Editing Philosophy of education (section)

=== Modern ===
==== Michel de Montaigne ====
Child education was among the psychological topics that [[Michel de Montaigne]] wrote about.<ref name="King">King, Brett; Viney, Wayne; Woody, William.''A History of Psychology: Ideas and Context'', 4th ed., Pearson Education, Inc. 2009, p. 112.</ref> His essays ''On the Education of Children'', ''On Pedantry'', and ''On Experience'' explain the views he had on child education.<ref name="Hall1997">Hall, Michael L. ''Montaigne's Uses of Classical Learning''. "Journal of Education" 1997, Vol. 179 Issue 1, p. 61</ref>{{rp|61}}{{rp|62}}{{rp|70}} Some of his views on child education are still relevant today.<ref name="Ediger">Ediger, Marlow.'' Influence of ten leading educators on American education''.''Education'' Vol. 118, Issue 2, p. 270</ref>

Montaigne's views on the education of children were opposed to the common educational practices of his day.<ref name="Hall1997"/>{{rp|63}}{{rp|67}} He found fault both with what was taught and how it was taught.<ref name="Hall1997"/>{{rp|62}} Much of the education during Montaigne's time was focused on the reading of the classics and learning through books.<ref name="Hall1997"/>{{rp|67}}Montaigne disagreed with learning strictly through books. He believed it was necessary to educate children in a variety of ways. He also disagreed with the way information was being presented to students. It was being presented in a way that encouraged students to take the information that was taught to them as absolute truth. Students were denied the chance to question the information. Therefore, students could not truly learn. Montaigne believed that, to learn truly, a student had to take the information and make it their own.

At the foundation Montaigne believed that the selection of a good tutor was important for the student to become well educated.<ref name="Hall1997"/>{{rp|66}} Education by a tutor was to be conducted at the pace of the student.<ref name="Hall1997"/>{{rp|67}}He believed that a tutor should be in dialogue with the student, letting the student speak first. The tutor also should allow for discussions and debates to be had. Such a dialogue was intended to create an environment in which students would teach themselves. They would be able to realize their mistakes and make corrections to them as necessary.

Individualized learning was integral to his theory of child education. He argued that the student combines information already known with what is learned and forms a unique perspective on the newly learned information.<ref name="Worley">Worley, Virginia. ''Painting With Impasto: Metaphors, Mirrors, and Reflective Regression in Montagne's 'Of the Education of Children.' '' ''Educational Theory'', June 2012, Vol. 62 Issue 3, p. 343–70.</ref>{{rp|356}} Montaigne also thought that tutors should encourage the natural curiosity of students and allow them to question things.<ref name="Hall1997"/>{{rp|68}}He postulated that successful students were those who were encouraged to question new information and study it for themselves, rather than simply accepting what they had heard from the authorities on any given topic. Montaigne believed that a child's curiosity could serve as an important teaching tool when the child is allowed to explore the things that the child is curious about.

Experience also was a key element to learning for Montaigne. Tutors needed to teach students through experience rather than through the mere memorization of information often practised in book learning.<ref name="Hall1997"/>{{rp|62}}{{rp|67}}He argued that students would become passive adults, blindly obeying and lacking the ability to think on their own.<ref name="Worley"/>{{rp|354}} Nothing of importance would be retained and no abilities would be learned.<ref name="Hall1997"/>{{rp|62}} He believed that learning through experience was superior to learning through the use of books.<ref name="Ediger"/> For this reason he encouraged tutors to educate their students through practice, travel, and human interaction. In doing so, he argued that students would become active learners, who could claim knowledge for themselves.

Montaigne's views on child education continue to have an influence in the present. Variations of Montaigne's ideas on education are incorporated into modern learning in some ways. He argued against the popular way of teaching in his day, encouraging individualized learning. He believed in the importance of experience, over book learning and memorization. Ultimately, Montaigne postulated that the point of education was to teach a student how to have a successful life by practicing an active and socially interactive lifestyle.<ref name="Worley"/>{{rp|355}}

====John Locke====
{{See also|Some Thoughts Concerning Education|Of the Conduct of the Understanding|Essay concerning Human Understanding}}
In ''[[Some Thoughts Concerning Education]]'' and ''[[Of the Conduct of the Understanding]]'' [[John Locke]] composed an outline on how to educate this mind in order to increase its powers and activity:

<blockquote>"The business of education is not, as I think, to make them perfect in any one of the sciences, but so to open and dispose their minds as may best make them capable of any, when they shall apply themselves to it."<ref>{{cite book |last=Locke |first=John |title=Locke's Conduct of the understanding; edited with introd., notes, etc. by Thomas Fowler |date=1764 |publisher=Clarendon Press |location=Oxford |page=44 |ol=13523054M}}</ref></blockquote>

<blockquote>"If men are for a long time accustomed only to one sort or method of thoughts, their minds grow stiff in it, and do not readily turn to another. It is therefore to give them this freedom, that I think they should be made to look into all sorts of knowledge, and exercise their understandings in so wide a variety and stock of knowledge. But I do not propose it as a variety and stock of knowledge, but a variety and freedom of thinking, as an increase of the powers and activity of the mind, not as an enlargement of its possessions."<ref>{{cite book |last=Locke |first=John |title=Locke's Conduct of the understanding; edited with introd., notes, etc. by Thomas Fowler. |date=1764 |publisher=Clarendon Press |location=Oxford |pages=44–45 |ol=13523054M}}</ref> </blockquote>

Locke expressed the belief that education maketh the man, or, more fundamentally, that the mind is an "empty cabinet", with the statement, "I think I may say that of all the men we meet with, nine parts of ten are what they are, good or evil, useful or not, by their education."<ref>Locke, John. ''Some Thoughts Concerning Education and Of the Conduct of the Understanding''. Eds. Ruth W. Grant and Nathan Tarcov. [[Indianapolis, Indiana|Indianapolis]]: [[Hackett Publishing Company|Hackett Publishing Co.]], Inc. ([[1996 in literature|1996]]), p. 10.</ref>

Locke also wrote that "the little and almost insensible impressions on our tender infancies have very important and lasting consequences."<ref>Locke, ''Some Thoughts'', 10.</ref> He argued that the "[[Association of Ideas|associations of ideas]]" that one makes when young are more important than those made later because they are the foundation of the self: they are, put differently, what first mark the ''tabula rasa''. In his ''Essay'', in which is introduced both of these concepts, Locke warns against, for example, letting "a foolish maid" convince a child that "goblins and sprites" are associated with the night for "darkness shall ever afterwards bring with it those frightful ideas, and they shall be so joined, that he can no more bear the one than the other."<ref>Locke, ''Essay'', 357.</ref>

"Associationism", as this theory would come to be called, exerted a powerful influence over eighteenth-century thought, particularly [[education theory|educational theory]], as nearly every educational writer warned parents not to allow their children to develop negative associations. It also led to the development of [[psychology]] and other new disciplines with [[David Hartley (philosopher)|David Hartley]]'s attempt to discover a biological mechanism for associationism in his ''[[Observations on Man]]'' ([[1749 in literature|1749]]).

====Jean-Jacques Rousseau====
<!-- This section is linked from [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]] -->
[[File:Jean-Jacques Rousseau (painted portrait).jpg|thumb|right|Jean-Jacques Rousseau by [[Maurice Quentin de La Tour]]]]

[[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]], though he paid his respects to Plato's philosophy, rejected it as impractical due to the decayed state of society.<ref>{{Cite news |url=http://turtola.edublogs.org/about/other-classes/intro-to-philosophy/philosophy-of-education-theorists/ |title=Philosophy of Education: Theorists |date=2011-03-28 |work=Turtola's CyberEnglish Blog |access-date=2018-06-27 |language=en-US |archive-date=2018-06-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180627062521/http://turtola.edublogs.org/about/other-classes/intro-to-philosophy/philosophy-of-education-theorists/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Rousseau also had a different theory of human development; where Plato held that people are born with skills appropriate to different castes (though he did not regard these skills as being inherited), Rousseau held that there was one developmental process common to all humans. This was an intrinsic, natural process, of which the primary behavioral manifestation was curiosity. This differed from Locke's '[[tabula rasa]]' in that it was an active process deriving from the child's nature, which drove the child to learn and adapt to its surroundings.

Rousseau wrote in his book ''[[Emile: Or, On Education|Emile]]'' that all children are perfectly designed organisms, ready to learn from their surroundings so as to grow into virtuous adults, but due to the malign influence of corrupt society, they often fail to do so.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-5/jean-jacques-rousseau-on-sophys-education|title=Jean-Jacques Rousseau on Sophy's Education {{!}} Chapter 5: Learning Personalities {{!}} New Learning {{!}} New Learning|website=newlearningonline.com|access-date=2018-06-27|archive-date=2018-06-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180627090941/http://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-5/jean-jacques-rousseau-on-sophys-education|url-status=live}}</ref> Rousseau advocated an educational method which consisted of removing the child from society&mdash;for example, to a country home&mdash;and alternately conditioning him through changes to his environment and setting traps and puzzles for him to solve or overcome.

Rousseau was unusual in that he recognized and addressed the potential of a problem of legitimation for teaching.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/000001089.htm |title=Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Father of Government Schools |last=K. |first=Novello, Mary |date=1999-09-07 |website=www.leeds.ac.uk |access-date=2018-06-27 |archive-date=2018-06-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180627091017/http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/000001089.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> He advocated that adults always be truthful with children, and in particular that they never hide the fact that the basis for their authority in teaching was purely one of physical coercion: "I'm bigger than you." Once children reached the age of reason, at about 12, they would be engaged as free individuals in the ongoing process of their own.

He once said that a child should grow up without adult interference and that the child must be guided to suffer from the experience of the natural consequences of his own acts or behaviour. When he experiences the consequences of his own acts, he advises himself.

"Rousseau divides development into five stages (a book is devoted to each). Education in the first two stages seeks to the senses: only when Émile is about 12 does the tutor begin to work to develop his mind. Later, in Book 5, Rousseau examines the education of Sophie (whom Émile is to marry).<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://rousseaustudies.free.fr/ArticleWallace.htm |title=Sophie: Woman's Education According |website=rousseaustudies.free.fr |access-date=2018-06-27 |archive-date=2019-08-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190804052326/http://rousseaustudies.free.fr/ArticleWallace.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> Here he sets out what he sees as the essential differences that flow from sex. 'The man should be strong and active; the woman should be weak and passive' (Everyman edn: 322). From this difference comes a contrasting education. They are not to be brought up in ignorance and kept to housework: Nature means them to think, to will, to love to cultivate their minds as well as their persons; she puts these weapons in their hands to make up for their lack of strength and to enable them to direct the strength of men. They should learn many things, but only such things as suitable' (Everyman edn.: 327)."
[http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-rous.htmIn Émile]

==== Immanuel Kant ====
[[Immanuel Kant]] believed that education differs from training in that the former involves thinking whereas the latter does not. In addition to educating reason, of central importance to him was the development of character and teaching of moral maxims. Kant was a proponent of public education and of learning by doing.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cahn |first=Steven M. |title=Classic and Contemporary Readings in the Philosophy of Education |publisher=McGraw Hill |year=1997 |location=New York, NY |pages=197 |isbn=0-07-009619-8}}</ref>

====Charlotte Mason====
[[Charlotte Mason]] was a British educator who invested her life in improving the quality of children's education. Her ideas led to a method used by some homeschoolers. Mason's philosophy of education is probably best summarized by the principles given at the beginning of each of her books. Two key mottos taken from those principles are "Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life" and "Education is the science of relations." She believed that children were born persons and should be respected as such; they should also be taught the Way of the Will and the Way of Reason. Her motto for students was "I am, I can, I ought, I will." Charlotte Mason believed that children should be introduced to subjects through living books, not through the use of "compendiums, abstracts, or selections." She used abridged books only when the content was deemed inappropriate for children. She preferred that parents or teachers read aloud those texts (such as Plutarch and the Old Testament), making omissions only where necessary.