Emile, or On Education (French: Émile, ou De l’éducation) is a treatise on the nature of education and on the nature of man written by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who considered it to be the "best and most important" of all his writings.[1]
Rousseau seeks to describe a system of education that would enable the natural man he identifies in The Social Contract (1762) to survive corrupt society.[4] He employs the novelistic device of Emile and his tutor to illustrate how such an ideal citizen might be educated. Emile is scarcely a detailed parenting guide but it does contain some specific advice on raising children.[5] It is regarded by some as the first philosophy of education in Western culture to have a serious claim to completeness, as well as being one of the first Bildungsroman novels.[6]
Emile, or On Education - Wikipedia
From Blank Slate to a Full Heart: What Schools Can Learn from RousseauThe educational philosophy of the 17thcentury French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
His ideas and writings build upon John Locke’s student-centered philosophy of schooling, suggesting an even more asset-based approach to education, one that values the innate character and birthright talents that our children offer.
In his world, students are not just a ‘blank slate’ to be written upon with knowledge or content, and certainly do not need to be fixed or saved, but should be valued for their natural abilities and innate desire to be free, and thus, to learn.
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As we consider online learning models, technology integration, standardization, accountability, benchmarks, outcomes, and funding models, we need to remember the work of this important educational theorist and philosopher.
We need to remember that kids are fundamentally ‘good’, that we all are. We need not fear them, or ‘fill them up’ with bad ideas that might ruin our economy or our world. Rather, we need to honor the innate goodness within our students, our kids, and give them more choice, freedom, and trust in the natural process of learning, one in which we all know works best.WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE?
Rousseau highlights how to teach children. Visually showing a child (learning based) has a significant impact rather than teaching from books. When you visually show a child, they learn and actually have a better understanding of what is being taught. “…Never substitute the symbol for the thing signified, unless it is impossible to show the thing itself” (Rousseau 16.)
Rousseau showcases this when Emilie and him were exploring a forest and were trying to find their way back home. Emile was tired and gave up. Nevertheless, Rousseau helped them find their way back. This experience helped Emile actually learn instead of forgetting what one learns if it was a lecture taught at home or school. “Teach by doing whenever you can, and only fall back upon words when doing is out of the question” (Rousseau 20).
Experience plays a vital role on learning. Rousseau’s ideology is connected to Locke’s idea about experience.
Rousseau’s child-centred ideals are now commonplace but his truly radical vision of educational freedom still eludes us
Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Émile; or On Education (1762) is perhaps the most influential work on education written in the modern world. Rousseau’s advocacy of learning via direct experience and creative play inspired the Swiss educational reformer Johann Pestalozzi, the German educator Friedrich Fröbel and the kindergarten movement. His stress on the training of the body as well as the mind was the forerunner of the mania for organised sports that swept English boarding schools in the 19th century and inspired Baron Pierre de Coubertin to found the modern Olympic Games in 1896. His observation that children develop via a series of clearly demarcated stages, each with its own unique cognitive and emotional capacities, underpinned the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget’s theories of child psychology in the 1920s. And his insistence on the value of learning in nature lies in the background of today’s Forest School movement.
And yet Rousseau referred to his text as ‘less an educational treatise than a visionary’s reveries about education’. Émile is a thought experiment, in which the philosopher imagines a system of education designed to protect the natural unity of his pupil’s consciousness from the ills of civilisation. Rousseau was renowned for being optimistic about human nature. In the primeval forests of our species’ infancy, mankind was solitary, happy and good – a zen-like noble savage who lived entirely for himself and in the present moment. It was only over time, Rousseau argued, as social bonds were extended and civilisation grew more complex, that this original unity was disturbed. Natural man was solitary and free, but social man – especially as encountered in the salons of Enlightenment Paris – was self-conscious, calculating, deceitful, egotistical and perverse. His aim in Émile was to devise a system of education capable of producing a complete, free and good human being. Émile was to be an unalienated ‘savage’ who could nevertheless thrive in the modern world.
Rousseau called this process ‘negative education’ and urged teachers to begin by ‘studying your pupils better’. Rather than stuffing children full of moral precepts and academic knowledge, the aim was to work with the grain of the pupil’s innate capacities and desires. Rousseau was one of the first proponents of the Romantic belief in the nobility of childhood, its freedom from adult corruption and closeness to the state of nature. Émile was to learn directly from nature in a retired country setting. He would be shielded from the pernicious influence of books until the age of 12, and then would be restricted for several years to a single book, Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719), for its message of self-reliance and the importance of perceiving things in themselves. Until the age of 15, Émile would learn practical craft skills, rather than theory-laden subjects such as history and religion. The role of the tutor was to design his environment so that he could ‘discover’ the laws of nature and morality for himself. For Rousseau, Émile could be free and good only insofar that ‘he see with his own eyes, feel with his own heart, [and] that no authority govern him beyond that of his own reason’.
Rousseau | School Isn't Everything
Education, unchainedRousseau’s child-centred ideals are now commonplace but his truly radical vision of educational freedom still eludes us
Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Émile; or On Education (1762) is perhaps the most influential work on education written in the modern world. Rousseau’s advocacy of learning via direct experience and creative play inspired the Swiss educational reformer Johann Pestalozzi, the German educator Friedrich Fröbel and the kindergarten movement. His stress on the training of the body as well as the mind was the forerunner of the mania for organised sports that swept English boarding schools in the 19th century and inspired Baron Pierre de Coubertin to found the modern Olympic Games in 1896. His observation that children develop via a series of clearly demarcated stages, each with its own unique cognitive and emotional capacities, underpinned the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget’s theories of child psychology in the 1920s. And his insistence on the value of learning in nature lies in the background of today’s Forest School movement.
And yet Rousseau referred to his text as ‘less an educational treatise than a visionary’s reveries about education’. Émile is a thought experiment, in which the philosopher imagines a system of education designed to protect the natural unity of his pupil’s consciousness from the ills of civilisation. Rousseau was renowned for being optimistic about human nature. In the primeval forests of our species’ infancy, mankind was solitary, happy and good – a zen-like noble savage who lived entirely for himself and in the present moment. It was only over time, Rousseau argued, as social bonds were extended and civilisation grew more complex, that this original unity was disturbed. Natural man was solitary and free, but social man – especially as encountered in the salons of Enlightenment Paris – was self-conscious, calculating, deceitful, egotistical and perverse. His aim in Émile was to devise a system of education capable of producing a complete, free and good human being. Émile was to be an unalienated ‘savage’ who could nevertheless thrive in the modern world.
Rousseau called this process ‘negative education’ and urged teachers to begin by ‘studying your pupils better’. Rather than stuffing children full of moral precepts and academic knowledge, the aim was to work with the grain of the pupil’s innate capacities and desires. Rousseau was one of the first proponents of the Romantic belief in the nobility of childhood, its freedom from adult corruption and closeness to the state of nature. Émile was to learn directly from nature in a retired country setting. He would be shielded from the pernicious influence of books until the age of 12, and then would be restricted for several years to a single book, Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719), for its message of self-reliance and the importance of perceiving things in themselves. Until the age of 15, Émile would learn practical craft skills, rather than theory-laden subjects such as history and religion. The role of the tutor was to design his environment so that he could ‘discover’ the laws of nature and morality for himself. For Rousseau, Émile could be free and good only insofar that ‘he see with his own eyes, feel with his own heart, [and] that no authority govern him beyond that of his own reason’.
It’s time we revived Rousseau’s radical spirit in schooling | Aeon Essays
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