Old-timers

Old-timers

Johann Pestalozzi

Johann Pestalozzi

The educator Johann Pestalozzi (1746-1827) strove for social sanitation, since people were debased through corruption and in social perplexities. Then he turned an author. [Grt 217, 219, 222]

Pestalozzi is described as "an educator with reform gurgling in his veins", one that "turned a cold shoulder to the schoolmaster's hankering to clutter the child's memory with useless knowledge." And "like Rousseau, he had great misgivings about the premature use of books". [Grt 225]

Pestalozzi never came near the means to ascertain how valid and poignant his dominant theories or greatest findings well could be, but "as his fame increased, his methods too began to be adopted on an ever-increasing scale - except in his native land." His liberal outlooks, which his new methods reflected, seemed foreboding and dreadfully challenging there. [Grt 227-8]

In the United States his methods gave rise to a school of "booming success", "almost unbelievable interest, not only among professionals but among the laity as well." His educative system was thought to be the most up-to-date at that time. [Grt 229]

John Amos Comenius

Jan Amos Komenski, aka John Amos Comenius

Jan Amos Comenius (1592-1670) "tolerated no cessation of his campaign to protect the young against moral contamination," and wrote textbooks where "he set off his greatest glitter". Not all his successful writings and methods were widely imitated. "For some reason that even scholars have been unable to make out . . . that success breeds the flattery of imitation did not apply (etc.)". [Grt 114, 117, 119]

And despite the valuable contributions to sounder education he stood up for, there were lots of people around that "would have been overjoyed to assist at his funeral." [Grt 123]

Heisenberg's Simple Warning

Werner Karl Heisenberg ca. 1927

Many in the role of experts may be role-posers, and not too good at all the issues involved in their work, really. Werner Heisenberg has revealed how immense that problem is in top-notch physics. He should know, for he knew the field intimately, and was awarded the 1932 Nobel Prize in Physics for foundational contributions to quantum mechanics. He is best known for asserting the uncertainty principle of quantum theory. He also made contributions to nuclear physics, quantum field theory, and particle physics. Heisenberg wrote about the quantum revolution in physics:

When new groups of phenomena compel changes in the pattern of thought . . . even the most eminent of physicists find immense difficulties. For the demand for change in the thought patterns may engender the feeling that the ground is to be pulled from under one's feet . . . I believe that the difficulties at this point can hardly be overestimated. Once one has experienced the desperation with which clever and conciliatory men of science react to the demand for a change in the thought pattern, one can only be amazed that such revolutions in science have actually been possible at all. [Thd 211]

Literature  

Grt: Meyer, Adolphe. Grandmasters of Educational Thought. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975.

Thd: Zukav, Gary. The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics. London: Rider, 1979.



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