Jean-Jacques- Rousseau

9 Commentsby   |  02.21.11  |  Renaissance/Premodern (Part II)

I found Rousseau to have some interesting and influential ideas in society and psychology today. The most interesting thing for me was his idea on education. He felt that education should take advantage of natural impulses rather than distort them.  He felt that education should create a situation in which a child’s natural abilities and interests can be nurtured. I like this concept. I feel that today we concentrate to much on students weaknesses instead of their strengths. I can remember growing up and always hearing about the areas that I need to  improve in but not much feed back on what I was good at. Also, I like the ideas of the “General Will”. He states that we each have a private will and a general will. The private being the selfish side and the general will that acts in the best interest of the community. This comes from his work ” Social Contract”. It kind of reminds me of social psychology in regards to conformity. I do think that we are all selfish in many ways and we do conform to the greater good of others. I think that is part of what we call today, humility!

Comment

9 Comments

  1. Adrienne Lackey
    4:15 pm, 02.21.11

    I agree with you completely. Afterall, TAKS testing prep is just that, to see what kids need to work on in order to be considred “well educated.” I think school has become about who has the highest gpa rather than who is learning about what they have a passion for. The best teacher I ever had was my 11th grade AP english teacher, she focused so little on grades that I often forgot I was even in a class. It was about WHAT we were learing and not HOW WELL we were able to regurgitate concepts and vocabulary. I think classes should be more like this. Kids become so focused on obtaining a certain grade that they often forget to really understand what is being taught.

  2. Bradye McQueen
    5:26 pm, 02.21.11

    I identify with ther theory about nurturing the abilities and interests of others. It is a natural tendency of mine to fail to encourage others because I only look at the negative things in the people I am close to. I feel the need to be encouraged so that I may grow in my abilities, and I think it is very important to remember to do this for others. If I was ever a teacher I would be sure to create that type of environment for my students so that they could prosper.

  3. Rebekah Bynum
    6:12 pm, 02.21.11

    I like the bit about the private will and the general will. I feel that some people identify more with their private will and others more with their general will. This helps to balance our society. In a perfect world we would all have our own balance but since that isn’t possible we all have to give and take a little.

  4. Taeyanna Pannell
    7:04 pm, 02.21.11

    I agree with the private and general will statement. I agree that as humans we tend to be selfish creatures and we tend to not think towards the community. We do not like to be the one with the spotlight on us because we are sticking up for something all by ourselves we want to just stay in our little corner and conform.

  5. Garrett Beach
    7:10 pm, 02.21.11

    Focusing on strenghts instead of weaknesses is what struck me. Hearing how terrible you are at something can be really discouraging.

  6. John Day IV
    9:02 pm, 02.21.11

    I like what Adrienne said about TAKS test it makes no since to me that they are cutting back on the number of teachers and not the millions that are spent on the test every year. My mom recently requested to teach second graders because she felt that teaching kids how to take the TAKS test was not helping. I would rather we take some of Rousseau ideas into education.

  7. LeeAnn Green
    9:10 pm, 02.21.11

    I completely agree with your comment about education being about weaknesses. Teachers always give negative feedback and tell you what to improve, but rarely do they give you positive feedback and tell you when you have done well. It can be very hard on students to constantly hear that they have done poorly. I think that if we would help kids realize what they are good at instead of preparing them for standardized tests we would have much better educated students.

  8. Brady Campbell
    10:24 pm, 02.21.11

    I have long desired a large change in the US educational system. I want to encourage a system that allows a student to choose his or her direction more freely, meaning that he will be “tak[ing] advantage of natural impulses”.
    I do not downplay the importance of rounding weaknesses, but sharpening strengths is surely one way to positively change education for the sake of those to come.

  9. Sam Gibbs
    11:08 pm, 02.21.11

    I strongly agree with you on this. Growing up in the school system I was always discouraged when I got back a paper or something and did not get the grade I wanted. At the same time if I received an A the teacher didn’t really reward me or encourage me. I feel like its the same in sports for me. There are some people that like criticism but I myself would much rather be encouraged and taught what I was doing wrong instead of being subbed out or not playing because of ignorance and of course sometimes skill.

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