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John Locke - Enlightened Thinker
He believed that a child's mind was a tabula rasa or blank slate to be molded by life experience. He promoted a free and playful view of children and said their academic instruction should be like play. -
Jean- Jacques Rousseau - Author of Emile
He believed children were innately perfect and they could reach there top potential without the immoral influence of society. He promoted individual freedom and cautioned against direct authority over children. -
Horace Mann - Politician & Educator
He believed free education paid for by taxation would produce better citizens. He created the American public school system. He believed schools should focus on social effeciancy, civic virtue and character building. -
Johann Pestalozzi - 1st preschool
He Provided welfare for poor cildren. He worked directly with children and developed a holistic curriculum. He pioneered the idea of children learning hands-on through manipulation of concrete objects. -
Herbert Spencer - Biologist, anthropologist, sociologist, darwinist
He believed those with greater intellect and skill would replace those who were inferior. He opposed the public school system because he believed that private schools should compete for the best students. He also promoted the use of the scientic method to find truth. -
Friedrich Froebel - Father of Kindergarten
He advocated for a play centered learning environment. He called his learning materials gifts. He believed the teachers role was nuture and guide the student without interfering with the natural learining process. Valued the role of women and mothers in education of children and outside the home, -
Susan Blow - Teacher Advocate
Blow created the American Froebel Society to regulate the quality and authenticity of Kindergarten programs. She also fought for the inclusion of African American women in teacher training programs. -
Stanley Hall - Psychologist
Creator of the child study movement. HIs approach emphasized aligning curriculum with stages of development. He believed teachers should take on the role of researcher. He advocated more play and less classroom instruction time. -
Elizabeth Palmer Peabody- Champion of the kindergarten
A student of the froebelian method she opened the first English speaking kindergarten in Boston in 1859. She included individualized instruction based on a childs ability. -
Margaret Bancroft - Advocate for special needs
She believed children with developmental delays needed special education. She founded the Haddonfield Bancroft training school for disabled in order to help educators develop innovative ways to teach developmentally delayed children. Each student had a program tailored to their individual needs. -
James Addams - Nobel Peace Prize winner
Addams is the founder of the social work profession in the US and the first woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize. She fought diligently for world peace, childrens needs, public health, and womens sufferage. -
Margaret and Rachel McMillan - nursery schools
social welfare activists who focused on meeting the needs of impovrished children, they designed an open air nursery school that encouraged hygiene, outdoor play and hands on learning Many nursery schools and teacher trainig facilities were established based on the sisters ideology. -
Caroline Pratt - Play
Caroline believed the most important aspect of learning was play. She opened the Play School in New York in 1913. At the Play School children chose their own path based on intrinsic motivation. The main goal of the school was to engender social reform through education. -
Lucy Sprague Mitchel - Experimental Education Leader
She was a founding member of the Bureau of Education Experiments. The Bureau was a lab school for the study of child development. Mitchel believed that education in history and geography should begin with a childs experiences in his or her own neighborhood. -
John Piaget- Swiss Psychologist
Reasearched the cognitive development of children. His work tranformed the pratice of education to a child centered approach. His model of intellectual development was based on stages related to age. -
Lev Vygotsky - psychologist
He focused on language development as a vehicle for cognitive development. He developed the Zone of Proximal development in which each child has an area where thay can work independently and as they move upward in challenging situations they can be assisted. -
Erick Erickson - child psychologist
His theory of socioemotional development gives substantial insight into a childs emotional and social development. He focused on the relationships children form with Adults. His work has a profound influence on current early childhood practices -
Jerome Bruner - Constuctivist
Bruner made significant contrabutions to cognitive learning theory in educational psychology. He prized self discovery as the most important aspect of learning, and felt that children should be free to explore their interests. -
Urie Bronfenbrenners
Bronfenbrenners system focused on a system of influences at many levels. In his system relationships with those closest to to child like family members and school peers impacted the childs development the most. Larger systems like government, mediam and culture also have an impact in a less direct way. -
Paulo Freire - Brazilian educator
Author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Based on his own experiences, he wanted the masses to know that poor children didn't lack intelligence. They were unable to learn because they were hungry. He dedicated his life to helping the poor. He was able to rise above his condition and obtain a law degree, but he chose to work as a teacher of Portuguese in secondary schools.
