INTRODUCTION

Jean Jacques Rousseau. His life, contribution to education, and the impact of his work in
relation to our present era.
Id like to start by saying that:
1
The noblest work in education is to make a reasoning man, and we expect to train a young
child by making him reason! This beginning at the end; this is making an instrument of a
result. If children understood how to reason they would not need to be educated.
Rousseau.

BIOGRAPHY
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 1778) was a French philosopher and writer of the Age of
Enlightenment.
His Political Philosophy, particularly his formulation of social contract theory (or
Contractarianism), strongly influenced the French Revolution and the development of Liberal,
Conservative and Socialist theory. A brilliant, undisciplined and unconventional thinker
throughout his colorful life, his views on Philosophy of Education and on religion were equally
controversial but nevertheless influential.
He is considered to have invented modern autobiography and his novel "Julie, ou la nouvelle
Hlose" was one of the best-selling fictional works of the 18th Century (and was important to
the development of Romanticism). He also made important contributions to music, both as a
theorist and as a composer.
Contractarianism suggests that people are primarily self-interested, and that a rational
assessment of the best strategy for attaining the maximization of their self-interest will
lead them to act morally and to consent to governmental authority.

ROUSSEAUS CONTRIBUTION TO EDUCATION

The Educational Theory of Jean Jacques Rousseau
THEORY OF VALUE

Man's fundamental first duty is to learn the art of living; man's first duty is to be
human.
THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

Knowledge constitutes the ability to reason and use our senses to learn; if we use
books in place of nature and our senses it teaches us to believe much and know
little.
THEORY OF HUMAN NATURE

The original nature of man is good but corrupted by society.

THEORY OF LEARNING

Learning is done through trial and error, experimentation through concrete

medium.
THEORY OF TRANSMISSION

Students are provided with concrete materials, objects and situations for
learning to take place.
THEORY OF OPPORTUNITY.

A girl cannot be educated to be a man. Studies must be on the practical side

because a woman should be the center of the family, a housewife, and mother;
should strive to please her husband and have a good reputation.
THEORY OF CONSENSUS

Rule by the general will; expressed in laws to which all submit; represents the
public spirit seeking the common good; assumes that everyone's true interests
must coincide.

EDUCATIONAL CONTRIBUTION
The greatest work produced by Rousseau is Emile. This work is more a tract upon education
under the guise of a story than it is a novel in the true sense of the word novel. The book
describes the ideal education which prepares Emile and Sophie for their eventual marriage. The
following represents an outline of the vital educational principles found in Emile.
BOOK ONE: This book deals with the infancy of the child. The underlying thesis of all Rousseau's
writings stresses the natural goodness of man. It is society that corrupts and makes a man evil.
BOOK TWO: Rousseau describes the education of the child when the tutor has full
responsibility. Some of the major points of this section of the book are:
a. Purpose of education
The tutor permits the child to develop his natural capacities. The aim of education is
never social. It is always individualistic.
b. The school
Living in the country close to nature he should develop into the benevolent, good adult
intended by nature. No textbooks are utilized. The child learns by using his senses in
direct experience.
c. Problem centered
When the child felt the need to know something, he would be moved to learn.

d. Character education
The child learns morality by experiencing the consequences of his actions.
e. Physical education
Rousseau stresses the importance of physical activities in order to build a strong body.
BOOK THREE:
This section describes the intellectual education. When he is ready to learn and is interested in
language, geography, history and science, he will possess the inner direction necessary to learn.
BOOK FOUR:
This section describes the social education and the religious education.
a) Social attitudes
He is permitted to mingle with people in society at the age of sixteen.
b) Natural religion
The revelation and dogma of organized religion are unnecessary for man.
c) Education of women
Women are not educated as are men. She is expected to have and care for children, and
to please, advise and console her husband whenever necessary.

ROUSSEAU AIMS OF EDUCATION

a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.

Attainment of fullest natural growth leading to balanced, harmonious and useful life.
Prepares the child to live life.
To develop well regulated freedom.
To provide the child with strength to attain well regulated freedom.
Period of instruction, labor and study.
Training of heart, to make the child loving, social.
Religious, moral and social education is recommended.
Sex instinct is to be sublimated by redirection in work and activity.

CURRICULUM
a. Allow the child to wander freely, play-things.
b. Greatest freedom of physical movement to learn by own experience, simple diet, light
clothing, no instruction of language, history or geography, exercise the body, sense organs
and powers i.e. learning to judge, foresee and reason, no need to learn by heart.
c. Curriculum should be built around curiosity to develop the urge for knowledge, studies to
reveal nature, astronomy, science and arts and craft, total intellectual and vocational
development.

d. Training of heart to be social and adapt to the conduct and interest of others, study of
society, economics, politics, history and religion is important.
ROUSSEAUS PRINCIPLE OF TEACHING
The principle of teaching as suggested implicitly by Rousseau reflects his naturalistic
philosophy. He lays stress on direct experience of things and on the principle of learning by
doing. Do not teach books, they only teach us to talk about things that we know nothing about
own experience. Let the child not be taught science, let him discover it.

ROLE OF A TEACHER

Minor place to the teacher.

Not an instructor but only a guide.
Responsibility to motivate the child to learn.
Must understand the nature of the child to be able to control his emotional reactions.
Not to impose any rules of control.
Guide properly with perfect freedom.
The highest function of the teachers consists not so much in imparting knowledge but
on stimulating the pupils in their love and pursuit.

ROUSSEAUS VIEW ON DISCIPLINE

A free atmosphere can enable the child to develop his inborn and innate capacities Nature of
the children are essentially good, let them act freely No punishment to the child Discipline by
natural consequences. According to Rousseau,
Children should never receive punishment as such; it should always come as natural
consequence of their fault.
He advises the teacher not to intervene in matters of moral guidance as means of disciplining
the child.
ANALYSIS OF JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU WORK IN RELATION TO PRESENT ERA
The three main educative forces, Rousseau talks about, are nature, men, and also things.
1. The education of nature consists only of what the human body is born with.
2. The second educative force is that of man. Man shows us how to use our body that we
are born with.
3. There is the education from things. This is what we learn from objects and things around
us.

He uses Emile to explain the role that nature plays in an individual's intellectual and moral
development through education. Rousseau raised Emile with the least possible restrictions.
Rousseau's job as his tutor was to preserve.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was one of the greatest philosophers of the 18th century, as he was the
author of the theory that is very urgent even today. That was the reason a lot of modern
thinkers addressed in their works Rousseau. He tried to prove that the inequality is the product
of the society, and since people cannot return to the state of nature, they should change the
system they live in. That was this idea that is considered to be the main impetus towards
French Revolution and many other events that shook our society for years.
We are indebted to Rousseau for his emphasis on such principles as learning by doing or
learning through ones experience and heuristic teaching,
Heuristic teaching: an educational method in which learning takes place through discoveries that result
from made by the student.

Sources:
http://www.philosophybasics.com/philosophers_rousseau.html
http://infed.org/mobi/jean-jacques-rousseau-on-nature-wholeness-and-education/