When you finish studying this chapter, you should be able to:

1. Identify the major theorists from the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries who developed pioneering curricular or methodological innovations in education.
2. Identify, describe, and analyze the contributions to education made by Comenius, Locke, Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Froebel, Spencer, Dewey, Addams, Montessori, Piaget, and Freire.
3. Analyze the degree to which new ideas from these major theorists were incorporated into the mainstream of educational theory and practice.
4. Determine the effect of the major theorists' pioneering ideas on contemporary American education and schooling.
5. Describe changing conceptions over time for answers to the following questions: What is knowledge? What is the purpose of schools? What is education? How should teaching and learning be carried out?
6. Compare your own ideas about education and the way children learn to the ideas of the major theorists.

Focus and Refocus Questions:

When you finish studying this chapter, you should be able to answer the following questions from your textbook:

Focus Questions

• Who qualifies as an educational pioneer?
• How did the pioneers develop their own philosophies of education?
• How did they redefine knowledge, education, schooling, teaching, and learning?
• How did they challenge and change traditional concepts of the child and the environment?
• What ideas or practices of the pioneers' contributions are present in today's teaching and learning?
• What contributions from the pioneers are useful to you in developing your own philosophy of education?

Refocus Questions

• Take a moment after reading about Comenius to think back to the questions listed at the beginning of the chapter. How would you relate each of those questions to Comenius?
• How would Comenius educate children to understand and relate to contemporary threats of violence and terrorism?
• Take a moment after reading about John Locke to think back to the questions listed at the beginning of the chapter. How would you relate each of those questions to Locke?
• How did Locke's ideas influence modern education, especially Experimentalism and Constructivism?
• Take a moment after reading about Jean-Jacques Rousseau to think back to the questions listed at the beginning of the chapter. How would you relate each of those questions to Rousseau?
• How did Rousseau's ideas anticipate contemporary child-centered and constructivist education?
• Take a moment after reading about Johann Pestalozzi to think back to the questions listed at the beginning of the chapter. How would you relate each of those questions to Pestalozzi?
• Take a moment after reading about Friedrich Froebel to think back to the questions listed at the beginning of the chapter. How would you relate each of those questions to Froebel?
• Take a moment after reading about Herbert Spencer to think back to the questions listed at the beginning of the chapter. How would you relate each of those questions to Spencer?
• Do you find aspects of Spencer's ideas in current educational initiatives?
• Take a moment after reading about John Dewey to think back to the questions listed at the beginning of the chapter. How would you relate each of those questions to Dewey?
• Do you find any evidence of Dewey's philosophy in current educational reforms?
• Take a moment after reading about Jane Addams to think back to the questions listed at the beginning of the chapter. How would you relate each of those questions to Addams?
• How well do Addams's ideas apply to contemporary social and educational issues?
• Take a moment after reading about Maria Montessori to think back to the questions listed at the beginning of the chapter. How would you relate each of those questions to Montessori?
• Take a moment after reading about Jean Piaget to think back to the questions listed at the beginning of the chapter. How would you relate each of those questions to Piaget?
• Do you find evidence of Piaget's developmental psychology in current educational practices?
• Take a moment after reading about Paulo Freire to think back to the questions listed at the beginning of the chapter.  How would you relate each of these questions to Freire? 
• How well do Freire's ideas apply to contemporary social and educational issues?