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348 BCE
Plato
a Greek philosopher, believed all children were born with a defined amount of knowledge and that education served to remind them of this inherent understanding of the world, and help them use it in their everyday lives. Plato viewed play as a form of anticipatory socialization. If children were to become builders, he suggested, they should play at building houses. The teacher’s role was to try to direct children’s inclinations and pleasures through play towards their final aim in life -
1500
Martin Luther
The roots of early childhood education go as far back as the early 1500s, where the concept of educating children was attributed to Martin Luther (1483-1546). Martin Luther believed that education should be universal and made it a point to emphasize that education strengthened the family as well as the community. -
John Amos Comenius
published what many consider to be the first picture book dedicated to the education of young children. Comenius believed all children to age 6 should be taught in their native languages. He was also the first to introduce the concept of “grades”, or different levels of education determined by each individual child’s age and developmental stage. -
John Locke
developed the theory (known as “Tabula Rasa”, or “Blank Slate”) that children come into the world with an empty mind, and that knowledge and learning is received through experience and converted to understanding through reasoning. Locke strongly believed in “nurture” over “nature.” -
Jean Jacques Rousseau
was a French writer, philosopher, and social theorist. His belief in the innate goodness of children led him to propose early schooling that enabled children to direct their own activities, free from the constraints imposed by “society”. He also believed education should begin at birth and continue well into adulthood, emphasizing the differences between the minds of children and adults, and adjusting educational methods accordingly. -
Friedrich Froebel
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. -
John Dewey
strongly believed that learning should originate from the interests of children, which is foundational to the projects approach. The educator is there to promote their interests for discovery and inquiry. Dewey saw the classroom as a place to foster social consciousness and thus the classroom should be democratically run. -
B F Skinner
Skinner's theory is based on "operant conditioning" – behavior is followed by a consequence and the nature of the consequence modifies the tendency to repeat the behavior – a method of learning through rewards and punishment.
He introduced the concepts of positive reinforcement (i.e. if the desired behavior occurs something good happens) and negative reinforcement (i.e. when a bad behavior is stopped by the desired behavior). -
Maria Montessori
Italy’s first woman physician, continued the Froebelian tradition within a different context. Montessori implemented an early education curriculum that was founded on a developmental theory, employed play as the instructional method, and introduced developmentally appropriate materials designed to facilitate sensory and cognitive skills. Her method was child-centered and child-directed, meaning that individual students learn based on what they are interested in at the time. -
Rudolf Steiner
the creator of what is now known as the Waldorf education philosophy and schools, focused on developing free and morally responsible individuals with a high level of social competence. Steiner broke this down into three developmental stages; Preschool to age 6 (experiential education), Age 6-14 (formal education) and ages 14+ (conceptual/academic education). -
Jean Piaget
established a theory of learning where children’s development are broken down into a series of stages (sensory motor, preoperational, concrete operation). Piaget theorized that children learn through direct and active interaction with the environment. -
Arnold Gesell
Gesell’s theory is known as a maturational-developmental theory. It is the foundation of nearly every other theory of human development after Gesell. Early in the 20th century, Dr. Gesell observed and documented patterns in the way children develop, showing that all children go through similar and predictable sequences, though each child moves through these sequences at his or her own rate or pace. -
Mildred Parten
Parten’s theory focuses on social play and its development, the ability to join groups of other children and the desire to do so begins at an early age and progresses through a developmental sequence. Parten focused on the different types of social play. In her research, she discovered that children of different ages actually played together differently. They were capable of different levels or categories of social play. -
Lev Vygotsky
He believed that social interaction provides a medium for cognitive, social and linguistic development in children. Vygotsky believed that children learn through scaffolding their skills; this meant a more capable member of the community/society would assist the child in completing tasks that were within or just above the child’s capability, which is also known as zone of proximal development. -
Erik Erikson
developed psychosocial stages of development for children where the parent and educator play a pivotal role in supporting the child’s success in every stage for a positive outcome. Erikson stressed that the ordinance of social emotional development is a key component to the early childhood curriculum. -
Benjamin Bloom
Blooms theory was that if students master learning then they will be successful in life. Bloom discovered that all children can learn at a higher level when attention, practice, and support are undertaken in the child's home and at school. In 1964 he was invited to testify to the congress of the United States about the importance of the first four years of the child's life as the critical time to promote cognitive development. -
Jerome Bruner
In his research on the cognitive development of children, Jerome Bruner proposed three modes of representation: Enactive representation (action-based)
Iconic representation (image-based)
Symbolic representation (language-based) Bruner's constructivist theory suggests it is effective when faced with new material to follow a progression from enactive to iconic to symbolic representation; this holds true even for adult learners. -
Albert Bandura
Psychologist Albert Bandura proposed what is known as social learning theory. According to this theory of child development, children learn new behaviors from observing other people. -
David Weikart
the founder of HighScope, primarily focused on the child’s intellectual maturation. The study that earned HighScope validity was the Perry Preschool Project in 1962. A controlled study of 123 children of similar skill level entering the study, split into two groups, one receiving HighScope instruction while the control group did not receive it but continued the traditional process. Results indicated an increase in academic success, academic adherence and an increase in wages. -
Kenneth H Rubin
Rubin’s and his associate’s studies have done much to clarify the developmental levels of children’s play in light of our knowledge about children. They also have identified ‘how’ children play and how it correlates with Parten’s Stages of Social Play. -
Uri Bronfenbrenner
Bronfenbrenner sees the world in which the child grows as having a major influence on development. He describes this as a two-way influence. The personality and behaviour of the child will influence the way people in the environment will interact with that child. He also believes that the interactions between environmental factors could affect the child’s development. This process of interacting influences is known as reciprocal interaction. -
Loris Malaguzzi
the founder of the Reggio Emilia approach, based on the original childcare Centre opened in the town of Reggio Emilia, was a strong believer in documenting the children’s learning and interests which the educators would base their programming around on for the following days. -
Howard Gardner
Gardner proposed a theory of multiple intelligences that suggests there is more than one intelligence – He considers children and adults to be individuals who all have skills and areas that we enjoy and excel at and that these fit into our major intelligence. When you are good at a task, you enjoy completing that task or similar
tasks and so are more likely to continue to develop and build on your skills in that area and become even better. -
John Bowlby
Psychologist John Bowlby proposed a theory of child development that focused on the importance of early attachments with caregivers. This theory suggests that a child’s relationship with their parents or caregivers influences social and emotional development during childhood and that these early attachments continue to have an influence throughout life. -
Margaret McMillan
She founded an open-air nursery that later became the Rachel McMillan Nursery School and Training Centre. The Centre trained the majority of the first nursery school teacher-administrators in the United States. Margaret was one of the cofounders of the British Nursery School Association, and became its first president. She was instrumental in the passage of the Fisher Act of 1918, giving Local Education Authorities the power to provide nursery classes or schools for children.