1. Pestalozzi’s Way
Anschauung, first way of knowing,
sense perception of the outer world, peers out of every pore,
as untamed and resilient as a wild vine.
Anschauung,
intuitive grasp of what is seen not named,
formed but still gathering,
fingering, sorting
what it finds.
Turning this word like a stone in his hand, Pestalozzi
knew the soil of all seeds, how the senses
grew themselves, shaped a person.
How children
would begin with what they saw
and heard
and touched,
then know the names later.
Look at me, he’d say to friends. I am an owl among birds
who watched the misery around me
multiply with my own misfortune, all the while
building my life, my purpose.
Look at you, he’d continue. You must draw your
instruction out of the child if education
is to make a difference
in the world.
And you, he’d say, bending to the child. You
must have knowledge
that comes from doing, the insight that arrives
when you are in harmony with your own inner nature.
-originally published by Oberon Magazine, 2013.