Rousseau and Comenius are both philosophers who worried about educational methods based on the children's psychology as the foundation. These two philosophers argued the sensory learning which can pump up the excitement and spontaneity of the child th...
Rousseau and Comenius are both philosophers who worried about educational methods based on the children's psychology as the foundation. These two philosophers argued the sensory learning which can pump up the excitement and spontaneity of the child through real objects. However, Rousseau and Comenius had a difference in terms of looking at the relationship between language and actual objects. This researcher plans to correctly define the terms the relationship between language and actual object through comparing the points of view of these two philosophers and find the implications these provide for us.
Rousseau argued to educate according to the principles of nature. According to Rousseau, language was created by people artificially and children usually do not understand most of the letters written in the book or the words the teachers are using. Therefore, Rousseau argues that children should be protected from being exposed to unnecessary words or letter and conduct negative education on them. Rousseau's children education is limited to sensory education which focuses on the children looking at the actual objects and feeling them. This was derived from Rousseau's belief that children are able to acquire notions through senses even without the help of a language.
However, in order for us to discover the notion from actual objects, we must have at least amount of possibility regarding the notion of our internal selves. That possibility is the action of reason and not senses and as more reason is applied, the factor that infuses more vitality is the language. No human cannot think without language and only through language, human beings are able to deliver their thoughts or feelings. Additionally, not all notions can be expressed in actual objects and it presents the problem of how to educate the notions without actual objects to represent them. This is the limitations of Rousseau's perspective which states that actual objects can replace language.
Comenius looks at the human beings as the "microcosm" and views human beings as existences that must try hard in order to restore the sacredness which they possess from birth. In the view of human nature of Comenius, the fact that human beings are able to discover notion through actual objects is logically assumed. Through a life time experience of teaching children as a teacher, Comenius already knew that children are not able to acquire knowledge only through sensory education. Sensory experience through actual objects can be the starting point of knowledge acquisition, it is not the acquisition of knowledge itself. Therefore Comenius considered the proportion of language is as important as the actual object. If there is no language to describe the things the person sees, the person will not be able to call that anything and cannot even think about that but referring to something in a specific language first without seeing the actual object will also not allow the person to have any thought regarding that.
The thing that we must not miss is the fact that language and actual objects are both important in human beings to acquire knowledge. When teaching knowledge to children, sensory education is meaningful in the fact that the actual object must be introduced before the language in timely matter in order to induce their interest and promote understanding. Through sensory education, when the child is ready is learn more uplifted, the language education of teaching the knowledge in expressed language will have its meaning.