Tracing the history of education for the deaf in Esfahan

Mandana Razavizadeh research team supervisor from the Institute for Research on the History of Children's Literature, made a trip to Esfahan in the last days of October to collect more information on the life of Baghcheban and the history of education for the deaf. She visited the Museum of Education where she found many documents which had been used by researchers at the Institute. Most fascinating items at the museum were the Cuisenaire Box, the box for teaching mathematics at elementary school and the school bag from 1935 from Maimeh District, Esfahan province.

The trip was organized by Farideh Sabzalizadeh, colleague of the Institute in Esfahan and it included a meeting with one of the students of the Ernest Kristofel School the German missionary.

Ernest Pasteur Kristofel first started his training program for the blind children in Tabriz. Later in the second decade of 1921 he expanded his work in Esfahan , also providing education to physically challenged and poor as well as to the deaf children. He died in 1955 and was buried in the Armenian cemetery in Esfahan.