Karl Ferdinand Kern

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K (C) arl Ferdinand Kern (born June 7, 1814 in Eisenach , † December 9, 1868 in Möckern ) was a German therapeutic educator and human medicine specialist . He was a pioneer in German mentally ill education .

Life

Kern completed a teacher training course. From a very early age he dealt with the education and upbringing of abnormal children of all kinds. Kern completed his educational work at the institutions for the deaf and dumb in Weimar and Leipzig. In 1839 he opened an institute for abnormal children in his hometown , to which three years later he added a department for deaf-mute and feeble-minded children :

Already in Eisenach he had clearly recognized that the curative educational institutions had to complement the elementary school. Right from the start he made a clear distinction between a closed institution and school classes for the less gifted, so that he can be counted among the conscious advocates of auxiliary school education .

Soon Kern received an appointment to set up an institution for the mentally ill in the Prov. Saxony . After the planned project failed, he set up an educational institution for the feeble-minded in Gohlis near Leipzig, which the curative teacher later relocated to Möckern . In order to fully do justice to his clientele, the trained teacher still studied medicine, "in order to have sufficient professional competence in both the pedagogical and medical fields, following the example of Séguin". In 1852 he completed his studies with a doctorate . The topic of his dissertation was: De fatuitatis cura et medica et paedagogica consocianda . The work was published in the same year.

Kern was active as a journalist. In addition to some specialist books, he had tried to put down the results of his own practice as well as demands for the expansion of curative education in the most renowned specialist journals of the time . He decidedly denied the view held at the time, in line with the medical conception of illness, that a cure for nonsense would be possible. To this end he formulated:

Furthermore, however, it is not really possible to cure nonsense based on the degeneration of the brain and its sheaths, but the task can only be to improve the condition [...] and it is certainly much gained if the patient through a appropriate care must be protected against sinking deeply. If not cured, some of these unfortunate people can still be trained to serve as useful members of the family .

The physician was a supporter of Friedrich Froebel's pedagogy :

What fascinated Kern was Froebel's principle of the child's self-activity. He was drawn to the slow, gradual progression from the simple to the difficult, which was particularly suitable for the abnormal. In order to get to know the new method directly, he personally visited the infant educator in Blankenburg .

In his work "Pedagogical and dietetic treatment of the foolish and nonsensical", Kern said the following about Froebel's play and employment system:

The play equipment invented by the director Fröbel zu Blankenburg and ... used with the greatest success is an excellent teaching aid. They start from the sphere as a unit, move on to the cube, and from there develop into the greatest variety, so that they correspond to the needs of children at every stage of development .

Kern was one of the founders of the Society for the Promotion of the Ill-Minded Education . He was married to Johanne Caroline Köhler (1808–1886). The marriage had ten children. Kern died unexpectedly and suddenly of a brain apoplexy (stroke). His son, also a medical doctor, took over the management of the Möcken facility.

In Leipzig, the Kernstrasse is a reminder of the medicine worker and curative teacher.

Works

literature

  • Max Kirmsse : Dr. Karl Ferdinand Kern, a pioneer of the German mentally ill education , in: EOS 1914 / H. 4 and 1915 / H. 1.
  • Max Kirmsse: Kern and the auxiliary school , in: Die Hilfsschule 1915, pp. 1–20.
  • Max Kirmsse: Froebel's relationships with curative education , in: Journal for the treatment of anomalous people 1930, pp. 65–85.
  • Max Kirmsse: Kern, Karl Ferdinand, in: Enzyklopädisches Handbuch der Heilpädagogik , Volume 1, Halle an der Saale 1934, Sp. 1387-1388.
  • Gerhardt Nissen: Cultural history of mental disorders in children and adolescents , Stuttgart 2005, pp. 94–96.
  • Tanja Nebel: Karl Ferdinand Kern (1814–1868). His life and work. A contribution to the history of German curative education in the 19th century , Ingolstadt 2010.
  • Manfred Berger : Kern, Carl Ferdinand , in: Felicitas Marwinski (Ed.): Paths of life in Thuringia. Fifth collection with general register for collections 1 to 5, Jena 2015, pp. 148–152.
  • Manfred Berger: Carl Ferdinand Kern. His life and work , in: heilpaedagogik.de 2018 / H. 2, pp. 24-26.
  • Melchior Josef Bandorf :  Kern, Karl Ferdinand . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1882, p. 632 f.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Max Kirmsse (1914)
  2. ↑ Kirmsse 1934, column 1387
  3. ↑ Kirmsse 1934, column 1387
  4. ↑ Nissen 2005, p. 94
  5. ↑ Kirmsse 1934, column 1388
  6. ↑ Kern 1855, p. 569
  7. ↑ Kirmsse 1930, p. 74
  8. ↑ Kern 1847, p. 20
personal data
SURNAME Kern, Karl Ferdinand
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kern, Carl Ferdinand
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German curative pedagogue and human medicine
DATE OF BIRTH June 7, 1814
PLACE OF BIRTH Eisenach
DATE OF DEATH December 9, 1868
Place of death Leipzig