"to prepare him for the future life means to give him command of himself; it means so to train him that he will have the full and ready use of all his capacities"

An American philosopher and psychologist believed in the philosophy of pragmatism. That is that we learn through a hands on approach. Students must interact with their environment for learning to be meaningful. For Dewey and his philosophical followers, education stifles individual autonomy when learners are taught that knowledge is transmitted in one direction, from the expert to the learner.

"This means that no single logic is strong enough to support the total construction of human knowledge."

"The goal of education is not to increase the amount of knowledge but to create the possibilities for a child to invent and discover, to create men who are capable of doing new things."

“Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral. ”

“Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people--they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

He is known for his work on Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970)

Freire served as the honorary president of the International Council for Adult Education.

"we must take our stand with the child and our departure from him. It is he and not the subject-matter which determines both quality and quantity of learning"

Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychologist and genetic epistemologist most famously known for his pioneering work on child development. His contributions include the ideology that child cognitive development occurs in distinct stages (sensorimotor, preoperation, concrete operation, and formal operation), detailed observational studies of cognition in children, and the development of innovative cognitive tests to assess cognitive abilities. Piaget was also involved in the transformation of educational practices as he inspired and encouraged child-centered approaches.

"education is a regulation of the process of coming to share in the social consciousness; and that the adjustment of individual activity on the basis of this social consciousness is the only sure method of social reconstruction".

American Philosopher who works resembled that of John Dewey and his philosophy of pragmatism. From 1900-1909 he professed at the University of Illinois. He supported progressive education, but criticized its excesses and opposed educational theories that he thought were undemocratic. Bode began his teaching career as a philosophical idealist and a critic of the American philosophy of pragmatism, but gradually he became persuaded that pragmatism was the philosophy of America's future. The pragmatic view that truth comes out of human experience rather than through revelation and contemplation appealed to him. Bode believed that the American experiment of democratic rule was the hope of the future. He advocated "Americanization" not only of the immigrants but of other Americans, too. Democracy became Bode's philosophical and educational theme. Thus, democracy and intelligence went hand in hand, and science and philosophy had major roles in helping achieve greater democracy and intelligence. He became a nationally prominent leader in the field of philosophy of education and one of the recognized thinkers associated with progressive education. Bode expressed strong convictions about the need for democracy and the power of proper education to enable people to think more clearly. Throughout his life as a philosopher and educator, Bode exhibited a sturdy faith in democracy, human intelligence, and the power of education. His belief in the connection between these three things is his legacy to the contemporary world.

the key principles are Independence, Observation, Following the Child, Correcting the Child, Prepared Environment and Absorbent Mind.

"Imagination does not become great until human beings, given the courage and the strength, use it to create"

“If the structure does not permit dialogue the structure must be changed”

"Logical reasoning is an argument which we have with ourselves and which reproduces internally the features of a real argument."

Franklin Bobbitt was a Professor of educational administration at the University of Chicago and is best known for his written works The Curriculum (1918) and How to Make a Curriculum (1924). Franklin believed that curriculum would prepare students for their future careers in the new industrial society. He argued that classical subjects should be replaced with curriculum that corresponded to societal needs. As such, Bobbitt felt that any curriculum that did not teach skills relevant to the industrial movement should not be taught. He also felt that girls and boys should be taught differently as their future contributions to society would be distinct.

"Education is a shaping process as much as the manufacture of steel rails."

“Education is for the social purpose of elevating the character of human conduct above what it would otherwise be.”

“Instead of knowledge of textbook sort, as we have conceived it there should be subjective activities which are continuous, vigorous, diversified, abundant, and fruitful. They should be the constituents of high-grade intellectual living. Intellectual life of proper type is not an engulfing and a nursing within one’s self of inert unassimilated bodies of knowledge.”

Nel Noddings 1929 - Present

Specialized in education and power, cultural politics, curriculum theory and research, critical teaching, and the development of democratic schools

"A word devoid of thought is a dead thing and a thought unembodied in words remains a shadow."

"The teacher must adopt the role of facilitator not content provider"

Known widely for constructivist theory stating knowledge is co-constructed with others as a social act. Also known for the theory Zone of proximal development (ZPD) which is the difference between what a learner can do without help and what they can do with help. The person who helps facilitate is considered the more knowledgeable other (MKO).

A founding theorist of critical pedagogy in the US. He also has done research in cultural studies, youth studies, popular culture, media studies, social theory, neoliberalism, and the politics of higher and public education. He's currently a professor at McMaster University.

"The curriculum is never simply a neutral assemblage of knowledge, somehow appearing in the texts and classrooms of a nation. It is always part of a selective tradition, someone’s selection, some group’s vision of legitimate knowledge. It is produced out of the cultural, political, and economic conflicts, tensions, and compromises that organize and disorganize a-people."

"The decision to define some groups’ knowledge as the most legitimate, as official knowledge, while other groups’ knowledge hardly sees the light of day, says something extremely important about who has power in society."

Bruner - Discovery theory --Bruner also postulated that internal representations could be combined to produce different types of thought. Bruner's constructivist theory suggests it is effective when faced with new material to follow a progression from enactive to iconic to symbolic representation; this holds true even for adult learners.

“critical pedagogy becomes a project that stresses the need for teachers and students to actively transform knowledge rather than simply consume it.”

“critical pedagogy illuminates how classroom learning embodies selective values, is entangled with relations of power, entails judgments about what knowledge counts, legitimates specific social relations, defines agency in particular ways, and always presupposes a particular notion of the future.”

“Children have fewer rights than almost any other group and fewer institutions protecting these rights. Consequently, their voices and needs are almost completely absent from the debates, policies, and legislative practices that are constructed in terms of their needs.”

"The school is, par excellence, the institution to which a democratic society is entitled to look for clarification of the meaning of democracy. In other words, the school is peculiarly the institution in which democracy becomes conscious of itself."

"Progressive education must either become a challenge to all the basic beliefs and attitudes which have been dominant for so long in every important domain of human interest or else retreat to the nursery."

"Form follows function, or outcomes follow action, and so the results that flow from sound thinking cannot be pre-established in any exact sense."

“In sum, then, "thinking about thinking" has to be a principal ingredient of any empowering practice of education.”
― Jerome S. Bruner, The Culture of Education

“We are storytelling creatures, and as children we acquire language to tell those stories that we have inside us.”
― Jerome Bruner

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