John (J),
Patricia (P),
Alexis (A),
David (D),
Margie (M),
Viki (V),
Howard (H),
Ray (R)
Scribe:
Gavin (G)
Apologies:
Frank (FB),
Colin (C)
The homework set
At our next meeting we will be looking at Rousseau and Education. It was interesting to hear from Patricia last time that her teacher training included Rousseau, and looking through some current research it is clear that he still has influence in education and in the philosophy of language and language acquisition. Ideas he had are being confirmed by research studies.
Rousseau extolled the importance of children learning by doing, particularly by exploring the natural world. In recent years this approach has been taken up by schools in the form of forest schools. Unfortunately prescriptive curricula, testing and labelling has held sway for the last couple of decades in the UK in direct conflict with the child-centred Rousseau type approach. Teachers—and children—have been less trusted to explore and discover. It will be interesting to see if forest schools help restore the idea of learning by doing, and of the autonomous learner.
Rousseau believed that mankind has natural goodness and that education should encourage the further development of this goodness and compassion. His book Emile gives an account—totally theoretical—of how a child is ideally instructed by a tutor, not via books but the exploration of the natural environment. The tutor will be manipulating the child’s experiences, but to further the opportunities for the child of autonomous learning. The object is to stop the development of amour propre in the child, the damaging effect of aspects of society such as concern of the views of others, avid property ownership etc.
A strong criticism of ‘Emile’ is that it is no accident that the child in the book is a boy; Rousseau’s view is that girls and women are of lesser intelligence, potential and self-control. However strangely, Julie the heroine of his most popular book—the novel Julie or the new Heloise—is strongly intelligent, an educator, the intellectual centre of the book.
Rousseau is echoing the views of Socrates in his distrust of reading, and hence writing, as the way to obtain knowledge; he wants the Tutor to take Emile out into nature, so the boy will learn through experience, through his senses. Reading is introduced only later to Emile. Socrates (as reported by Plato in ‘Phaedrus’, Socrates of course did not write anything!) says:
'You know, Phaedrus, that is the strange thing about writing, which makes it truly correspond to painting. The painter’s products stand before us as though they were alive. But if you question them, they maintain a most majestic silence. It is the same with written words. They seem to talk to you as though they were intelligent, but if you ask them anything about what they say from a desire to be instructed they go on telling just the same thing forever.'
Socrates believed that writing was not an effective means of communicating knowledge. To him, face-to-face communication was the only way one person could transmit knowledge to another.
Do you subscribe, as Rousseau does, to the view of Locke that the new born child has nothing in their mind which is a blank slate, an 'empty cupboard’?
Do you have sympathy with this mistrust of obtaining knowledge via the written word?
Is the Tutor’s method allowing Emile to discover the world for himself, to find himself, or is it manipulative?
Rousseau implies that parents are not the best teachers for their children, is this reasonable?
What do you think Rousseau has bequeathed to modern views on the education of children?
Plenary Session
Introduction(L)
Rousseau was the first philosopher to investigate the topic of education deeply. He is still influential in educational circles. Many of his intuitions have been proved by recent research.(L)
He believed education should be child-centred: teachers should not try to stuff the child with knowledge. Instead they should be given opportunities to acquire knowledge. Children learn at different rates and by different means. Some learn by touch, for example.(L)
Child-centred education isn't always perfect; it can allow the lazy teacher to take shortcuts. It is no longer embedded in England's educational system: Michael Gove, when Minister for Education, imposed measurable tests.(L)
Education needs to create someone fit for employment. So we want an educational system that delivers both individual fulfilment and suitable job candidates.(V)
Rousseau believed the child should learn by doing, rather than by reading books, for their first 12 years.
He wasn't against religious belief.
He also believed private languages between children should be encouraged.
Discussion
1. Do you subscribe, as Rousseau does, to the view of Locke that the new born child has nothing in their mind which is a blank slate, an 'empty cupboard’?
Locke said that a new-born baby was a blank slate. But modern research has found that the mind of baby in womb not empty.(M)
Babies have intuitions. They won’t, for instance, crawl on glass floor where they can see the room below.(L)
Language learning is a natural instinct, which starts before birth. Two babies put together will communicate with each other.(M)
The ages of one to three are the best time to learn language. If a child doesn’t start learning language by the time they reach 12, it then becomes very hard.
It is important to maintain the pupil’s curiosity. Many systems crush this out of the child. Curiosity contributes to a better life.(A)
Rousseau believed every child was born good. The Catholic Church believed that every child was tainted by original sin.(S)
2. Do you have sympathy with this mistrust of obtaining knowledge via the written word?
Socrates said that you can’t question the written word.(A)
In Holland, pupils don't start learning to read until they reach six. The Dutch language is spelt much more phonetically than English.
Some children will teach themselves to read at 3-4.(V)
George Bernard Shaw was fond of pointing out the absurdities of English spelling by proving that fish could be spelled ghoti. That is, gh as in rough, o as in women, and ti as in palatial.(M)
The departure of the spelling of US English away from UK English was the result of a campaign by the New York Times.(A)
The required method at Tiffin Girls School by dictating history notes actually got good results.(M)
The experience of customer research suggests that only 30% of the useful information comes from the words actually used. Expressions and impressions are very important in conveying meaning.(S)
3. Is the Tutor’s method allowing Emile to discover the world for himself, to find himself, or is it manipulative?
One of the duties of the Tutor was to keep out unwanted influences. How could that be achieved today with social media?(D)
4. Rousseau implies that parents are not the best teachers for their children, is this reasonable?
Rousseau did nothing with his own children but give them away soon after birth. Why did he not experiment on them?(V)
In South Korea the birth rate is dropping because women don’t want the burdens of home-making and children.(V)
Tutors were for the children of wealthy parents—not for the man on the street, who was more likely to take the child with them as they worked.(V)
For education, parents often used horror stories, such as in the Straw Peter book, in which dreadful things happened to naughty children.(L)
5. What do you think Rousseau has bequeathed to modern views on the education of children?
Rousseau believed women thought differently.(V)
Sophie's education was sparser than Emile's. She was unfaithful to him. Rousseau said this was terrible.(L)
Is the persistence of single-sex education partly due to Rousseau?
The wedding ceremony in Switzerland in 1977 was highly prescriptive about the roles of woman and man.(H)
Finland is one of the biggest national investors in child-centred education, and it has proved economically advantageous.(S)
How does its attainment compare with Singapore?(G)
In Holland they move children back and forth through the years, depending on their individual achievement. In England it is seen as too psychologically damaging for the child to be put back a year.(M)
It's been found to be more educationally effective to get three children working together on one computer, rather than giving them one computer each.(A)
Child-centred education diminishes in the later years.(V)
George Osborne began the closure of the Sure Start programme in 2010D for doctrinaire reasons.(L)
Do Rousseau's educational objectives for children link into his ideas for the Social Contract, transforming them into citizens? (R)
Rousseau realised in the end that his educational ideas were impractical for the masses.(R)
Rousseau was full of paradoxes.(L)
Other topics touched on
Mary Wollstonecraft.(L)
Books Referenced:
Heinrich Hoffmann (1845). Struwwelpeter. Warne & Co.
