The Three Child Educators and their Philosophical Ideas: Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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Hello there, this article series will be focusing on the philosophical ideas of the known three child educators in the persons of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jean Heinrich Pestalozzi and Maria Montessori.

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To start with, child-centred education which is common to childhood education is an educational programme which is designed purposely to cater for the welfare of the child. In this field of education, the child is allowed to play, do most of the learning by himself. The teacher is seen as a helper.

A little recap...

The 18th century was called the age of enlightenment. It was given this name because during this period, people began to value the ideas and opinions of individuals on the affairs of the society. Before this time, philosophers we're not interested in ideas which concerned persons. One may ask, what were they interested in?

Back then, they were interested in what concerned the state or the society. For example, Plato was more interested in educating the leader for the ideal state. On the other hand, Comenius was interested in the education of the Roman child, that is, the child as a Roman, not an individual child child.

However, during the age of enlightenment, people began developing interest in individuals as human beings, not just as members of the society. This interest in the human person was further developed and led to philosophers showing interest in the period of childhood as that which should be studied. It was believed that a happy fulfilled child would more likely be a happy fulfilled adult than a child who was unhappy. This was how the philosophy of child education was developed and now we have courses like Early Childhood Education in Nigeria tertiary institutions.


Jean-Jacques Rousseau Philosophical Ideas
According to history, he was a Swiss by birth and he lived making most of his contributions to the French society. Rousseau's main point in his philosophy is that man is born free, society corrupts him. In other words, a new child is born pure and innocent and will grow up to be pure and innocent if we do not allow him to be badly influenced by society. Rousseau calls this natural purity, the natural state of the child.

From this basic philosophy which Rousseau conceived because his own society was corrupt, he developed a philosophy of education and he called this education according to nature. This is the education based on a child's natural pattern of development, free from the evil influence of society. Rousseau's learners is taken away from society where he cannot be corrupted by evil influence. When he is of age to learn, he is taught the things that would be useful to himself.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau's philosophy supports the saying that evil company corrupts good manners. The child is usually kept away until he is matured enough to make up his mind about what is right and what is wrong. If he is then brought into the society, he can learn to live in the society without being corrupted.



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