One of the assignments in my philosophy of education course was to read “Emile” by Jean Jacques Rousseau. This book provided a narrative for my foundational belief in how children learn. Rousseau describes how Emile is sent to live with a teacher. This teacher carefully, intentionally, arranges experiences from which Emile WILL discover and learn. The learning objective of these lessons are planned by this teacher, and so there is little to no accident in Emile’s learning them. For example, the teacher places rocks along their walking path in the fall so that, when spring arrives and Emile turns them over (as young boys naturally will do), he discovers the ecosystems of bugs underneath. This type of discovery in an intentionally organized learning environment is the hallmark of the Reggio Emilia educational philosophy. I will discuss another tenant of the Reggio Emilia philosophy in my next post. hashtag#edphilosophy hashtag#Reggio hashtag#Rousseau hashtag#discoverylearning hashtag#playbasedinstruction hashtag#intentionalinstructionaldesign
Comments