This article takes as its starting point the commonplace that Rousseau's "Emile" enabled his contemporaries to discover not only childhood but physical education. Focused on what the pedestal erected for Jean-Jacques somewhat overshadows, a brief historiographic overview and a survey of some major writings on education before Rousseau (by the…

Historians work in a discipline with few inherent concepts and are obliged to draw upon many fields in recreating the past. Yet authors of most school history texts, state and national standards and curriculum materials seldom incorporate economic analysis in their work. Just look at state standards that include Adam Smith and John Locke but draw…

The following article reflects on past theories and practices that still influence early childhood development and education today. The critical thoughts on how young children should be raised and educated by individuals such as John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Johann Pestalozzi, William Froebel, John Dewey and Maria Montessori and others are…

One narrative form that has significantly shaped the Western profile of adolescence is the novel of education, or traditional "bildungsroman." The very notion that adolescence is punctuated with "storm and stress" is culled from G. Stanley Hall's close reading of Goethe's (1774) "bildungsroman," "The Sorrows of Young Werther." For Hall, Werther's…

Literacy in STEM is critical to individual and national success in the twenty-first century, the century of science. Gifted students are in a position to make especially profound contributions to solving the world's major challenges and creating new economic opportunity. But modern American culture and the way STEM education is approached and…

The problem of how best to capture, direct, and enhance children's abilities to pay attention has been a central feature of educational thought and practices over a long duration. And, while having students pay attention in class has been a concern of teachers across the ages, beginning in the Enlightenment we find a significant shift in…

The English Enlightenment philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) is one of the most prominent figures in the development of liberal Anglo-American political thought. Locke's writings had a significant influence on the American Revolution and founding principles of the United States in fundamental ways. The author argues that Locke's influence is…

In this essay, Russell G. Moses argues that Charles Sanders Peirce's article "Evolutionary Love" establishes a general normative framework for a logic of evolutionary, progressive imagination that can be used to elucidate an evolutionary continuity between the normative works of Jane Addams, John Dewey, and Alain Locke. This exercise…

As teachers begin shaping lessons for the common standards, many are wondering how to prepare their students for tests that won't be ready for at least two years. Sample items being drafted for those exams offer early ideas of what lies ahead. Two large groups of states are using federal Race to the Top money to create new suites of exams for the…

Advises teachers of rhetoric and composition of the potential usefulness of John Locke's "An Essay concerning Human Understanding." (RL)

Shows how Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" and John Locke's "Thoughts on Education" can be used to promote good breeding. (EL)

This essay explores a reading of "Robinson Crusoe" that suggests the novel has taken on new gravity after the first "preemptive" war in U.S. history, a war justified by the attempt to "spread freedom" to Iraq. It examines how Crusoe comes to understand the relationship between the state and the individual. Robinson…

Locke's suggestions for more effective speech instruction have gone largely unnoticed. Consequently, it is the purpose of this article to consider John Locke's criticisms, theory and specific methods of speech education. (Author)

Views "communication" as a product of a particular historical epoch and set of social conditions. Illustrates the birth of communication and the accompanying modern conditions and commitments by examining John Locke's linguistic and political theories. Traces Locke's commitment to the individual as master of meaning. (SR)

Examines how John Locke's views on limited government, constitutional supremacy, republicanism, and internal checks and balances are represented in the U.S. Constitution. (Author/BSR)