Child Development Milestones Timeline

  • 428 BCE

    Plato's Theory of Education

    Plato believed it was a necessity to start learning from an early age. To bring the best of a child, early education should be heavy in literature. Mostly storytelling then poetry. After literature, music, then arts, should be taught. And P.E. was a very important field for children too. This was in his Elementary Education. In his Higher Education, is in your 20's and you must pass a test to be in it. It's not for everybody. If you passed the test, you got another 10 years of education.
  • 1500

    Martin Luther

    Martin Luther believed that all children, including girls, should have equal right to education. He wanted education accessible to all. He mainly wanted a reform because he wanted Christians to be able to read and understand their scriptures on their own. He wanted these schools to be Christian and teach all children about Christianity and the Bible.
  • John Amos Comenius

    Comenius was, and still is, known as the Father of Modern Education. He was the first person to ever recognize and theorize that the best way a child learned was from playing, interacting, and talking with each other. He also made the first ever children's picture book called, The World Illustrated".
  • John Locke - Tabula Rasa

    John Locke was the philosopher who made up the Tabula Rasa, or Blank Slate, theory. This theory is stating that children are born with nothing in their minds. They're a blank slate. They child would be influenced only by others around them. He believed children should be taught morals and ethics and people do not inherit traits from their parents.
  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau - The Stage-of-Development Fallacy

    Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a philosopher who believed children could only learn certain things at a certain age. Children are separated from adults in the way they think and do things. Their life experiences are different from each other. Children can't learn any bad things in their lifetime in order for them to be good people.
  • Johann Pestalozzi

    Johann Pestalozzi was the first person to create a learning place and environment for pre school aged kids.
  • Friedrich Frobel

    Frobel made the garden of Children, or known today as, kindergarten. He believed each and every kid was special and unique in their way of learning. He believed that every single kid was different and therefore, learned a different way than others. He believed children learned the best through playing and being interactive with one another.
  • The Nursery School for Children of Poor Women

    The Nursery School for Children of Poor Women, or also known as NSCPW for short, was made in order to help poor moms with their children at a young age.
  • Susan Blow

    Susan Blow was a woman who wanted all kids to be able to have access to public school. She helped make the 1st public school in all of America. By the time she had died in 1916, around 400 public schools were built around the U.S.A. She opened the first ever public kindergarten in St. Louis, Missouri.
  • Maria Montessori

    Montessori believed very similarly to Friedrich Frobel in the sense of, they both theorized that kids learned by using their hands and interacting with each other. But Montessori wanted to make a school/learning center for her theory to make sure it worked. Her schools had different stations for the kids to play and work at. She wanted to see if it would work and now, there are over 4,000 early childhood programs that use this system.
  • NAEYC

    NAEYC, or otherwise known as the National Association for the Education of Young Children, was created as a non-profit organization to help kids with their educations if they were struggling to get one. Now, there are over 100,000 in counting as a part of the organization. There are also now 400 affiliates attached to them.
  • NAFCC

    The NAFCC, or also known as the National Association for Family Day Care was started. This association was made to help kids and less fortunate families get better and more affordable childcare. This too, is a non-profit organization being made and used for the greater good of child development.
  • CPS

    CPS, or also known as Child Protective Services, was made in order to protect children at all costs. They look at many abuse and divorce cases to help the parents and children through their hard time. They also have the authority to take children away if they find any need to.
  • The Child Defense Fund

    The Child Defense Fund, or the CDF, was made to ensure every single child on planet earth has the same opportunities as the other. They began a campaign in 1996 called the Stand for Children Campaign. This campaign later became an organization, which is still active today. This was originally made to teach kids they had a voice. They were the voice for kids who couldn't speak on their own.
  • No Child Left Behind Act

    This act was put into place to make schools be held accountable if they mess up when teaching the kids. Schools have to have a certain number of students and a certain test score in order to be funded a certain amount. This act was put in to place so schools were getting proper funding and so teachers actually did their jobs.