Conceptions of Childhood in the Educational Philosophies of John Locke and John Dewey.
| Author | Bynum, Gregory Lewis |
Introduction
In this article, I look at ideas about childhood that come from two socially progressive, educational philosophers--John Locke and John Dewey. Although Locke's and Dewey's lives were separated by an ocean and two centuries of history, they had some important things in common, and I will focus here on the commonalities and points of complementarity in their educational thought. Specifically, I will emphasize the enduringly significant contributions they made to still-current debates about the nature of childhood intellect and the relationship between childhood experience and adult experience as it may best be cultivated by educators. Unlike some highly influential educational thinkers of more recent years, Locke and Dewey saw children as being rational, and they saw childlike playfulness as having value not only in childhood, but also in adulthood. Their ways of developing these ideas are still of interest today, in a time when educators' continuing disagreements about children's reasoning capacity and the value of children's play have serious consequences for the way children are educated. (1)
John Locke lived in England during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He is best known as a political philosopher associated with England's relatively nonviolent Glorious Revolution of 1688, and as a philosopher who provided important conceptual background for the American Revolution of 1776. Locke famously wrote of people's natural rights to life, liberty, and property, (2) and Thomas Jefferson, in the Declaration of Independence that kicked off the American Revolution, was thinking along similar lines when he wrote about people's "inalienable rights" to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." A less widely known fact about Locke is that he was an influential educational thinker who was himself a teacher of children. (3) He served as an educator and educational advisor for wealthy, privileged friends and patrons with whom he lived and corresponded, helping them to bring up their children. (4) His Some Thoughts Concerning Education, which originated as letters of advice to parents, was a highly popular educational text in the eighteenth century.
John Dewey lived in the U.S. during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He is sometimes thought of as the greatest American philosopher and the founder of educational philosophy. Dewey was also a childhood educator who encouraged teachers to engage with children's interests and experiences, and his ideas continue to inspire teachers, and education students, today. In particular, his famous work at the laboratory school at the University of Chicago in the 1890's and 1900's has been regarded by many as an educational model to emulate.
In what follows, I will look at five themes in the two philosophers' thought. First, I will look at both philosophers' substantial experience as educators of children. Second, I will focus on at their observationbased, high level of respect for childhood intellect. Third, I'll look at their respect for children's spontaneity and play. Fourth, I'll discuss how Locke and Dewey wanted education to provide a sense of continuity between childhood experience and adult experience, instead of giving a sense of a rupture, or a sharp and entire difference, between children's experience and the world of adult experience into which children mature. And fifth, I'll look at how Locke and Dewey advocated teaching that involves children's own interests and desires. As I discuss these themes, I will draw Locke's and Dewey's ideas into connection with present-day concerns, connecting their philosophies to current issues in childhood education.
Locke and Dewey as childhood educators
Among philosophers who are prominent in today's university syllabi, Locke and Dewey are unusual in that they both invested a lot of personal time, effort, and thought in childhood education.
In John Locke's writings one can see his careful attention to the children he knew in the homes of the wealthy friends and patrons with whom he lived. (5) He discusses their unique characters, how children tend to differ from each other as a result of birth order, and how children's personality differences should influence teaching. (6) He pays attention to many different childhood needs, discussing not only how it is best for children to study in the classroom, but also children's needs for good food, toilet training, and physical movement. He also thinks about what kinds of discipline children need at different ages, and he argues against excessive corporal punishment of children. Just as Locke's political philosophy emphasizes human dignity and respect for natural human rights, so also does his educational philosophy emphasize dignity in children, and the need for teaching that respects children's dignity.
John Dewey's progressive children's school at the University of Chicago drew children into a wide range of diverse experiences, instead of just focusing on book-learning. Children at the school went outdoors and made drawings from nature; (7) and while studying the history of technology the children constructed working kilns in the school in order to simulate early human smelting practices. (8) Dewey's experience as an educator moved him to author some of his most influential writings in which he argued that subject matter must be presented to children in ways that interest them and engage them in growth experiences, and in ways that are as direct and un-mediated as possible. (9)
Respect for childhood intellect
Locke believed that children "must be treated as rational creatures "(10) Locke's view of children's reason differs from a view expressed by another eighteenth-century philosopher whose writings on education have become more famous than Locke's--Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In his book, Emile or On Education, Rousseau expressed his view that "childhood is reason's sleep"; (11) and the view of children as non-rational has been highly influential up to the present day. Locke, in contrast, wrote extensively in favor of the idea that children are rational--an idea rooted in his close observation of children during his work as a tutor of children. He wrote:
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 mis-observe not, they love to be treated as Rational Creatures sooner than is imagined ... But when I talk of Reasoning, I do not intend any other, but such as is suited to the Child's Capacity and Apprehension. No Body can think a Boy of Three or Seven Years old, should be argued with, as a grown Man. Long Discourses, and Philosophical Reasonings, at best, amaze and confound, but do not instruct Children. When I say, therefore, that they must be treated as Rational Creatures, I mean, that you should make them sensible by the Mildness of your Carriage, and the Composure even in your Correction of them, that what you do is reasonable in you, and useful and necessary for them ... there is no Vertue they should be excited to, nor Fault they should be kept from, which I do not think they may be convinced of; but it must be by such Reasons as their Age and Understanding are capable of, and those proposed always in very few and plain Words ... The Reasons that move them must be obvious, and level to their Thoughts, and such as may (if I may so say) be felt, and touched. (12) Locke's argument in favor of children's rationality is relevant for understanding a major shift in child psychologists' view of children that has occurred during the past few decades. In the middle of the twentieth century, child psychologists tended to agree with Rousseau rather than Locke. Following the lead of Jean Piaget and others, top experts in child psychology saw childhood as "reason's sleep," in Roussau's words --a view that is still influential today. It was believed that children cannot understand cause-effect connections; that a small child cannot understand when another person has feelings and thoughts that differ from the child's own feelings and thoughts; and that children are narrowly egocentric, irrational, and illogical. (13) In the comical but apt phrase of child psychologist Alison Gopnik, children were seen as being something like "carrots ... with ... reflexes." (14)
In recent decades, however, there has been a...
To continue reading
Request your trialCOPYRIGHT GALE, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
