Paul Gerhardt (pedagogue)

Paul Gerhardt (born June 18, 1867 in Schreiberhau , Hischberg district , province of Silesia ; † July 3, 1941 in Herrnhut ) was a German special educator and writer .

Live and act

Paul Gerhardt was a son of Christian Friedrich Gerhardt. In 1835 his father had opened a “rescue center” in Schreiberhau, where he initially neglected and from 1845 also looked after disabled children. After schools in the Herrnhut Brethren in Gnadenberg and Niesky , Gerhardt attended the Brothers Teachers' College in Niesky from 1884 to 1887. From 1887 he taught in the so-called boys' institutions and the local schools of the Brethren in Kleinwelka , in Christiansfeld and Niesky and took over the school management as a substitute. The educational concept goes back to Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, oriented towards Christian awakening and attitude and emphasized the individuality of the students. The institutions wanted to encourage the students to be independent and individual and to promote intercultural communication.

Since January 1, 1895, Gerhardt has directed the schools of the Alsterdorfer Anstalten in Hamburg , which mostly took in mentally handicapped children. There he implemented the Zinzendorfs concepts, introduced innovations and helped the educational institution to gain a reputation among professionals. He was one of the first teachers to draft curricula and a didactic concept for the training of mentally and learning disabled students. He worked with an extremely broad educational approach and tried to respond to the children individually. He attached great importance to practiced religiosity, creative and clear teaching. His special concern was the development of the senses with a focus on the senses of smell and touch. He also taught the use of colors and shapes and gave suggestions for physical movement. In all classes he worked according to the principle of co-education , which at the time was considered controversial in professional circles.

During his time at the Alsterdorfer Anstalten, Gerhardt changed two important aspects of the concept developed by the institution's founder, Heinrich Matthias Sengelmann : since he saw severely disabled students as not sufficiently capable of education, he considered it necessary to merely care for them at the institutions. While Sengelmann had advocated teaching theory and practice on an equal footing, Gerhardt separated technical training from theoretical teaching and transferred it to preschools. He also established preschool classes that should prepare holistically for later school education. For further training, he attended psychological courses at the general lectureships with Ernst Meumann from 1921 onwards . In addition to an internship at the school for the deaf and mute, he also worked for four semesters at the phonetic laboratory.

At the beginning of the 20th century, when doctors began to work more and more with the disabled, Gerhardt tried to illustrate the importance of educational work and its possibilities. To this end, he attended congresses and published on the history of curative education and teaching concepts in education for the disabled. He also campaigned vigorously against emerging efforts to use euthanasia on severely disabled people . Instead, he spoke out in favor of tackling alcoholism, which he saw as the most important cause of disability.

Since he was of the opinion that pupils with learning disabilities in elementary and elementary schools received insufficient support, Gerhardt worked hard to establish auxiliary schools. His special concern was the specific training of appropriate teachers, who are not only technically competent, but should particularly value disabled children.

In August 1920, Gerhardt resigned a few months after receiving honors on the occasion of his 25th service anniversary. The reason for the termination was the board's support for his educational work, which Gerhardt found inadequate. Only with problems did he get a new position on October 1 as a research assistant to Wilhelm Weygandt at the Friedrichsberg State Hospital . There he worked in a newly created department in which reports were to be drawn up on young people who were difficult to educate and who were delinquent. The patients here also received educational support for reintegration into society. The department closed in 1931 due to a lack of funding; the thus unemployed Gerhardt went into retirement. Four years later he moved to Herrnhut due to health problems. It was here that his wife, with whom he had been married for 40 years, died unexpectedly. In old age Gerhardt, who died in 1941, increasingly lost his mental and physical energy.

literature

• Bodo Schümann: Gerhardt, Paul . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 3 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-8353-0081-4 , p. 133-135 .