Johann Friedrich Herbart: biography of this psychologist and educator

Johann Friedrich Herbart's life is not well known, although it should be noted that his way of educating and seeing how he he had to make future students well-adjusted adults for the society in which they lived was something advanced in his time.

Let's see the story of this psychologist and philosopher from a biography of Johann Friedrich Herbart, with the key elements of his trajectory ..

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Brief biography of Johann Friedrich Herbart

Johann Friedrich Herbart was born on May 4, 1776 in Oldenburg, Germany. Due to an accident in childhood, he was a child of fragile health, which forced him to be educated by his mother at home up to 12 years old.

After that, he entered the "Gymnasium" (German high school) in his city for six years, in which he showed a great interest in Kant's philosophy. Later he would continue his studies in the city of Jena, where he would study philosophy at the hands of Johann Gottlieb Fichte, with whom he would have many conflicting opinions.

After living in Jena for three years he began teaching the children of Herr von Steiger, who was the governor of Interlaken, Switzerland. It was from that experience that Herbart he was motivated to raise how the way of teaching should be reformed.

While still in Switzerland, Herbart had the opportunity to meet Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, a Swiss educator who was getting involved in educational reforms in schools.

Herbart would begin to study Greek and mathematics when he returned to Germany, specifically in the city of Bremen, for three years and then he would go to Göttingen, where he would remain from 1801 until 1809. It was in this period that he would offer his first lectures on philosophy, in the year 1805..

After living in Göttingen he would go on to reside in Königsberg, where he would direct a pedagogical seminar until 1833, the year in which him that he would decide to return to the previous city, where he would remain until the date of his death, working as a professor of philosophy.

An anecdote about his death is that Johann Friedrich Herbart was in fairly good health even at the end of his days. In fact, just two days before he died suddenly from a stroke, he had given a conference, his last, and, according to the attendees, he seemed to be brimming with health.

His death was on August 14, 1841, in the city of Göttingen. He was buried in the Albanifriedhof cemetery in that same city.

Thought and theoretical legacy of this researcher

Next we will see some aspects of Johann Friedrich Herbart's thought, all of them closely related to his way of seeing and applying pedagogy.

Principles in education

According to Herbart, pedagogy should emphasize the child's connection to society, promoting the development of it with a useful purpose for the rest of human beings. That is to say, the intellectual and moral development of the child had to be done in such a way that he transformed it, with the over time, into an adult who feels fulfilled and useful, a productive citizen for the whole of the society.

In Johann Friedrich Herbart's opinion, each child was born with a unique potential. However, this potential would not be properly used if the child did not have the opportunity to receive a formal education and regulated, that is, the school, and that it was well organized. Although the family and the church could transmit useful knowledge and values ​​for day to day, only the school could guarantee a correct intellectual and moral development.

pedagogical method

Within his educational method, Herbart he considered that moral and intellectual education went hand in hand. They could not separate and pretend to teach them properly without one depending on the other or without establishing links between both conceptions.

According to him, if the nature of the human mind was something unitary, how could intelligence and morality be divided? In order to instruct the spirit, that is, morality, it is necessary to train it through learning and the promotion of intelligence.

However, the only way to ensure that the educational process was productive was make the lessons interesting to the students. Johann Friedrich Herbart considered it a cardinal sin that the teacher was boring and that he did not bother to attract the attention of his apprentices. Curiosity, vividness in how classes are given, motivation and the desire to teach were something extremely necessary in every lesson.

Herbart comes to talk about different types of interest that a person can present with respect to an object of study.

1. Speculative

It is the interest that derives from meditation on objects that have been experienced (seen, heard, tasted...). It's kind of reflective.

2. Aesthetic

It is the one that occurs before the observation of something that is beautiful, either natural or elaborated by the human being. It's kind of emotional.

3. Empirical

It is born from the immediate perception of things, without attributing any emotionality or reflection to them.. It is neutral.

Then there would come three other types of interest that are more related to the type of human interaction that occurs between the individual and other people.

4. Nice

It is the type of interest that the infant manifests when you are participating in activities with people around you. You can feel joy or pain, and it is the one that occurs in the family and school environment.

5. Social

It is the one that occurs before an event in which several people are involved and in which cooperation is required.

6. Religious

According to Herbart, and having a very theological vision, it would be the interest towards the human spirit and divinity, which would serve to achieve a complete life.

The education that he defended

Herbart recommends sparking students' interest and spirit, and preparing them for the new lesson. The method to follow begins with the teacher preparing the subject in depth and see how it can be related to what was previously discussed.

Then the teacher will cautiously recall the ideas presented in previous lessons to make the student students establish a relationship on their own, but not before having very briefly summarized the theme of the new lesson.

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Philosophical concept of the real

Herbart was one of the first thinkers to be aware of the importance of psychology in teaching, considering it a fundamental science for learning and promoting children's character.

This researcher he disagreed about how knowledge was acquired according to Kant's view. Kant believed that knowledge was obtained by studying the innate categories of thought, while that Herbart considered that one learns only through the study of external things and bodies real. It is not that they are from before, or in a world of ideas or something like that. Herbart went so far as to say: the world is a world of things by themselves, and things by themselves are perceptible.

Herbart, like Locke with a clean slate of him, he considered that the soul did not possess innate ideas or pre-established categories of thought, as was Kant's view. The soul, considered as something real, was something passive at the beginning of its existence, being modified by means of external stimuli.

Bibliographic references:

• Boring, E.G. (1950). "German psychology before 1850: Kant, Herbart, and Lotze." In R.M. Elliott (Ed.), A history of experimental psychology (2nd ed.). New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
• De Garmo, C. (1895). Herbart and the herbartians. New York: C. Scribner's sons.
• Kenklies, K. (2012). "Educational theory as topological rhetoric. The concepts of pedagogy of Johann Friedrich Herbart and Friedrich Schleiermacher". Studies in Philosophy and Education. 31: 265–273. doi: 10.1007/s11217-012-9287-6