The Museum of Special Education in Levoča was established by the transformation of the original Museum of the Blind in Levoča. The Museum of the Blind was located in the former shooting bastion, in the fortifications of the town. It was established on November 29, 1974.
The main organizer of the establishment of the museum was Michal Dzurňák (1923-1994) – the then director and teacher of the blind in the Apprentice School of a Boarding School for Visually Impaired Youth. The collection of the Museum of the Blind consisted mainly of original teaching aids from the workshop of Viliam Hrabovec and other teachers of the Czechoslovak State Institute for the Blind in Levoča.
Teaching aids for the visually impaired: copper globe (1927), plastic map of the High Tatras (1936), relief of Mariánská hora in Levoča, a plaster cast of Spiš castle (1937), but also tools made in Western Europe – rare Picht machines (end of 19th century), set of drawing needs, Klein’s typewriter (1830) and others.
The Museum of the Blind came to an end in the late 1990s due to unsuitable, cramped rooms in the bastion and poor accessibility, especially for disabled visitors.
The successor became the Museum of Special Education in Levoča, which has been situated in the burgher´s house on Námestie Majstra Pavla 28 since November 16, 1990.
It was established at the initiative of the Society for Special and Healing Education in the Slovak Republic, namely PhDr. Vladimír Predmerský and functioned as a historical-documentation center for special and healing pedagogy. Michal Dzurňák continued the idea.
Head of the Museum of Special Education in Levoča:
1989 – 1990
Michal Dzurňák
1990 – 2010
Oľga Tinajová
2011 – at present
Štefánia Petreková
Unlike the Museum of the Blind, which was a part of the Secondary School for the Visually Impaired Youth, the Museum of Special Education in Levoča was officially established by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport of the Slovak Republic. The museum was incorporated under the budgetary organization Institute of Education Information and Prognosis located in Bratislava in 1990-2013.