ERIC Number: EJ1210606
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019
Pages: 24
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0030-9230
EISSN: N/A
James Bonwick: Australian School Inspector and Fellenberg Disciple
Moore, Keith
Paedagogica Historica: International Journal of the History of Education, v55 n2 p183-206 2019
This study investigates the "educational borrowing" of Pestalozzi's and Fellenberg's reforms by James Bonwick, an Australian schoolmaster and inspector in the 1840s and 1850s. The article initially examines Pestalozzi's and Fellenberg's teaching methods and philosophies. Adopting a biographical approach, it then explores the circumstances that influenced Bonwick to embrace, utilise, and then become a protagonist in promoting the ideas of these European educationalists. Commencing with his teacher training, Bonwick was inspired to question the social and educational effectiveness of the monitorial teaching then in vogue. Transferring to the Australian Colony of Van Diemen's Land, he operated several schools based on Fellenberg's example. Then, in South Australia and Victoria, where he continued to implement Pestalozzian teaching methods, his superior teaching skills received recognition through being invited to appear before several governmental investigations into education. Finally, but most significantly, as a school inspector in Victoria between 1856 and 1859, he inspired a generation of the colony's schoolteachers to take up his enlightened and progressive teaching methods and views. Most studies of "educational borrowing" focus on parliamentarians and senior bureaucrats, but this study explains how a school inspector's energy and passion for Pestalozzian principles and methods generated widespread teacher support for their adoption.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Educational Change, Inspection, Institutional Evaluation, Teaching Methods, Teaching Skills, Educational History, Educational Philosophy, Biographies, Professional Recognition, Progressive Education, Poverty, Moral Values, Child Development, Evaluators, Student Centered Learning, Administrators
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Australia; United Kingdom (England); Switzerland
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A