The teaching “imagined” by Pestalozzi in the Work how Gertrudes teaches her children

Abstract

The study of pedagogical ideas has drawn on works of very diverse natures to address theorizations about teaching throughout the history of education and, among them, literary texts produced by pedagogists in different social and historical contexts stand out. Considering the potential and relevance of reflecting on teaching issues, we revisit in this symposium the work How Gertrudes Teaches Her Children (1801) by Pestalozzi, whose act of reading resembles that of a literary decipherment, especially as it is a a work of fiction that aims to discuss knowing how to teach. Pestalozzi presents in his book, through fourteen letters addressed to his friend and editor Heinrich Gessner, his teaching method, his theories on education and prescriptions for teaching practice. It is believed that Pestalozzi, his experiences and his writings contributed to delimiting important questions about the organization of the modern school represented, for example, in the development of the intuitive method and the implementation of graduated schools, considered symbols of pedagogical modernity. The graduated school is characterized by a set of ideas that were organized throughout the 19th century about the best ways to instruct new generations. In this way, the communication that makes up this symposium aims, on the one hand, to dialogue with Pestalozzi's pedagogical work, situating its formative potential and figuration of educational problems; on the other, it intends to reflect on the nature of pedagogical knowledge in pedagogical literature.