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Alternative education encompasses many pedagogical approaches differing from mainstream pedagogy. Such alternative learning environments may be found within state, charter, and independent schools as well as home-based learning environments. Many educational alternatives emphasize small class sizes, close relationships between students and teachers and a sense of community. The legal framework for such education varies by locality, and determines any obligation to conform with mainstream standard tests and grades. Alternative pedagogical approaches may include different structures, as in the open classroom, different teacher-student relationships, as in the Quaker and free schools, and/or differing curricula and teaching methods, as in the Waldorf and Montessori schools. Synonyms for "alternative" in this context include "non-traditional," "non-conventional" and "non-standardized". Alternative educators use terms such as "authentic", " holistic" and "progressive". Hi ...
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Educational Philosophy
The philosophy of education is the branch of applied philosophy that investigates the nature of education as well as its aims and problems. It includes the examination of educational theories, the presuppositions present in them, and the arguments for and against them. It is an interdisciplinary field that draws inspiration from various disciplines both within and outside philosophy, like ethics, political philosophy, psychology, and sociology. These connections are also reflected in the significant and wide-ranging influence the philosophy of education has had on other disciplines. Many of its theories focus specifically on education in schools but it also encompasses other forms of education. Its theories are often divided into descriptive and normative theories. Descriptive theories provide a value-neutral account of what education is and how to understand its fundamental concepts, in contrast to normative theories, which investigate how education should be practiced or what is ...
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Emile, Or On Education
''Emile, or On Education'' (french: Émile, ou De l’éducation) is a treatise on the nature of education and on the nature of Human, man written by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who considered it to be the "best and most important" of all his writings. Due to a section of the book entitled "Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar", ''Emile'' was banned in Paris and Geneva and was publicly burned in 1762, the year of its first publication. During the French Revolution, ''Emile'' served as the inspiration for what became a new national system of education. Politics and philosophy The work tackles fundamental political philosophy, political and philosophy, philosophical questions about the relationship between the individual and society—how, in particular, the individual might retain what Rousseau saw as noble savage, innate human goodness while remaining part of a corrupting collectivity. Its opening sentence: "Everything is good as it leaves the hands of the Author of things; everyt ...
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Intellect
In the study of the human mind, intellect refers to, describes, and identifies the ability of the human mind to reach correct conclusions about what is true and what is false in reality; and how to solve problems. Derived from the Ancient Greek philosophy term '' nous'', ''intellect'' derived from the Latin ''intelligere'' (“to understand”), from which derives the term ''intelligence'' in the French and English languages. The discussion of intellect is in two areas of knowledge that concern the relation between intelligence and intellect. * In classical philosophy and in medieval philosophy the intellect ('' nous'') is the subject of the question: How do people know things? In Late Antiquity and in the Middle Ages, the intellect was the conceptual means of reconciling the religious faith of monotheism with the facts of philosophy and science about Nature, a reconciliation that would make the intellect the conduit between the human soul, and the divine intellect of the ...
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Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner (27 or 25 February 1861 – 30 March 1925) was an Austrian occultist, social reformer, architect, esotericist, and claimed clairvoyant. Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century as a literary critic and published works including ''The Philosophy of Freedom''. At the beginning of the twentieth century he founded an esoteric spiritual movement, anthroposophy, with roots in German idealist philosophy and theosophy. Many of his ideas are pseudoscientific. He was also prone to pseudohistory. In the first, more philosophically oriented phase of this movement, Steiner attempted to find a synthesis between science and spirituality. His philosophical work of these years, which he termed " spiritual science", sought to apply what he saw as the clarity of thinking characteristic of Western philosophy to spiritual questions, differentiating this approach from what he considered to be vaguer approaches to mysticism. In a secon ...
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Maria Montessori
Maria Tecla Artemisia Montessori ( , ; August 31, 1870 – May 6, 1952) was an Italian physician and educator best known for the philosophy of education that bears her name, and her writing on scientific pedagogy. At an early age, Montessori enrolled in classes at an all-boys technical school, with hopes of becoming an engineer. She soon had a change of heart and began medical school at the Sapienza University of Rome, becoming one of the first women to attend medical school in Italy; she graduated with honors in 1896. Her educational method is in use today in many public and private schools globally. Life and career Birth and family Montessori was born on August 31, 1870, in Chiaravalle, Italy. Her father, Alessandro Montessori, age 33, was an official of the Ministry of Finance working in the local state-run tobacco factory. Her mother, Renilde Stoppani, 25 years old, was well-educated for the times and was the great-niece of Italian geologist and paleontologist Antonio ...
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Friedrich Fröbel
Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbel or Froebel (; 21 April 1782 – 21 June 1852) was a German pedagogue, a student of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, who laid the foundation for modern education based on the recognition that children have unique needs and capabilities. He created the concept of the ''kindergarten'' and coined the word, which soon entered the English language as well. He also developed the educational toys known as Froebel gifts. Biography Friedrich Fröbel was born at Oberweißbach in the Principality of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt in Thuringia. A cousin of his was the mother of Henriette Schrader-Breymann, and Henriette became a student of his. Fröbel's father, Johann Jacob Fröbel, who died in 1802, was the pastor of the orthodox Lutheran (alt-lutherisch) parish there. Fröbel's mother's name was Jacobine Eleonore Friederike (born Hoffmann). The church and Lutheran Christian faith were pillars in Fröbel's own early education. Oberweißbach was a wealthy village in ...
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Francis Wayland Parker
Francis Wayland Parker (October 9, 1837March 2, 1902) was a pioneer of the progressive school movement in the United States. He believed that education should include the complete development of an individual — mental, physical, and moral. John Dewey called him the "father of progressive education." He worked to create curriculum that centered on the whole child and a strong language background. He was against standardization, isolated drill and rote learning. He helped to show that education was not just about cramming information into students' minds, but about teaching students to think for themselves and become independent people. Biography Parker was born in Bedford, New Hampshire in Hillsborough County. He was educated in the public schools and began his career as a village teacher in New Hampshire at age 16. He taught 75 children at Corser Hill at Boscawen, New Hampshire, making 15 dollars a month. Many of his students were older and had been exposed to more of the ...
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John Dewey
John Dewey (; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century. The overriding theme of Dewey's works was his profound belief in democracy, be it in politics, education, or communication and journalism. As Dewey himself stated in 1888, while still at the University of Michigan, "Democracy and the one, ultimate, ethical ideal of humanity are to my mind synonymous." Dewey considered two fundamental elements—schools and civil society—to be major topics needing attention and reconstruction to encourage experimental intelligence and plurality. He asserted that complete democracy was to be obtained not just by extending voting rights but also by ensuring that there exists a fully formed public opinion, accomplished by communication among citizens, experts and politic ...
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Educational Progressivism
Progressive education, or protractivism, is a pedagogical movement that began in the late 19th century and has persisted in various forms to the present. In Europe, progressive education took the form of the New Education Movement. The term ''progressive'' was engaged to distinguish this education from the traditional curricula of the 19th century, which was rooted in classical preparation for the university and strongly differentiated by social class. By contrast, progressive education finds its roots in modern experience. Most progressive education programs have these qualities in common: * Emphasis on learning by doing – hands-on projects, expeditionary learning, experiential learning * Integrated curriculum focused on thematic units * Strong emphasis on problem solving and critical thinking * Group work and development of social skills * Understanding and action as the goals of learning as opposed to rote knowledge * Collaborative and cooperative learning projects * Educ ...
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Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist, he is best known for his book ''Walden'', a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay " Civil Disobedience" (originally published as "Resistance to Civil Government"), an argument for disobedience to an unjust state. Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry amount to more than 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions are his writings on natural history and philosophy, in which he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern-day environmentalism. His literary style interweaves close observation of nature, personal experience, pointed rhetoric, symbolic meanings, and historical lore, while displaying a poetic sensibility, philosophical austerity, and attention to practical detail.Thoreau, Henry David. ''A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers ...
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Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and his ideology was disseminated through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States. Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating and expressing the philosophy of transcendentalism in his 1836 essay "Nature". Following this work, he gave a speech entitled "The American Scholar" in 1837, which Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. considered to be America's "intellectual Declaration of Independence."Richardson, p. 263. Emerson wrote most of his important essays as lectures first and then revised them for print. His first two collections of essays, '' Essays: Fi ...
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Amos Bronson Alcott
Amos Bronson Alcott (; November 29, 1799 – March 4, 1888) was an American teacher, writer, philosopher, and reformer. As an educator, Alcott pioneered new ways of interacting with young students, focusing on a conversational style, and avoided traditional punishment. He hoped to perfect the human spirit and, to that end, advocated a plant-based diet. He was also an abolitionist and an advocate for women's rights. Born in Wolcott, Connecticut in 1799, Alcott had only minimal formal schooling before attempting a career as a traveling salesman. Worried that the itinerant life might have a negative impact on his soul, he turned to teaching. His innovative methods, however, were controversial, and he rarely stayed in one place very long. His most well-known teaching position was at the Temple School in Boston. His experience there was turned into two books: ''Records of a School'' and ''Conversations with Children on the Gospels''. Alcott became friends with Ralph Waldo Emer ...
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