Self Development

To begin, it is useful to briefly summarise my upbringing as this further explains my interest in education. I believe I learnt more in 14 months of travelling through Europe in a van when I was ten years old, than in any other year at school. (I was most impressed by the Gothic Cathedrals of Europe, and the old ruined castles.) I was a rebellious but generally kind student. I failed first Year University Physics, largely due to non-attendance of lectures. I have a Bachelor of Education (majored in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics). I taught Science for 4 years. Both my parents were teachers/lecturers. Probably the most important reason for taking education seriously though comes from my love of philosophy, which clearly realises that Education is the most important factor in the evolution of both the individual and society. I think there are some good things happening with the new Outcomes based curriculum that is currently being implemented in the West Australian state schools – I ...

Educational Philosophy / Teaching Philosophy Truth & Reality as the Foundations for Critical Thinking, Reason and Education Quotes on Teaching Philosophy of Education from Famous Philosophers Albert Einstein, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Michel de Montaigne, Plato, Aristotle & Confucius Philosophy of Education / Educational Philosophy: Albert Einstein - My dear children: I rejoice to see you before me today, happy youth of a sunny and fortunate land. Bear in mind that the wonderful things that you learn in your schools are the work of many generations, produced by enthusiastic effort and infinite labour in every country of the world. Jean Jacques Rousseau - Begin then by studying your pupils better. For most assuredly you do not know them at all. Michel de Montaigne - Since philosophy is the art which teaches us how to live, and since children need to learn it as much as we do at other ages, why do we not instruct them in it? Plato - We shall not be properly educated ourselves, nor w...

The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education. (Albert Einstein) Knowledge of the history and evolution of our ideas is absolutely vital for wise understanding. It is also important to read the original source (not a later interpretation which often leads to misrepresentation and error) and that these original quotes should give confidence to the truth of what we say. As Albert Einstein astutely remarks; Somebody who only reads newspapers and at best books of contemporary authors looks to me like an extremely near-sighted person who scorns eyeglasses. He is completely dependent on the prejudices and fashions of his times, since he never gets to see or hear anything else. And what a person thinks on his own without being stimulated by the thoughts and experiences of other people is even in the best case rather paltry and monotonous. There are only a few enlightened people with a lucid mind and style and with good taste within a century. What has been preserved of thei...

Quotations from Confucius, Aristotle, Euripides, Seneca, Cicero, Horace, William James, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, John Fowles, George Bernard Shaw Study the past if you would define the future. I am not one who was born in the possession of knowledge; I am one who is fond of antiquity, and earnest in seeking it there. Learning without thought is labour lost; thought without learning is perilous. (Confucius, Analects) Those who educate children well are more to be honoured than parents, for these gave only life, those the art of living well. (Aristotle, In Education) The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead. (Aristotle, In Education) All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth. (Aristotle) Learned we may be with another man’s learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own: [I hate a sage who is not wise for himself] (Euripides) What use is knowledg...

I would like to suggest that our minds are swamped by too much study and by too much matter just as plants are swamped by too much water or lamps by too much oil; that our minds, held fast and encumbered by so many diverse preoccupations, may well lose the means of struggling free, remaining bowed and bent under the load; except that it is quite otherwise: the more our souls are filled, the more they expand; examples drawn from far-off times show, on the contrary, that great soldiers ad statesmen were also great scholars. (de Montaigne) I think it better to say that the evil arises from their tackling the sciences in the wrong manner and that, from the way we have been taught, it is no wonder that neither master nor pupils become more able, even though they do know more. In truth the care and fees of our parents aim only at furnishing our heads with knowledge: nobody talks about judgement or virtue. When someone passes by, try exclaiming, ‘Oh, what a learned man!’ Then, when another do...

Plants are shaped by cultivation and men by education. .. We are born weak, we need strength; we are born totally unprovided, we need aid; we are born stupid, we need judgement. Everything we do not have at our birth and which we need when we are grown is given us by education. (Jean Jacques Rousseau, Emile) I will say little of the importance of a good education; nor will I stop to prove that the current one is bad. Countless others have done so before me, and I do not like to fill a book with things everybody knows. I will note that for the longest time there has been nothing but a cry against the established practice without anyone taking it upon himself to propose a better one. The literature and the learning of our age tend much more to destruction than to edification. (Jean Jacques Rousseau, Emile)

... for the object of education is to teach us to love beauty . (Plato) 'And once we have given our community a good start,' I pointed out, ' the process will be cumulative. By maintaining a sound system of education you produce citizens of good character, and citizens of sound character, with the advantage of a good education, produce in turn children better than themselves and better able to produce still better children in their turn, as can be seen with animals.'(Plato) '... It is in education that bad discipline can most easily creep in unobserved,' he replied. 'Yes,' I agreed, ' because people don't treat it seriously there, and think no harm can come of it.' 'It only does harm,' he said, 'because it makes itself at home and gradually undermines morals and manners; from them it invades business dealings generally, and then spreads into the laws and constitution without any restraint, until it has made complete havoc of priva...