Jean-Jacques Rousseau
A major impetus for the current understanding of pedagogy was the educational philosophy of the Swiss social thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778). Concerned with the decay of society, he developed his theories based on his belief that human beings were inherently good as they were closest to nature when born, but society and its institutions corrupted them and denaturalized them. Consequently, bringing up children in harmony with nature and its laws so as to preserve the good was central for Rousseau’s pedagogic theory. Rousseau innovatively “argued that the momentum for learning was provided by the growth of the person (nature) – and that what the educator needed to do was to facilitate opportunities for learning,” as Doyle and Smith note.
Read more about this topic: Social Pedagogy, Historic Development
Famous quotes by jean-jacques rousseau:
“The members of a body-politic call it ‘the state’ when it is passive, ‘the sovereign’ when it is active, and a ‘power’ when they compare it with others of its kind. Collectively they use the title ‘people,’ and they refer to one another individually as ‘citizens’ when speaking of their participation in the authority of the sovereign, and as ‘subjects’ when speaking of their subordination to the laws of the state.”
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778)
“I long remained a child, and I am still one in many respects.”
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778)
“Ordinary readers, forgive my paradoxes: one must make them when one reflects; and whatever you may say, I prefer being a man with paradoxes than a man with prejudices.”
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778)
“Religious persecutors are not believers, they are rascals.”
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778)
“I hate books; they only teach us to talk about what we don’t know.”
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778)