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John Locke: Liberator of Children

John Locke: Liberator of Children. Jenna Broderick Infant/Toddler Methods Spring 2010. A little about the man himself…. History . Writings on education. 1632 - 1704 Born first of three sons Stern father – stay in awe and at a distance Tutor to many Never married No children

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John Locke: Liberator of Children

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  1. John Locke:Liberator of Children Jenna Broderick Infant/Toddler Methods Spring 2010

  2. A little about the man himself… History Writings on education • 1632 - 1704 • Born first of three sons • Stern father – stay in awe and at a distance • Tutor to many • Never married • No children of his own • Some Thoughts Concerning Education • Letters to his “cousin” • An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

  3. Blank slate, blank sheet, empty cabinet… “I think I may say that of all the men we meet with, nine parts out of ten are what they are… by their education.” • Follow a child from its birth and observe the alterations that time makes, and you shall find, as the mind by the senses comes more and more to be furnished with ideas, it comes to be more and more awake; thinks more, • the more it has matter to think upon. How is this so radical?

  4. During the Salem Witch Trials, four-year-old Dorcas Good was accused by older girls of witchcraft. Dorcas was sent to prison. The long months that she spent chained to a wall in a dark dungeon scarred her for life. In prison she was not even allowed a doll for solace, since dolls were considered instruments of witches for casting spells. After finally being released from prison Dorcas was, for the rest of her life, in such a mental state that she had to constantly be under the care of an adult. As the Puritans saw it… …children were born with inherently evil, idle demons Toddler Accused of Witchcraft

  5. Children be free and play… “Play-things, I think, children should have, and of divers sorts…” “There may be dice and play-things, with the letters on them to teach children the alphabet by playing; and twenty other ways may be found, suitable to their particular tempers, to make this kind of learning a sport to them.” • “Recreation is as necessary as Labour, or Food.” But not without limitations…

  6. Meet the parents… “Fear and awe ought to give you the first power over their minds, and love and friendship in riper years to hold it” Vs… “But, as I said before, beating is the worst, and therefore the last means to be us’d in the correction of children, and that only in cases of extremity, after all gentle ways have been try’d, and prov’d unsuccessful; which, if well observ’d, there will be very seldom any need of blows.” With a flip side of course…

  7. “Though I have mention’d the severity… I think it should be relax’d” Meet the parents cont… “Another thing of greater consequence… will be his friendship…. And I cannot but often wonder to see fathers who love their sons very well, yet so order the matter by a constant stiffness and a mien of authority and distance to them all their lives, as if they were never to enjoy, or have any comfort from those they love best in the world” “Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves have poisoned the fountain.”

  8. Grab something to read…. • John Locke even had something to say about toilet training • Regular visits with enforced sittings He must have seen John Locke coming

  9. The environment will create the child… Full learning should involve input from all the senses… intellectual, social and physical. “I imagine the minds of children as easily turn’d this or that way, as water it self…”

  10. John Locke and our Ten Principles of Caregiving

  11. Principle 1: Include infants and toddlers in things that concern them. “Another thing of greater consequence, which you will obtain by such a way of treating [your child], will be his friendship… Nothing cements and establishes friendship and good-will so much as confident communication of concernments and affairs...” John Locke (1632 – 1704)

  12. Principle 2: Invest in quality time; do not settle for supervising groups without focusing on individual children. For Locke, the best means of education was that, “children should from their first beginning to talk, have some discreet, sober, nay wise person about, whose care it should be to fashion them aright, and keep them from all ill, especially the infection of bad company” John Locke (1632 – 1704)

  13. Principle 3: Learn each child’s unique way of communicating John Locke advised parents and tutors to study their children and to note their dispositions and dislikes: “for a child will learn three times as much when he is in tune, as he will with double the time and pains, when he goes awkwardly, or is dragged unwillingly to it” John Locke (1632 – 1704)

  14. Principle 5: Respect infants and toddlers as worthy people. “As children’s enquiries are not to be slighted; so also great care is to be taken, that they never receive deceitful and eluding answers. They easily perceive when they are slighted or deceived; and quickly learn the trick of neglect... We are not to intrench upon truth in any conversation … we not only deceive their expectation… but corrupt their innocence, and teach them the worst of vices.” John Locke (1632 – 1704)

  15. Principle 8: Model the behavior you want to teach. “Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves have poisoned the fountain.” John Locke (1632 – 1704)

  16. John Locke liberated the young child. He awarded the child liberty and freedom… The freedom to be and the freedom the become… “You know my opinion is that [children] should be abroad in the air at all time and in all weathers, and if they play in the sun and in the wind without hats and gloves so much better. “ In conclusion…

  17. References Aldrich, R. (1994.) John Locke 1632-1704. PROSPECTS. 24(1/2), 61–76. Retrieved from http://www.ibe.unesco.org/publications/ThinkersPdf/lockee.PDF Borstelmann, L. (1974). Dr. Locke and Dr. Spock: Continuity and Change in American Conceptions of Childrearing. Retrieved from ERIC database. Brophy-Herb, H., Fitzgerald, H. & Honig, A. (Eds.). (2001.) Infancy in America: an encyclopedia, Volume 1. ABC-CLIO. Retrieved from http://books.google.com/ Chudacoff, H. (2007). Children at Play: An American History. New York University. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/books/Chudacoffchapter1.pdf Cox, R. (1996). Shaping Childhood: Themes of Uncertainty in the History of Adult-Child Relationships. Chapter 3: The child of the Enlightenment: The example of Locke and Rousseau. (pp. 46-75). Routledge. Retrieved from SocINDEX with Full Text database. Krogh, S, Slentz, K. (2001). Early childhood education: yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Routledge. Retrieved from http://books.google.com/ Locke, J. Some Thoughts Concerning Education. The Harvard Classics. New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1909-1914. Retrieved from http://www.bartleby.com/37/1/10.html (1988). JOHN LOCKE, PHILOSOPHER AND PHYSICIAN, ON REARING CHILDREN. Pediatrics, 82(3), 354. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.

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