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JeanJacques
Although a Calvinist, Isaac was also a bit unstable. He left his wife and first son, then
Rousseaus mother died one week after Jean-Jacques was born, and he was raised by an aunt and uncle.
They sent him off to a boarding school in the country where, he says, he learned all the insignificant trash that he has obtained
He had happy memories too of his childhood although it had some odd features
His father came back every now & then. He taught young Rousseau how to read and helped him to appreciate the countryside.
When Rousseau was 10, his father fled from Geneva to avoid imprisonment for a minor offense, leaving young Jean-
He developed two other personal qualities: a.) The constant beatings from his uncle (as well as at school) led him to lying and idleness; b.) and adolescence led him to develop a rather bizarre
At sixteen, he ran away from home with no money nor possessions. A priest led him to baroness Mme Louise
Her influence led him to convert to Catholicism, though he was not yet ready to give up his exhibitionism nor his desire to be spanked by lovely ladies.
In the mean time, he walked all over the countryside, often long distances.
He earned his living during this period, working as everything from footman to
By 1745, he met Thrse Lavasseur who worked as a seamstress in the hotel where he was living. She was an odd figure. Made fun of by many of those around her, it was
He believed she had a 'pure and innocent heart'. They were soon living together (and they were to stay together, never officially married, until he
She couldn't read well, nor write, or add up - and Rousseau tried unsuccessfully over the years to teach her. Thrse bore five children - all of whom
He claimed he lacked the money to bring them up properly. There was also the question of his and Thrse's capacity to cope with child-rearing.
Rousseau had argued the children would get a better upbringing in such an institution than he could offer. Last, there is also some question as to whether
Rousseau and Therese lived together until his death. In 1750, he won first prize in an essay competition organized by the Acadmie de Dijon -
His first major work argued that man is good by nature but has been corrupted by society and civilization. Why should we build our own happiness on the
Rousseau's mental health was a matter of some concern for the rest of his life. There were significant periods when he found it difficult to be in the
In 1754, Rousseau returned to Geneva and converted from Catholicism to Calvinism. In 1755, he finished his second major work, Discourse on the Origin
In 1762, Rousseau published two major works: The Social Contract and Emile, or On Education. Both books were banned
"Man
is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. One man thinks himself the master of others, but remains
In the dramatic opening lines to his immensely powerful treatise, "The Social Contract," Rousseau wrote that man was naturally good but becomes corrupted by
He preached a mankind improved by returning to nature and living a natural life at peace with his neighbors and himself.
We are born weak, we need strength; helpless we need aid; foolish we need reason. All that we lack at birth, all that we need when we come to man's estate, is the gift
Rousseau firmly believed that understanding our connection to nature is central to a good education. We evolved from nature, we are a part of nature,
As a result of his controversial works, Rousseau had to flee arrest and went back to Switzerland, where he received the protection of Fredrick the Great of
Rousseau continued to write until his death, even though he faced constant criticism and censure.
Rousseau was a successful composer of music, too. He wrote seven operas as well as music in other forms, and he made contributions to music as a theorist.
Like any protagonists in a novel, Rousseau had his own personal antagonist in the person of Voltaire, who would become his archrival up to their deaths.
Although they are two of the most famous of the great French philosophes, Rousseau and Voltaire hated each other.
Voltaire believed that through education and reason man could separate himself from the beasts; while Rousseau thought that it was precisely all
Rousseau was a great lover of mankind as a collective but was unable to appreciate or get along with any individual persons he encountered in his life.
On the other hand, Voltaire was not a person you wanted to engage in a casual conversation as his contempt and ridicule were fatal.
In 1767, he returned to France and on July 2, 1778, Rousseau died of a hemorrhage while taking a walk on an estate close to Paris. Rousseau was first buried
During the period of the French Revolution, Rousseau was the most popular of the philosophes among
16 years after his death, in 1794, Rousseaus remains were moved to the
His remains were laid to rest not far from, of all people, Voltaire, who
In Summary, Jean Jacques Rousseau was a fine philosopher of the Romantic Movement who wrote beautifully and
Best Known For As a prominent SwissFrench philosopher who defended the idea that man is good by nature but is corrupted by
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, though of Swiss origin, is often regarded as a French philosopher because he spent most of his
He was a poor teacher. He worked as a tutor to the two sons of M. de Mably in Lyon. It was not a very successful experience (nor were his other episodes of
Rousseaus Philosophy on Education Apparently unable to bring up his own children, he committed them to orphanages soon after birth.
The answer is that his works offer great insights on the philosophy of education. Then
spectrum of traditions including botany, music and philosophy, his thinking has influenced later generations of educational thinkers -
His book mile was the most significant book on education after Plato's Republic.
Rousseaus mile is a kind of half treatise, half novel that tells the life story of a fictional
Rousseaus Philosophy on Education According to Rousseau, the natural goodness of a man can be nurtured and maintained only according to this
Rousseau proposes details a specific pedagogy for each stage of life, an educational method that corresponds with the particular
Accordingly, mile is divided into five books, each corresponding to a developmental stage.
and Book V describes the Age of Wisdom, corresponding roughly to the ages of twenty through
Rousseau claims that this stage is followed by the Age of Happiness, the final stage of development, which
Rousseaus Philosophy on Education In Books I and II, Rousseau insists that young children in the Age of Nature must emphasize the physical side of their
Rousseaus Philosophy on Education Like small animals, they must be freed of constrictive swaddling clothes, breast-fed by their mothers, and allowed to play
Rousseaus Philosophy on Education thereby developing the physical senses that will be the most important tools in their acquisition of knowledge.
puberty, they should be taught manual trade, such as carpentry, and allowed to develop within it, further augmenting their physical capabilities
Rousseaus Philosophy on Education Rousseau goes on to say that as mile enters his teenage years, he should begin formal education.
Rousseaus Philosophy on Education The education Rousseau proposes involves working only with a private tutor and studying and reading only what he
early adolescence is the best time to begin such study, since after puberty the young man is fully developed physically yet still
the selection of a trade. Rousseau believed that it is necessary that the child must be taught a manual appropriate role models of how to live his
Rousseaus Philosophy on Education Book IV introduces the study of religion to the passionate, teenaged Emile.
children cannot understand abstract concepts such as the soul before the age of about fifteen or sixteen, so to introduce religion
Rousseaus Philosophy on Education This section on the education of girls which centered on the character of Sophie, proved to be one of his most controversial
Rousseaus Philosophy on Education It underlined the importance of mothers in educating their children, but encouraged teaching girls to be entirely
active
It is only by movement that we learn that there are things that are not
5.) of play.
Let the child be a child. Play is a form of learning, you can learn without words.
the focus & the power of the environment in determining the success of educational encounters.
Educators must attend to the environment. The more they were able to control it - the more
said, is to be the childs primary teacher, with freedom to explore the major teaching
importance of book learning and placed a special emphasis on learning by experience. Our experience is the
Rousseaus Philosophy 8.) on Education vary Individuals within stages - and that education must, as a result, be individualized.
'Every mind has its own
Rousseaus Philosophy 9.) on Education People develop through various stages - and that different forms of education may be appropriate to each.
The importance of developing ideas for ourselves, to make sense of the world in our own way. The pupil must be encouraged to reason their way through to their own conclusions - they should not rely on the authority of the teacher. Thus, instead of being taught other
up without adult interference and that the child must be guided to suffer from the experience of the natural consequences of his own acts or behaviour. When he experiences the consequences of his own acts, he advises himself.
use
Rousseaus Philosophy This in Education on a time when it was thought that if you didnt beat children regularly with a good sized stick, they would grow up
independently of mans actions. Education from things depends on man only in a limited extent. Only education from man
Rousseaus Philosophy Rousseau contends on Education that men can attain freedom and independence of thought through naturalistic education.
early childhood educational method with the hope of minimizing the obstacles of civilization and bringing man as near to nature as
an
it comes from the hands of the Maker of the world but degenerates once it gets into the hands of man.
education was one in which the child was not coerced into learning certain things but he suggested that the child will learn what it needs to learn in order to interact with the environment it lives
too
Italy, for example, based many of her ideas on Rousseau, as did John Dewey in the US.
progressive education and learning by doing basically come from mile! Many aspects of his philosophy has been the
Rousseaus Philosophy It can also be argued on Education that project-based learning is an extension of Rousseau's teachings.
that have based their structure on Rousseau's teachings. The idea of practical education has been popular off and on, and is
Rousseaus Philosophy And on Education the last but not least, there can be no denying that the history of childcentered educational theory is a series of
need strength; helpless, we need aid; foolish, we need reason. All that we lack at birth, all that we need when we come to
Footnotes
Footnotes
Rousseau advocated the beauty & goodness of nature. Education through the senses & selfdiscovery.
Footnotes
Footnotes
For human beings, it was our own day-to-day living that was the center of our search for the truth. Reason and the evidence of our senses were important but they mean nothing to us unless they touch our needs, our feelings, our emotions.
Footnotes
Only then do they acquire meaning. This "meaning" is what the Romantic movement is all about.
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Footnotes
And the last advocate of Romanticism is Friedrich Nietzsche, who is sometimes considered the Greatest Romantic.
Side notes
Side notes
Rousseau acknowledged that his mile, as a book read by so many, understood by so few, and so ill appreciated.
Side notes
It may even be feared that putting the precepts of mile into practice, scrupulously and to the letter, would lead the
Side notes
Pestalozzi was to have the painful proof of this in educating his son Jakob.
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The four-year-old boy was usually left to follow his natural impulses, but his father made a point, regularly and without explanation, of crushing his egocentric sensibility in the hope that a sense of
Side notes
What this actually produced was a child that no longer understood what sort of a father he was dealing with: a father who was
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Jakobs nervous constitution, by nature already vulnerable, was to suffer irreparable damage.
Side notes
Another subject of controversy is Sophies education. Certain statements in Book V of mile are indeed calculated to
Side notes
woman is made specially to please man, she must be educated in accordance with the duties of her gender,
Side notes
must refrain from seeking truths of an abstract or speculative nature and confine herself to household
Side notes
Nevertheless, it would be wrong to overlook those other passages in Book V where Rousseau denounces the trap that democracy represented for women in their claim
Side notes
With their predominantly sensitive, practical nature, women do indeed possess a talent that puts them
Side notes
Womans own violence lies in her charms. This specific adroitness given to her sex is very equitable compensation for what she lacks in strength; without which
Side notes
It is thanks to this superiority of talent that she maintains herself as his equal, and that she governs him by obeying him.
Side notes
Suppose you decided to bring women up like men; men would willingly consent. The more women sought to resemble them, the less they would govern them,
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Side notes
The End
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