On The Education Of Children Montaigne Analysis

Montaigne essay “On the Education of Children” brings to light a new way at looking at the way one would educate a child. Yet, the question still stands; is today’s modern style of educating children changed for the better since Montaigne was alive? During Montaigne’s days education focused heavy on rhetoric on learning to speak a certain or remember a fact only to be able to show off that you remembered it. For example “but not in the fashion of our French nobles, simply to report on the length of Pantheon, or the sumptuousness of Signora Livia’s drawers” (Frampton pg. 138). Montaigne’s idea on education though was that everything the student learns should be used to help the child form judgement. That lessons should focus on a moral understanding, …show more content…
It seems now that the important part of education is to remember facts and theories and not about the importance behind them. If education was to continue this way when will ever Students use this in a real life situation? Now some facts are important like learning basic mathematics and English and writing skills, but, when you get into the higher ends of those fields when will they actually used unless you are going into that field of study. Sadly, it would seem that a lot of the education done today is focus on getting children ready standardized test and they only learn the information that is on that nothing else. Now, I have nothing wrong with the idea of standardized testing its set up to help judge the students learning ability and also to see how well the teacher is teaching the class. With those results from the test though it should then be used to help student who have issues with learn a certain way or a specific subject. That is why I think this form of testing should be a tool to help children to learn not the reason they learn, because then it just turns into remembering information and nothing else. If those early years of a child’s education are not used to help the child develop life skills then how would they …show more content…
“That evil arises from their tackling at the science in the wrong manner and that, from the way we have been taught, it is no wonder that neither master nor pupils become more able”(Montaigne’s The Essay, pg. 153). I think what Montaigne was getting at with this statement was showing that with all the knowledge that the teachers had collected through their own teaching really added up to nothing because they were not able to use it for anything, and this cycle just continues to cycle as those who were the teachers students continue to go on and trach the same way they were taught. “For those who follow our French practice and undertake to act as schoolmaster for several minds diverse in kind and capacity, using the same teaching and the same degree of guidance for them all, can scarcely find in a whole tribe of children more than one or two who can bear fruit from their education.” (Montaigne’s The Essay, pg. 169). Now, I don’t exactly agree completely with this quote, but, I will agree that the method that used to teach students in a group setting doesn’t work for everyone. Some time ago I heard a report about teaching students in a group setting but not in a classroom instead, where they took them out into nature, where they were taught about different kinds of plants and