Influence Of Jean-Jacques Rousseau On Education

Rousseau’s Emile or On Education
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a French Philosopher and writer. He was seen as a revolutionary philosopher on education. He believed that natural education promotes and encourages qualities such as happiness, spontaneity, and the inquisitiveness associated with childhood. Rousseau believed that children should not only have the chance to b children and not have their childhood rushed, but that they should be able to learn through their experience and not just have everything taught as a verbal lesson. This is where I believe the concept of learning through play comes in. there are many philosophers who agree with this concept of children being taught through their experience that have each day. Rousseau believed …show more content…
For example, I am a toddler teacher at a daycare. Where I worked we were encouraged to allow the children to lead to pick out their own theme for each week. We were able to visit one of preschool classrooms where they were able to look at baby chicks while they were still in a egg. We would visit the chicks every week until they hatched. As a result, the children became interested in learning about eggs and chickens. From that we were able to learn together where the eggs come from and even do different experiments with eggs where we were able to touch the outside and inside of an egg. Since we were learning with the children and allowed them to participate by bringing in their own books and toys from home that pertained to the lesson, the children were able to stick with this lesson for two weeks without becoming bored. Another example of allowing the children to explore is with the preschool class. The children read a book about the stars and the planets, afterwards they became interested in the subject of astronomy. The teacher came up with a lesson plan where the children were able to investigate how many planets and stars we have, how far away they are from us, and even allow them to do their own art project and create their own solar system. The children had a chance to be as creative as they wanted to be and bring in …show more content…
As I stated before, when children are engaged in their own learning it allows them to be able to investigate and discover things on their own. They are able to think critically about different topics and form their own conclusion without any interference from the teachers. As teachers, we are only there to guide and help them only if they need it. with the example that I gave from my job, in both scenarios the children were able to choose their own theme based on their own interest and participate in their learning as well. They were not dependent on the teachers for the information, but instead went out and brought in their own books and came up with their own questions to find the answer to. I believe that this method allows the child the freedom to learn at their own pace and find out information that they would be able to retain without any prompting from the teacher. It also allows the child to be as creative as they want to be with finding the information. When the child is find out answers on their own, then it create a sense of achievement within the child and makes them want to learn more. This way the learning becomes more enjoyable and the child is excited to see what else they can find