Chapter 7 - Western Educational Thinkers: Plato,
Rousseau, Paulo Freire and John Dewey

Question- Describe Rousseau’s impact on educational thought and classroom practices.

Answer -

Rousseau Life History in Brief

Rousseau was a great French philosopher. His philosophy of education has been called naturalism. He contends that all ills and miseries of civilisation are due to departure from ‘Nature’. Return to Nature’ was his slogan to cure the world of ills and miseries. He said “Everything is good as it comes from the hands of Author of Nature, but everything degenerates in the hands of man”. Rousseau has outlined his scheme of education in his book ‘Emile’. Emile contains five parts :

1. Part one of Book one dealing with the education of infants.
2. Part two with childhood.
3. Part three with pre-adolescent.
4. Part four with adolescence.
5. Part five with education of girls.

Progressive Ideas of Rousseau’s Educational Philosophy :

The progressive ideas of Rousseau’s educational philosophy can, well, be ascertained under the following heads :

1. Tender Regard for Children.
2. Observation of Children.
3. Child-Centred Education.
4. Education Through Doing.
5. Teaching Through Things.
6. Very Little of Books
7. Sense Training.
8. Play-Way in Education.
9. Heuristic Method of education.
10. Role of the teacher in teaching.

Rousseau, on the other hand, concluded that negative education strengthens the sense organs and the power of reasoning. As Rousseau said, “Nature wants that the child should remain a child before he becomes an adult. By changing this sequence, we shall get raw fruits which shall soon perish. The child has his own ways of seeing, thinking and experiencing. We should not impose our own methods on him.”

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