Ovide Decroly

Vocation

Notable

Belgian teacher and psychologist known for the "Decroly plan," which lays ground rules for social adaptation of a biological organism, in the concrete case, children. It concludes that schooling is needed for children to meet their "biosocial needs". Followers of Decroly have gone on to create and start schools that primarily focus on these "biosocial needs", and better augment the student's educational experience. These visionary teachers include such people as Fanneal Harrison and Catherine Gavin, who have founded prestigious schools such as Out-of-Door Academy. Decroly studied medicine at the University of Ghent, with half a year at the University of Berlin where he studied the action of toxins and antitoxins on general nutrition in 1898. He later worked with (mentally) handicapped children at the neurological clinic in Brussels. Decroly founded The Hermitage School in 1907. He was a freemason, and a member of the lodge Les Amis Philanthropes of the Grand Orient of Belgium in Brussels. Nowadays the "Ecole Decroly" (based in Uccle, Brussels, a school reaching from kindergarten to baccalaureate) is following his pedagogical approach. He died in Ukkel on 10 September 1932, aged 61. Link to Wikipedia biography