Pioneers in Education and Child Development
Jean Itard: Pioneer of Special Education
An unforeseen event made Jean Itard the first teacher of children with disabilities, in the broadest sense of the word. It was the arrival in Paris of the “Wild Boy of Aveyron,” an eleven-year-old boy. This event shaped an essential attitude for any educator: to never resign to fate and to always believe there is something to be done for someone.
Social Work and Education: Different Roles
Different social work educators have different functions. Although both professionals possess the same degree or training qualifications, social workers tend to hold a position of sergeant or lieutenant, while the educator is often the soldier who is on the front line.
Paulo Freire: Giving Voice to the Oppressed
Freire aims to return the word to those who have been condemned to silence. He states that “the dominant pedagogy is the pedagogy of the ruling classes.” The practice of freedom can only find adequate expression in a pedagogy in which the oppressed have the conditions for self-discovery and conquest, reflexively, as subjects of their own historical destiny.
The Essence of Education
Education (from the Latin *educare*, “to guide,” and *educere*,”to draw out”) is a two-way process involving the acquisition of knowledge, values, customs, and behaviors. It occurs not just through words but also through our actions, feelings, and ways of acting. The result is embodied in a set of skills, knowledge, attitudes, and values.
Emilio Calatayud on Juvenile Justice and Conflict
Emilio Calatayud states: “We have created very ‘light’ young people, unprepared for frustration.” The juvenile court judge in Granada, Emilio Calatayud, is distinguished by his imaginative and exemplary sentencing. He believes that “we can all commit crimes and are recoverable,” arguing that toughening penalties for young people is a step backward.
Francesco Tonucci: A Child’s Perspective on Education
“The teacher knows and teaches. The teacher knows and loves teaching and knows that love is above knowledge, and one only truly learns what is taught with love.”
I’ve always been struck by the “ideas” and “bullets” that Tonucci has published for many years. This Italian, Francesco Tonucci, and his alter ego, Frato, are always present in his cartoons, provoking thought in adults and explaining his thoughts on teachers, students, and education to the world. No one understands “how to be a child” like he does. Childhood is a condition, and as he says, “A child is born.” He has managed to maintain this quality throughout his life, becoming a real-life Peter Pan. This is something only geniuses achieve. Listening to his “nonsense,” we find great solutions because when a child says nonsense not heard from their parents or teachers, it probably contains a great truth.
- “Children learn a lot more playing than studying, making than watching. The game you play alone, without the supervision of adults, is the highest cultural form that a child experiences.”
- “The game provides resources for life. All the crises of youth develop in early childhood.”
- “Today, education means asking children to stop behaving like children and to act like adults.”
- “Children spend their days in front of adult instructors; it is difficult to do weird stuff. This is fueling a cumulative need for risk, expressed with their first bike and going out at night.”
- “Young people do not want to be confined to their rooms to play, or playgrounds, or in all those spaces that we construct to control them. What a child does when controlled by an adult is different than what they do alone. Children need spaces where, within a climate of social control, they can do what they want: keep off the grass, climb trees, and play with lizards.”