THE ROMANTICS

1
THE ROMANTICS

• Focus on The Free Child

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• Chapter 8 in text
• A.S. Neill
• Reading 5
• And hello to all at Wide Bay!!

2
The Romantic Movement

• Background to the Romantic Movement
• A reaction to the Age of Empiricism, the Age of
  Reason, the Age of Science, the Age of Inventions
  and to the Industrial Revolution that followed.
  
• Tabula Rasa of John Locke 1632-1704
• The brave new world of machines

3
Some Characteristics

• Reaction to scientific and industrial age.
• Advocated a return to nature and extolled the
  virtues of the countryside.
• Fascination with dark, unknown forces.
• Wanted to excite the emotions through poetry,
  art and music.
• Man is born good no original sin.
• Wanted to break artificial rules on morality
• A sense of tragedy in the human condition...

4
For Example conditions in the mines were
appalling
Updated slide for 2002
5
Children dragged coal carts
Updated slide for 2002
6
Women and children also carried coal to the
surface
Updated slide for 2002
7
Contemporary Accounts
Updated slide for 2002

• I have a belt round my waist, and a chain passing
  between my legs, and I go on my hands and feet.
  The road is very steep, and we have to hold by a
  rope and where there is no rope, by anything we
  can catch hold of. ... I am not as strong as I
  was, and cannot stand the work as well as I used
  to. I have drawn till I have had the skin off me
  belt and chain is worse when we are in the family
  way.
• Betty Harris, aged 37, drawer in a coal mine, to
  the Royal Commission on Mines, 1842

8
Updated slide for 2002
9
Hallelujah! The Factory Acts

• Every child restricted to the performance of
  forty-eight hours of labour in any one week shall
  attend some school.
• Statutes of the Realm, 3 4 William IV, c. 103.
• Useful sites

http//dspace.dial.pipex.com/mbloy/peel/factopic.h
tm
http//www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/IRchild.main.
htm
Updated slide for 2002
10
Rights and Freedom

• Romantics believed in the rights and freedom for
  all mankind. Jean-Jacques Rousseau in The
  Social Contract wrote Man is born free but
  everywhere he is in chains. 1762
• A forerunner of the Romantics, he not only wanted
  political freedom but was a critic of social
  conventions of morality, child-rearing,and
  education.

11
Man is born free but everywhere he is in chains
The Social Contract, 1762.

• Children working long hours in the textile mills
  who became tired and lost speed were usually
  beaten with straps to make them work faster. In
  some factories children were dipped head first
  into the water cistern if they became drowsy.
  Children were also punished for arriving late for
  work and for talking to the other children.
  Parish apprentices who ran away from the factory
  were sent to prison. Children who were considered
  potential runaways were placed in irons.  

Updated slide for 2002
12

• This is a photograph of Thomas Savage in
  Wandsworth Prison.

Updated slide for 2002
13
Jean-Jacques Rousseau

• Born in Geneva in 1712 and died 1778
• A radical writer who denied of original sin
• Took Lockes view of neutrality further and
  announced man is born good
• Book Emile placed on Index Librorum
  Prohibitorum, so Catholics could not read it
• Educational ideas dangerous because they went
  against the rigid system of the day

14
French Educational Ideas

• French education still based on rigid, inflexible
  Medieval curriculum
• The basis was the Seven Liberal Arts
• Romans adapted it from the Greeks
• Church adapted it from the Romans
• Traces of Greek ideal in modern Liberal Arts
  but inflexible in France

15
Typical Medieval Schools

• Ages and levels of development NOT taken into
  consideration
• Classes contained boys from 7-17
• Harsh punishments common flogging
• Children seen as little adults at 7
• Art works show them as cut down versions of
  adults.

Updated slide for 2002
16
The Medieval Curriculum

• THE TRIVIUM the three basic subjects
• Latin Grammar - based on Donatus Roman
• Dialectic or Logic - firstly on Plato then
  Aristotle
• Rhetoric at first the art of persuasive
  speaking then letter -writing

• THE QUADRIVIUM four further subjects
• Music Boethius On Music
• Geometry Euclid
• Arithmetic Gerberts Abacus
• Astronomy Ptolemy NOT Copernicus

17
Émile Child-Centered Learning

• Émile begins with the following controversial
  statement Everything is good as it comes from
  the hand of the Maker, but everything degenerates
  in the hands of man
• Rousseau then proceeds to outline more
  controversial ideas about child-rearing and
  education

18
Some Educational Ideas

• Nature is a basic educative force
• The environment shapes the child
• Education through experience essential
• Do not force young children to learn
• Cramming Latin verbs is absurd
• Education should parallel the natural stages of
  development of a child

19
Stages of Development

• Ages 0-5
• Natural stage, play
• Age 5-12
• Negative Education with tutor in country
• Age 12-15
• Learn through nature practical education
• Age 15-20
• Time to give Émile a heart

• No swaddling clothes, fed by mother
• Reading was the scourge of childhood
• Only allowed to read Robinson Crusoe
• I hate books
• Ready for morality, ethics, read Social Contract

20
Sophie Girls Education

• DEFINITELY NOT A PRIORITY!
• Sophie is naturally subservient to men
• Her main function is to be useful
• Obedience, industriousness essential
• To pleasing and bear children
• Avoid philosophy and and science
• Religion must be same as husband and is incapable
  of own thoughts on religion

21
CONCLUSIONS

• HIS LEGACY
• New approach to equality, goodness, dignity,
  child-centred
• Learning based on nature, and experience
• Influenced Pestalozzi, Froebel, Montessori, Early
  Childhood Movement and A.S.Neill

• Final Thoughts
• Died 1778 insane
• Abandoned children
• Flaws in Émile include
• Impractical to have own tutor
• Negative education
• Isolation in country

22

Updated slide for 2002

• SUMMERHILL THE FREEDOM SCHOOL

A.S. NEILL
23
Summerhill

• Neills progressive school, Summerhill, still
  causes heated arguments today
• Difficult to separate his personal views from his
  theoretical ideas
• Based on belief of freedom and happiness but
  difficult to assess
• A mixture many contradictions and bad ideas
  and many sound strategies!

24
The Free Child

• Look at this in context of Summerhill
• Here children are free from regulations dumped on
  them by adults
• Government of school by Council
• Children and staff have 1 vote each
• Only Council can make laws
• Lessons are voluntary at all times

25
Why So Much Freedom?

• Happiness and self-reliance fostered
• Promotes harmony and happiness
• Give child freedom to learn and child will want
  to
• Child treated as they ought to be treated

• Adults have no right to impose on child or coerce
  child
• Wrong to control, direct, manipulate
• Need to be free to determine their lives through
  self-regulation

26
Can Children be Free?

• Some contrary arguments are
• young child cannot determine own life
• means taking control not just reacting to
  situations
• Child lacks knowledge and experience
• Neill himself imposed on their freedom
• Summerhill was structured environment

27
Continued

• Summerhill does impose values
• Teachers go there for a purpose - to have an
  effect
• Adults pressure replaced by peer group
• Children and adults can never be totally free to
  determine their their lives
• Education is too valuable to leave to choice

28
Neills Views on Limits

• Neill imposed limits on freedom based on
  differences in freedom and licence
• Children cannot jump out of windows
• Nor jump on sofas or smash windows
• And no kicking doors. And there are bars to stop
  them jumping out, and behavior is corrected if
  harms others.
• Are children free if restrained? Have they
  learned self-restraint and self-determination?

29
AN UPDATE Summerhill won its court battle
against closure and has now become the first
school in England where Inspectors must use the
children's opinions in the evaluation of the
school. If you are interested see the website
http//www.s-hill.demon.co.uk/ .
Updated slide for 2002
30
Final Thoughts
Updated slide for 2002

• Conclusions
• Persuasive arguments based on the freedom of the
  individual
• Appeal to acceptance that controls are bad
• Appeals to idea that child needs to learn
  self-restraint, not impose it

• In Contrast
• B.F. Skinner and Plato believed in control and
  the loss of freedoms
• Society needs to question popular notions of
  freedom
• Need restricted freedom to save us from DOOM

So who is RIGHT?? The debate is still raging!