Janusz Korczak was the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit, a Polish-born doctor, author and seminal educator, who dedicated his life to caring for children, especially orphans. Korczak believed that children should always be listened to and respected, and this belief was reflected in his work.
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That education is a living, not a mechanical process, is a truth as freely admitted as it is persistently ignored (lecture in Calcutta in 1936 quoted in Dutta and Robinson 1995, page 323)
Andrew Bell (1753 to 1832) was a Scottish Anglican priest and educationalist Founder of the Madras system of education (also known as “the monitorial system”) in schools and was the founder of Madras College, a secondary school in St. Andrews. Born 27 March 1753, he was the second son of a barber in St Andrews where a college in the university is still named after him to this day Madras College. Read more…
After being introduced to Ivan Illich as an educational thinker by two retired friends who were teachers, it raised so many questions in life that I have decided to create a series of digests on his famous book Deschooling Society. He is a thinker who demands being read, so if you have not encountered his thought I recommend you make a point to read his work firsthand and then prompt you to go and explore it yourself. This is the very spirit of Ivan Illich.
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Grant DeVolson Wood was an American painter, art theorist and teacher who lived February 13, 1891 February 12, 1942. One year after joining the faculty at the University of Iowa, Grant Wood wrote a statement outlining his basic principles of art. Read more…
At the age of 13 Maria Montessori decided to become an engineer. She enrolled in a technical school but changed her focus to medicine. In 1896 she was to become the first woman in Italy to graduate from medical school. Soon after she broadened her scope to become an educator. She studied young children in asylums and was drawn to the work of Jean Marc Gaspard Itard and Edouard Seguin. Read more…
The Chautauqua movement was the most important of the popular free education movements in the history of the United States. So why is it not more known and talked about ?…
It was through the activities of the Chautauqua Institution that the world was opened to the isolated communities of the then new Middle West. Started for the purpose of training Sunday School teachers it rapidly expanded its offerings as popular demand came from thousands of culture starved communities and angry, inchoate movements of social protest.
From its genesis in 1874 it came to found and shape not only universities but the whole of American higher education. The Chautauqua movement was not a single, unified, coherent plan directed by a single individual or a group, it was, fundamentally, a response to an unspoken demand, a sensitive alertness to the cravings of millions of people for something better! (Joseph E. Gould, The Chautauqua Movement) Read more…
Ragged schools is a name commonly given after about 1840 to the many independently established 19th century charity schools in the United Kingdom which provided entirely free education and, in most cases, food, clothing, lodging and other home missionary services for those too poor to pay. In many ways the movement embodied the notion of education as human development. Read more…