Herbartianism

Herbartianism, pedagogical system of German educator Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776–1841). Herbart’s educational ideas, which applied particularly to the instruction of adolescents, had a profound influence on late 19th-century teaching practices, especially in the United States, where educators established the National Herbart Society in 1895.

Herbart advocated five formal steps in teaching: (1) preparation—a process of relating new material to be learned to relevant past ideas or memories in order to give the pupil a vital interest in the topic under consideration; (2) presentation—presenting new material by means of concrete objects or actual experience; (3) association—thorough assimilation of the new idea through comparison with former ideas and consideration of their similarities and differences in order to implant the new idea in the mind; (4) generalization—a procedure especially important to the instruction of adolescents and designed to develop the mind beyond the level of perception and the concrete; (5) application—using acquired knowledge not in a purely utilitarian way but so that every learned idea becomes a part of the functional mind and an aid to a clear, vital interpretation of life. This step is presumed possible only if the student immediately applies the new idea, making it his own.

Enthusiasm for Herbartianism declined with the appearance of new pedagogical theories, in particular those of John Dewey.

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