The ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau have had a profound influence on Western views about both childhood and child-centred education. Although it is doubtful whether he was the founder of child-centred educational theory, he was undoubtedly one of its most influential exponents.
Rousseau was born in Geneva in 1712. He was left motherless as a small child and abandoned by his father at the age of ten. He is best known as an 18th century philosopher who wrote a number of major texts, including Emile and The Social Contract.
Emile, published in 1762, is an account in five books of the development of a fictitious pupil who is in the care of a tutor (effectively Rousseau himself). In his books Rousseau depicted the pupil Emile as being naturally good, innocent but vulnerable and entitled to freedom and happiness. The advocacy of children being born 'good' was in stark contrast to the prevailing views about childhood at the time, particularly those held by the Catholic Church. So controversial were Rousseau's views that copies of Emile were 'sentenced to burning on the streets of Paris' (Darling, 1994).
But he was warmly endorsed in France after the Revolution, for his ideas expressed in remarks such as that in The Social Contract, 'Man was born free, but everywhere he is in chains'.
In the five books of Emile, Rousseau addresses how children should be educated from infancy (Book 1) to manhood (Book 5). The guiding principle throughout these books is that the child's nature at each stage of development should determine what is to be learned. The educator, whether parent or professional, should respond to the child's natural curiosity by guiding the child through appropriate experiences in order to facilitate the child's understanding.
What can we learn?
Many of Rousseau's ideas have become enshrined in our contemporary culture: children are very different from adults; they need protection from harm; they need love and security; they are full of joy and curiousity and have a natural urge to understand the world.
According to Rousseau, childhood has to be respected and revered. Children should not be subjected to threats, smacks or other punishments.
Sadly, even in our contemporary world, too many children are treated badly and abused by adults. We all need to understand children better and afford the time and patience they deserve - a position well embedded in the professional practice of a good educator. Despite this position, it has to be said that Emile is neither a blueprint for education nor a forerunner of Dr Benjamin Spock on how to bring up children. It is more a clarion call to the virtues of childhood and its critical significance in the subsequent make-up of the adult.
Rousseau tells us that we should listen attentively to children, as such listening is crucial to our own understanding of childhood. In modern times we have only recently endorsed the importance of 'children's voices' in our pursuit of this understanding. Perhaps at long last, the Victorian view that 'children should be seen and not heard' is well and truly banished to the rubbish bin.
But there are still some lessons to be learned from Emile, not least in our relationships as adults with children - particularly in the exercise of authority. It is all too easy to give children orders and instructions and to protect them excessively. The demands of the modern world make us busy and impatient adults, and children can often interfere with our 'life timetable'.
Furthermore, in response to the chronic abuse of some children and the subsequent publicity about it, many parents see it as their responsibility to watch over their children at all times. Such excessive surveillance can seriously inhibit children's natural curiosity and zest for life.
Rousseau's legacy
It took more than 200 years for some of Rousseau's basic ideas to be formally adopted by many western education systems, despite the fact that other important reformers followed in Rousseau's footsteps - Pestalozzi, Froebel, Owen and Dewey, to name but four. In the UK it was the Hadow Report of 1933 that first advocated a distinct child-centred approach to education, particularly in the early years, but it wasn't until the Plowden Report of 1965 (and the Primary Memorandum in Scotland) that progressive education was endorsed and subsequently practised, albeit somewhat controversially.
Even by today's standards in child-centred practice, Rousseau was indeed radical. For example, he derided verbal lessons and instruction as being antithetical to education. For Rousseau, children learn by experience alone, and experience is the raw material of thought. Instruction is bad because it is not natural. Children should be guided how to learn for themselves.
Without doubt, Rousseau has provoked much criticism, from the 18th century French establishment to educational philosophers such as Barrow and Bantock, and even to the Conservative Governments in the UK in the 1980s (albeit indirectly). Barrow wrote a scathing attack on Rousseau in his book Radical Education, published in 1978. Not only did he challenge Rousseau's views on what is meant by 'nature' and being 'natural', he argued that Rousseau's concept of freedom confused 'freedom from restraint' with 'freedom to make choices (and to make mistakes)'.
The Thatcher Governments of the 1980s also regarded progressive education (that is, child-centred education) as the root cause of the nation's economic weakness at that time. But Rousseau's concept of freedom was not one of laissez-faire in which adults only loosely exercise their responsibilities towards children. The task of the educator is to manage children's environment and to guide children into making choices that will promote their development.
With and without the criticisms, Rousseau is as relevant today as he was 200 years ago. As Darling points out in his book, Child-centred Education and Its Critics, he offers two key insights for the contemporary educator.
One is that a child takes a considerable amount of time to mature individually, and the other is the central importance of understanding.
Allowing children the 'space' to think out their own conclusion is the most effective means of promoting understanding. There is no rational alternative to proceeding slowly (Darling 1994). Our responsibility as educators, whether parent or professional, is to support children in facing challenges in a thoughtful and considered manner.
It is crucial, therefore, that we understand how we can improve the quality of life of our children - a moral commitment embodied in good education and parenting practice.
Eric Wilkinson is Professor of Education at the University of Glasgow