Educational philosophies through history

  • Period: 323 BCE to 30 BCE

    Socrates and Plato

    Asked students a series of questions to allow them to arrive at their own conclusions. Students were challenged to form their own ideas. Ideas form, new discoveries are made, and the ideas are modified - Idealism.
  • Johann Amos Comenius

    He promoted education for career success. He believed in children's desire to learn. Children shouldn't be punished for failure, but instead be encouraged to try again. He supported education rights for all people. He believed in the importance of extra curricular activities. He believed learning should be adapted to each students needs. His teaching method was to start with easier material and then move up in difficulty.
  • Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi

    He was considered the "father of modern education." He believed in hands on learning. He was in favor of children feeling welcome and comfortable in the learning environment. (Head, heart, hands)
  • Charles Sanders Peirce

    He believed in teaching with the students in mind. His philosophy was pragmatism. He believed in hands on learning to keep students engaged. He believed in seeing the results of your teaching.
  • Smith and Hughes

    They realized through their own children's education that education was not relevant. Their passion came from watching their own children learn in and outside a classroom. They created Smith and Hughes act of 1917 for vocational education.
  • John Dewey

    He thought that vocational education was important, to learn by doing. He believed education should be relevant to the students lives. He focused on problem solving, to identify the problem, brainstorm a solution, and to apply the solution. He believed that we learn better when we learn about things we enjoy.
  • Howard Gardner

    His approach to teaching is the theory of multiple intelligences: bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, linguistic,logical-mathematical, music, and spatial. He believed everyone has intelligence from all seven, but most people only excel in a few. He believed that students learn best when taught with the method they are strongest with. So according to him, teachers should teach using multiple different intelligence styles.
  • David A. Kolb

    He believed in an experiencetal learning style. His method followed a cycle of experience-reflection-conceptualization-test. Or feeling-watching-thinking-doing.