your hair," or: "I will cut your finger-nails." Her verbal instruction seemed to vanish in the spirit of her real activity, in which it always had its source. The result of her system was that each child was skilful, intelligent and active to the full extent that its age and development allowed.

The instruction she gave them in the rudiments of arithmetic was intimately connected with the realities of life. She taught them to count the number of steps from one end of the room to the other, and two of the rows of five panes each, in one of the windows, gave her the opportunity to unfold the decimal relations of numbers. She also made them count their threads while spinning, and the number of turns on the reel, when they wound the yarn int skeins. Above all, in very occupation of life she taught them an accurate and intelligent observation of common objects and the forces of nature. 

All that Gertrude's children knew, they knew so thoroughly that they were able to teach it to the younger ones; and this they often begged permission to do... 

One of the things one learns from a reading of Leonard and Gertrude was the use of crafts as a tool in the education process. Gertrude used spinning and weaving as a means to enhance her children's understanding of the world and develop character. 

Leonard and Gertrude is available free as a google book download and would be a perfect book to help mothers and teachers during the pandemic as it urges learning from real life and without the abstractions of artificialized schooling. https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Johann_Heinrich_Pestalozzi_Leonard_and_Gertrude

I've written a bunch more about Pestalozzi previously in this blog. Here is an example:

 https://wisdomofhands.blogspot.com/2009/04/pestalozzi.html

Make, fix and create... Assist others in learning likewise.