The philosophy of education

The philosophy of education examines the goals, forms, methods, and meaning of
education. The term is used to describe both fundamental philosophical analysis of these
themes and the description or analysis of particular pedagogical approaches. Considerations of
how the profession relates to broader philosophical or sociocultural contexts may be included.
The philosophy of education thus overlaps with the field of education and applied philosophy.

For example, philosophers of education study what constitutes upbringing and

education, the values and norms revealed through upbringing and educational practices, the
limits and legitimization of education as an academic discipline, and the relation between
educational theory and practice. In universities, the philosophy of education usually forms part
of departments or colleges of education.

Montaigne

Child education was among the psychological topics that Michel de Montaigne wrote about.
His essays On the Education of Children, On Pedantry, and On Experience explain the views he
had on child education. Some of his views on child education are still relevant today.

Montaigne's views on the education of children were opposed to the common

educational practices of his day. He found fault both with what was taught and how it was
taught. Much of the education during Montaigne's time was focused on the reading of the
classics and learning through books. 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. Education by a tutor was to be conducted at the
pace of the student. 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. Montaigne also thought that tutors should
encourage the natural curiosity of students and allow them to question things. 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. He argued that students would become passive adults, blindly
obeying and lacking the ability to think on their own. Nothing of importance would be retained
and no abilities would be learned. He believed that learning through experience was superior
to learning through the use of books. 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.

John Locke

Date: 1632–1704

In Some Thoughts Concerning Education and Of the Conduct of the Understanding

Locke composed an outline on how to educate this mind in order to increase its powers and
activity: "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."

"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."

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."

Locke also wrote that "the little and almost insensible impressions on our tender
infancies have very important and lasting consequences." He argued that the "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."

"Associationism", as this theory would come to be called, exerted a powerful influence

over eighteenth-century thought, particularly 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's attempt to
discover a biological mechanism for associationism in his Observations on Man (1749).

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Date: 1712–1778

Rousseau, though he paid his respects to Plato's philosophy, rejected it as impractical

due to the decayed state of society. 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 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. Rousseau advocated an educational
method which consisted of removing the child from society—for example, to a country home
—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. 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.