August 22, 2019
Original Post: Medium
Introduction:
In what follows, I discuss the education of a child. This is not the modern definition of education in the terms of what he or she is taught in school, but rather the ways about how a child is to be raised to become a successful contributor to society. The ideas that are comprised within this paper are taken from Immanuel Kant’s Lectures on Pedagogy, John Locke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education, and most prominently Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Emile or On Education. These three sources will be intertwined with a degree of prose and critique, supplemented with aspects of my own ideas on the act of educating our youth effectively. The paper format is as follows: I will begin with a few thoughts on the purpose of education as a concept. This will be followed by a commentary on means of educating a child proposed by Rousseau, Kant, and Locke followed by a short overview of my opinion of the same topic. Finally, I will conclude with an overall commentary on the education of a child, how one should be raised, and closing remarks on the concept of education as a whole.
Purpose:
The question of purpose in any context is one that isn’t answered without great controversy. With education, we boil it down to a singular answer — to raise a successful individual, *which in itself raises controversy over what defines a *successful individual. From Locke’s perspective, he believes that it is one who has the “power of denying ourselves the satisfaction of our own desires, where reason does not authorize them.” (Locke, 106) In other words, a human who has enough reason and discipline to overcome the innate and corruptive desires of humans. Rousseau on the other hand, seems to avoid clearly defining what a successful individual looks like, instead allowing the picture of a successful individual to be discovered through a more natural state for each individual. This is admirable, yet, in my opinion, too loose of a method of education, and I will further critique his style of natural education in later sections of this paper. From his passages however, we can get that this individual is happy, which is defined by Rousseau as the one who suffers the least. It is to be noted, that this idea of happiness as a result of a “sound mind in a sound body” is also portrayed as desirable by Locke, however, it is implied to be a side effect of sorts. (Locke, 105) Finally, with Kant, he embodies a lot of the same principals — happiness and reason, however also stresses that a successful man is one who carries on his duty as a human, and passes along the knowledge generation to generation. He states, “children should be educated not only with regard to the present but rather for the better condition of the human species that might be possible in the future; that is, in a manner appropriate to the idea of humanity and its complete vocation.” (Kant, 442) While all these definitions in themselves are valid, I personally believe that a successful individual is one who possess girt, integrity, empathy, and curiosity. These traits, developed under the influence of a karma based moral compass, will allow the individual to grow into what I see as a successful individual.
Means:
In pursuit of finding strategies to raise children to get as close to as this impossible goal as possible, we begin with evaluating the methodology presented by the three in their respective texts:
*Locke: *Locke begins with a statement, “A sound mind in a sound body, is a short but full description of a happy state in this world: he that has these two has little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be but little the better for anything else.” (Locke, 105) In what is a tone setting statement, we are introduced immediately to a vision of a successful man. To get there, Locke is a strong proponent of what I like to call, “give it what it is treatment.” In his words, “It will perhaps be wondered, that I mention reasoning with children: and yet I cannot but think that the true way of dealing with them. They understand it as early as they do language; and, if I misobserve not, they love to be treated as rational creates sooner than is imagined.” (Locke, 114). This concept is essentially treating children as adults with the idea that if they are treated as such, they will learn to act as such. It is a daring method of education, and it does contain a series of flaws, which Rousseau was more than happy to indirectly address within Emile. Aside from that however, Locke proceeds to further explain his strategy, expressing that while a “boy of three or seven years old should (not) be argued with as a grown man,” the child does possess the ability to comprehend simple ideas that can overtime be built up to complex ideas. Along with this primary message, Locke also conveys a couple of supplementary points: the purpose of education is to create a just man who can handle any situation, not a scholar who only knows a subset of facts, allow children to learn at their own pace through respect and rationale and not discipline and rules, and finally, that children should be exposed to different ideas and concepts to learn in the most effective and broad manner possible. These ideas, altogether, comprise what is said to be the first of the three staples of philosophical of education.
*Rousseau: *Rousseau’s entire methodology is hinged on the idea of natural education. As we are brought along for the ride through the life of his imaginary son, Emile, we are given examples of how this natural education is to be played out. He states, “he (Emile) gets his lessons from nature and not from men.” (Rousseau, 119). Continuing this sentiment, there are countless examples of Rousseau educating Emile from forcing Emile to find his own way through the forest in great hunger, to facing solitude and loneliness. These extreme measures of accompaniment, or lack thereof, forces a natural education where the child is forced to learn how to fend and think for themselves through need rather than purpose. Rousseau additionally expresses through his writing that there should be no direct “lessons” but rather he should be taught through orchestrated “natural” lessons through experiences.
Moreover, he states that these lessons should be conducted solely through solitude, away from society until the child is ready. Rousseau was a firm believer that society was one of the biggest detractors from a child’s success in his early education, and that in order to grow up and learn valuable lessons through his surroundings, Emile must be kept away from society so that before he is able to grow from a social standpoint, he is mature and educated well personally. The concept of natural education was instilled within all of this, with Rousseau also stating “if he makes a mistake, let him do so. Do not correct his errors… carry out some operation that will make him aware of them.” (Rousseau, 171).
Another concept that appears within Rousseau’s work is the concision of happiness with growth. Rousseau, along with both Kant and Locke, was a big proponent of the purpose of happiness in finding purpose and determining success of one’s education. In his eyes, happiness was defined by the lack of suffering rather than any sort of ecstasy inducing events. In other words, I believe he was attempting to refer to the concept of contentment. Rousseau does talk about God and religion within this work in relation to contentment, however, in a bit of an odd and somewhat satirical tone. For this reason, it seems to me that the inclusion of this section on God was solely as an act of necessity and thus carries no greater meaning to the text as a whole. Rather, throughout Emile’s life, Rousseau conveyed the purpose for all were for innate fulfillment and happiness.
It should be stated, that Rousseau does spend time to discuss the education of females through a separate character in his piece, Sophie. Sophie’s education is one that creates a great magnitude of controversy, with the piece being quite sexist and appalling in modern terms. It is evident that Sophie’s education has next to nothing to do with the accumulation of ideas and knowledge, but rather the methods on how to fulfill the needs of man. In accordance, Rousseau states, “it follows that woman is made specifically to please man.” (Rousseau, 358) This idea in itself, along with the following ideas portrayed about women and the education of woman are, in my eyes, disdainful and thus have no presence in modern day education. To comment on this section and share the ideas within would be unjust to women, as education for man and woman should be, and will be from here on out, identical.
That all being said, the pedagogical stance taken by Rousseau on Emile is one that doesn’t come without its flaws. One of the most prominent and somewhat disturbing issue present was not within the text, but rather within the fact that Rousseau seemed to have lead a life without any kids, nor did he have a very strong relationship with his parents either. Rather, it seems that a majority of his education came through self-learning, which makes this entire piece somewhat moot as there is little to no experience backing it.
When it comes to his idea on how to educate a child, Rousseau assumes that all children are saints, and that, pulling a little Locke into this, they have the self-discipline and reasoning instilled within them to take the correct lessons they are to take from each situation. This assumption itself is strong enough to refute a majority of his points, and makes the validity of his text questionable. Not to mention, the idea of restricting a child from society in modern times will leave the child at a great disadvantage, as the connections and relationships that we develop from even a young age define us more than any lesson or experience we have individually.
However, while there are drawbacks to a series of points that Rousseau makes, and just reason to ignore and refute a good majority of them, there are still ideals that we can incorporate in today’s modern society.
Kant: Kant’s take on education isn’t much too different than the points that were conveyed for Rousseau or Locke. As a matter of fact, they are actually quite similar, with a lot of the same underlying principles within the three: the pursuit of happiness as a measure of content, the weakness within a child that requires education in the first place, the notion that experience is the best teacher, reason and reflection is imperative for success, and many more. However, Kant’s biggest take on education is the formation of morality within the child’s life. Having a good moral character is the most important thing in a human’s life, and he believes that the existence of a strong character within an individual is necessary for the achievement of becoming a successful individual. This idea is embodied within every aspect of his pedagogy, with him stating, “the first effort in moral education is the grounding of character,” continuing on to define character as “the aptitude of acting according to maxims.” (Kant, 469) In other words, Kant believes that we must have a sense of being able to act according to our moral compass in order to become a moral individual. Kant’s methodology of achieving this just and moral individual comes in a stark difference from Rousseau and Locke, stating that it is through the use of discipline and obedience that we will be nurtured into a format to develop these. He believes that the human has such a strong propensity towards freedom that in order to contain this innate desire, “discipline must, as already said, be applied very early.” (Kant, 438) This idea is then combined with a more Rousseau centric experience based education, only once the self-discipline has been built up in later years of an individual’s life. In a sense, it feels as if the ideas Kant is proposing are some sort of combination of both Rousseau and Locke’s ideas, and in themselves, feel as the most appropriate manner of education given our modern society.
*Me: *Analyzing these three texts the previous ten weeks has given me an opportunity to assess and formulate my own opinion on the matter of educating a child. There are parts of each philosopher’s identity that I believe are beneficial for a modern day educational system, and parts that I believe would be horrendous. However, at the very center of it all, I believe that Kant with the initial discipline notion combined with an experiential based education following seems to be the best strategy. Given society’s current state, we are in a stage were social isolation is impossible, thus the means for a purely natural education at an early age are not plausible. Furthermore, given the globalization of the world and the toxicity now ever present through the interconnectedness from technology, we cannot give young children freedom to explore and learn on a medium such as the internet. Thus, there requires some sense of discipline and order until the child has developed a sense of reason. This reason should be developed through a combination of reasoning with the children, similar to what Locke said, as well as a small number of rules. Finally, once this reason has been achieved, it is acceptable to allow the child to explore and learn through experience, reducing the number of rules, but not eradicating them entirely. Naivety is still present for a good majority of an individual’s adolescence, and it is imperative to ensure that the mistakes made for experiential learning are not devastating to the point where they future of the individual is hindered. There will then come a time where the individual is able to act on their own, carry responsibility, and if proven, live a life apart from the parents. This is the completion of the education as the parents have control over, and a brief overview of my ideas on the successful education of a child.
Closing:
In closing, the concept of education as it pertains society is of paramount importance. We must *continue to develop the educational methods and systems we institute in order to continue to strive for the most effective way of raising a *successful individual. Within the paper above, the pedagogical standpoints of Kant, Rousseau and Locke were discussed, and in tangent with these three was a commentary of the modern application of the ideas discussed. Philosophy at its core is asking the questions that we deem difficult to answer, and when it comes to the question of educating a child, we may never be able to find an answer. However, we can continue to try and ask questions of great importance that allow us to get ever closer to the solution.