Generalization

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The generalization effort is a catchphrase from the field of school education . This term outlines the endeavor to integrate schooling for deaf children into the “normal” school system in a more cost-effective and pedagogically satisfactory manner. The content of the generalization effort is therefore similar to the current concept of mainstreaming and integration training.

history

As early as 1815 there were considerations about the generalization of the (school) education of the deaf and mute , which appeared attractive due to the effective methodological principles of the emerging elementary schools .

In 1822 a memorandum was submitted to the Prussian Ministry of Education in which it was stated "that teaching the deaf and dumb should not be confined to the institutions set up for this branch of education as a special art, but should be generalized in such a way that not all school teachers, but several the same, especially those who are interested in the school system, take in and teach such unfortunate people at several points in the country and every well-prepared school teacher can instruct such unfortunate people in his locality in his school and tear them out of the state of indolence at an early stage. "

In 1829, "The deaf and mute reproduced by human face and musical language " was published. This was a textbook for primary school teachers and parents on how to treat deaf children. This writing exerted a great influence on the practical implementation of the generalization ideas.

Numerous other textbooks and method books by other authors followed. Each design was based on the assumption that the deaf should first learn the techniques of reading, writing, speaking and reading before the intellectual side of language is opened up to them. In all German-speaking countries, the authorities reacted to this request by adding small schools for the deaf to existing teacher training centers .

The affiliation of the deaf schools to the seminars occurred at a time when they were experiencing their most fruitful development period in the design of the elementary school . The seminar was the interface at which the new Pestalozzian thoughts were carried over into education for the deaf.

The "deaf-and-dumb teachers" at the time were particularly pleased with the idea of ​​starting with the elementary means of teaching, namely number, form and language, and then progressing step by step. Pestalozzi believed that in the elementary remedies he had found those formal categories that set the intellectual cognitive process in motion. In particular, the area of ​​language education offered to fall back on the primal achievements of the mind. His "ABC of Linguistics" is divided into three parts:

  • Tonal theory: Correct pronunciation of sounds, knowledge of letters and syllables, spelling.
  • Word theory: names of objects
  • Linguistics: arranging words in categories, explaining them by definition, laying the foundations for grammar

The generalization idea led to the founding of numerous schools or seminar schools for the deaf and mute, for example in the kingdoms of Prussia, Bavaria and Württemberg, in the principalities of Lippe and Reuss jL as well as in Saxony-Meiningen and Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach.

Todays situation

The general ideas of the generalization efforts outlined above are still present today and under different names in the special schools for the deaf and are being pushed again within the framework of mainstreaming .
However logical and attractive they may appear to parents and teachers, they have not led to any noticeable increase in the education of deaf people. The majority of the school leavers in the one-sided spoken language-oriented "deaf schools" are still so illiterate that even the headlines of tabloids are misinterpreted.

Compared to this poor general level of education, they are still often able to fill demanding professional fields, pass the driving test - albeit with considerable problems in the theoretical part - to set up clubs and to hold international events.

From this it becomes obvious that the educational weaknesses are not personal, but method-related and call the "generalization idea" and its successors into question.

literature

  • Iris Groschek: On the way to a world of understanding. Education for the deaf in Hamburg from the 18th century to the present day (=  Hamburg Historical Research , Volume 1). Hamburg University Press, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-937816-45-6 .