Humanistic pedagogy

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Humanistic pedagogy is an attitude and practice in education and adult pedagogy that attaches great importance to the aspects of freedom, appreciation, dignity and integrity of persons. It has its philosophical roots in the ideas of humanism and existentialism .

History of Humanistic Pedagogy

Humanistic pedagogy is based on a tradition that goes back thousands of years, starting in antiquity through the European forms from the 12th century to the new humanist approaches towards the end of the 19th century. Some representatives are listed here as examples.

  • Plato (427–347 BC) propagated a prejudice-free attitude to new, knowledge-enhancing questions and the exploration of the ideas behind the images. The goal of the whole personality should be the striving for the true, the beautiful, the good, as well as for wisdom and reason.
  • Erasmus von Rotterdam (1465 or 1469–1536) opposed the bad habits common in the educational system of unnecessarily complicating and overloading learning material and thereby creating an atmosphere of fear and stress. For the pioneer of humanism, freedom from such negative factors is a basic condition of learning. He also developed creative teaching content that addressed as many of the pupils' senses as possible and was not designed for purely cognitive learning. Today there are parallels in Freinet pedagogy and in humanistic pedagogy according to Rogers.
  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) emphasized the naturalness of children's curiosity and used this in a playful way of learning within a real environment to acquire problem-solving skills. Similarities can be seen here with the project work used in today's pedagogy. Rousseau assumed that the hindrance to learning was more likely to result from the negative effects of the school and its internal development and that the students should therefore be freed from these.
  • Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827) based himself on his model Rousseau. In contrast to this, however, he did not consider human traits to be good in principle. Negative tendencies such as lack of motivation were taken into account in the educational efforts. Basically, naturalness was the focus of the didactics with Pestalozzi. The whole person should be considered in his idea of ​​elementary education in such a way that head, heart and hand are addressed in the training. His findings on the teacher-student relationship can serve as a template for Roger's approach of the "helping relationship".

Newer approaches since the 20th century

In the 1960s, various movements in humanistic pedagogy emerged as a reaction to the educational system that was perceived as authoritarian. The so-called "Free Schools" attracted considerable public attention at that time. A connection to the Summerhill boarding school in England founded by Alexander Sutherland Neill in 1921 can be seen here.

In response to this movement and its inadequate scientific approaches, modern humanistic pedagogy emerged, which adopted its basic approaches from humanistic psychology . Carl Rogers , Charlotte Bühler , Abraham Maslow and Paul Goodman are important representatives of this direction .

Humanistic pedagogy is person-centered. It deals with the behavior , but also the values and feelings of the learner and is based on value-related principles of pedagogical action.

The goals of humanistic education were formulated in 1978 by the ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) as follows:

  1. Humanistic pedagogy accepts the needs of the learner and puts together experiences and programs that take their potential into account.
  2. It facilitates "self-actualization" and tries to develop a sense of personal appreciation in everyone.
  3. It emphasizes the acquisition of the basic skills to live in a multicultural society. This includes academic, personal, interpersonal, communicative and economic areas.
  4. She tries to make educational decisions and practices personal. To this end, it intends to involve the learner in the process of his or her own upbringing, cf. student-oriented teaching
  5. She recognizes the important role of feelings and uses personal values ​​and perceptions as integrated parts of the educational process, cf. Holistic approach (pedagogy)
  6. It develops a learning climate that promotes personal growth and that learners find interesting, understanding, supportive and fearless.
  7. It develops in the learner a real respect for the value of others as well as the ability to resolve conflicts ( social skills ).

Various therapeutic approaches that developed in humanistic psychology found more and more entrance into educational work, especially in adult education : client- centered conversation , gestalt therapy , transactional analysis , psychodrama and topic-centered interaction .

literature

The article has its origin in the thesis Humanistic Teaching Methods in Technological Learning Environments by Matthias Brenner, Hanau.

Further literature:

  • Gerhard Fatzer: Holistic learning . Verlag EHP Organization, 1998, ISBN 978-3873872691
  • Lynn Dhority: Modern Suggestopedia: The ACT Approach to Holistic Teaching and Learning . 1984, German 1986
  • Carl R. Rogers: Freedom and Commitment . 1982, German 1984
  • Carl R. Rogers: Learning in Freedom . 1969, German 1974
  • Martin Wagenschein : Learning to understand . Publishing house Julius Beltz, Weinheim and Berlin 1968