John Locks Contribution to the Construction of Modern Childhood - Essay Example

John Locks Contribution to the Construction of Modern Childhood, Part I: Outline of John Locke Argument John Locke was one of the earliest people to deal with the issue of early childhood education. His belief was that the proper education of the young in any society is essential for the flourishing of any society. He also believed that the task of educating children was on the parents who should educate the children at an early age. Education to him meant that the children should learn about ideas and facts and at the same time teach them morals that will guide them into becoming responsible people in the society. In one of his most popular works, John Locke argued against an idea that had been there earlier by Descartes and other philosophers, that knowledge is innate and that every child is born with knowledge and ideas. In this work called “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding”, he discusses in detail as to why this earlier theory of innate knowledge is wrong and why his theory is valid. He developed an argument of nature versus nurture. The earlier philosophy of knowledge was that knowledge is natural, that is, given by nature and inherent in every brain at birth. His theory was however in contravention with this and he believed that adults should nurture knowledge onto children. Knowledge is not innate John Locke believed that knowledge is not and cannot be innate. He believed that knowledge is nurtured by those who already have it and that it is neither possible or logical for a child to be born with knowledge. He therefore believed that the way a child is educated at the young age would determine the kind and amount of knowledge that the child will have at the end and will determine how they are going to turn out in their adulthood. One of his strongest arguments against naturalism of knowledge was his argument that there is no version of truth that all people attest to and that this then meant that people are not born with knowledge. He also postulated in his book that there is a difference between simple ideas and principles such as red, round and complex ideas and principles such as abstract numbers, abstract ideas, and identity. He also argued that the idea of causes and effects is also another that cannot be innate. Locke also argued that every idea is comes from experience by sensation, which is through direct sensory information. He also argued that the other way knowledge comes is through reflection through the perception of the operations of the mind. Part II: Critical analysis Locke’s theory about early childhood is one of the most important and informs the modern early childhood education. This theory is useful in the modern world today because it focuses on the need to educate the child at an early time in order to ensure that the child will be ready for later intellectual development. It is necessary to note that Locke was insistence on the need for introducing children to intellectual development at an early age. It is also necessary to note that Locke’s theory was that at an early age, the child should not only get education about intellectual matters but also about moral issues. Locke believed in the quote “bring up a child in the way that you want him to grow and he will not leave those ways even when he is old.” Locke also believed that the child is born with a brain and mind that is like a blank slate. In this regard, he developed his theory based on the argument that the training and teaching that a child gets at the very earliest age is critical to how the child will develop intellectually and even emotionally later in life. This paradigm informs modern early childhood development. In the modern world, several hundreds of years since Locke developed his theory, teachers still use this as the main way to manage early childhood education (Blundell, 2012). Locke identified that there is a need to make sure that the child is prepared as early as possible with regard to their intellectual and emotional development. Today, this is very evident in that children who are able to this kind of training as early as possible are able to benefit from better later in life. As (Hornby, 2011) says, children who are able to attend the best schools for their preparatory education are more likely to successfully graduate from high school and college. However, those whose parents are not able to take them to the best preparatory schools have a lower chance of graduating from high school let alone from college. This proves that Locke’s theory that the level and kind of preparatory education is valid and therefore relevant to the modern world even today. Although Locke’s theory is valid and relevant, some elements of the theory are controversial. For instance, Locke argued that nobody can be born with any knowledge and that knowledge and it cannot be innate, is external. This proposition is controversial in a number of ways. For instance, if knowledge can be come through refection as Locke postulates, then it may be possible that some knowledge is innate. A good example is the great scientific discoveries by scientist such as Isaac Newton who discovered and theorized the idea of gravity. Isaac was did not learn about gravity but the idea came to him as he reflected about a falling apple. The simple idea that Newton developed about gravity was so important that it led to the successful journey t the moon and he modern satellites that enables global communication. Whether this kind of knowledge is innate or externally acquired is debatable. A person can acquire knowledge not only through instruction from other people but from personal reflection. This can mean that some knowledge is inherent as in some autodidacts such as the famous philosopher, Socrates. However, just because a person can get knowledge through personal reflection is not evidence that some knowledge is inherent and that a person is born with it. This is because this kind of knowledge that comes from personal reflection is possible when a person has prior facts that the person has learned in the past. For instance, it is not correct to argue that since nobody taught Isaac Newton the principle of gravity but that he learnt upon reflection, that this then means he was born with this knowledge. The other main problems with John Locke’s argument about preparatory education for children is the fact that the idea of formal schooling and formal education is entrenched in the modern society and children are taken to formal schools as early as the age of three and sometimes earlier. His argument was that parents are the primary educators of their children. However, in a modern world that is dependent on division of labor, outsourcing the role of teaching to teachers in school is common and almost inevitable to most parents who are too busy to be responsible for their children education (James & Prout, 2003). Locke wrote his ideas about early childhood education when formal education was not prevalent and parents ware responsible for the education of their children. In these early days, parents were the ones who taught their children about the basics of literacy and numeracy. They only sent their kinds for further studies by attaching them to an expert in a certain area where the child (at a later age) would become apprentices to experts and use the opportunity to learn a certain trade (John, Erin, & Stephanie, 2000). In this case, the patent was the major source of preparatory learning and that is why Locke argued the parent is the one to play a critical role in the initial development of the child intellectually and emotionally. This part of the theory can be evident as difficult to achieve today in a day when formal education is the major way to impart knowledge and skills to the newer generations. In the modern day, specialization of labor has also meant that teaching the children will have to be the duty of teachers and lecturers. For instance, if a parent is an accountant, he is not able to teach his children engineering, law, or any other skills. Since these children would have to learn the skills from other people who are skilled in these areas, they have to depend on other people other than their parents (Gestwicki & Bertrand, 2011). It is not however right to reject this proposition by Locke. Even in the modern day, parents, apart from sending their children to school, still have to play a major role in the academic development of their children. For instance, as Honig (1975) argues, children whose parents support them with regard to their school work such as by helping them with homework and getting involved to know that the child is learning at school are more likely to perform better in school. Those who do not have parents who monitor the academic development and try to support then and only depend on the teacher to be the one to teach the child are more likely to perform worse in school. In United Kingdom, it has become clear that parents who support their children with regard to teaching the child and being interested in their child’s academic development are able to help their children to perform better in school. These children have a higher chance of graduating from college and high school. It therefore proves Locke’s theory that the parent is vital to the early development of a child with regard to educational and intellectual development. It means that even in the modern day, parents must not use the excuse of being busy with their work and other chores not to be involved in their child’s education. Parent must work with teachers with regard to helping their child to succeed academically and emotionally. For instance, according to (Prior & Gerard, 2006), parents who get involved in their child’s education by for instance attending to parent-teacher meetings are able to increase the chances of their children being success academically. In this regard, the modern paradigm in early childhood development emphasizes that the parent must be at the helms of the development of the child by working closely with teachers and supporting their child apart from just sending them to school and paying the school fees. This then proves that John Locke’s argument that the parent is a central pillar in the early childhood development in terms of education and learning is valid. The other problem with Locke’s problems is that it focused on boys and did not consider girls. In the time when he was writing this, boys were the ones who were considered for education and girls were not given priority because their work when they grew up was to manage the house. The fact that Locke was only talking about the boy child with regard to early childhood education is evident in his famous quite where he said that it is only by doing this that these young boys can be turned into fine gentlemen. However, the modern education does not differentiate between girls and boys and considers both genders as equally important in terms of their educational needs. Conclusion It is clear that Locke’s argument on the paradigm of early childhood education is in all aspects in line with the modern early childhood education. His theory about this issue is in line with the modern paradigms about the early childhood education. Whether it is about the importance of the parent with regard to imparting the maiden knowledge and skills to the child, or the idea that the child is born with a brain that is clean slate, his arguments are completely in line with the practices of today. Locke therefore had seen a future of early childhood education and predicted that his would be the paradigm that the future of education would be based on. He also touched on the need for the child not to get education only on the intellectual mattes but also on the issues of morality in order that they can develop into fine men. The fact that he did not consider girls can be attributable to the fact during his time, people did not consider girls for education. However, this part alone does not affect the other aspects of this prescient paradigm by Locke. Reference list: Blundell, D., (2012) Education, and Constructions of Childhood, London: Continuum Gestwicki, C., & Bertrand, J. (2011). Essentials of Early Childhood Education. London, UK: Cengage Learning. Honig, A. (1975). Parent involvement in early childhood education. New York, NY: National Association for the Education of Young Children. Hornby, G. (2011). Parental Involvement in Childhood Education: Building Effective School-Family Partnerships. New York, NY: Springer New York, . James, A., & Prout, A. (2003). Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood: Contemporary Issues in the Sociological Study of Childhood. London, UK: Routledge. John, F., Erin, T., & Stephanie, C. (2000). Journal of Educational Psychology, 92, 2. Family Involvement Questionnaire: A multivariate assessment of family participation in early childhood education. , pp.367-376. Prior, J., & Gerard, M. (2006). Family Involvement in Early Childhood Education: Research into Practice. London, UK: Cengage Learning. Read More