Child-study
Jean-Jacques Rousseau has been called the father of the child-study movement. It has been said that Rousseau "discovered" the child (as an object of study).
Rousseau's principal work on education is Emile: Or, On Education, in which he lays out an educational program for a hypothetical newborn's education to adulthood. Rousseau provided a dual critique of both the vision of education set forth in Plato's Republic and also of the society of his contemporary Europe and the educational methods he regarded as contributing to it; he held that a person can either be a man or a citizen, and that while Plato's plan could have brought the latter at the expense of the former, contemporary education failed at both tasks. He advocated a radical withdrawal of the child from society and an educational process that utilized the natural potential of the child and its curiosity, teaching it by confronting it with simulated real-life obstacles and conditioning it by experience rather than teaching it intellectually. His ideas were rarely implemented directly, but were influential on later thinkers, particularly Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi and Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbel, the inventor of the kindergarten.
[edit] Transcendentalist education
H. D. Thoreau's Walden and reform essays in the mid-19th century were influential also (see the anthology Uncommon Learning: Henry David Thoreau on Education, Boston, 1999). For a look at transcendentalist life, read Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. Her father, A. Bronson Alcott, a close friend of Thoreau's, pioneered progressive education for young people as early as the 1830s.
The transcendental education movement failed, because only the most gifted students ever equaled the skills of their classically educated teachers. These students would, of course, succeed in any educational regime. Accounts seem to indicate that the students were happy, but often pursued classical education later in life.
[edit] National identity
Cole Stevens on 01 Feb 12Baker, Kimberly. "Assisted Suicide Advocates Forget Hope a More Powerful Force Than Death." LifeNews.com. 2 Nov. 2010. Web. 30 Jan. 2012. Kimberly Baker, staff assistant for the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, in her article entitled "Assisted Suicide Advocates Forget Hope a More Powerful Force Than Death" explains to readers that legalizing assisted suicide for the sick or elderly would set a dangerous double-standard and diminish hope in a world that needs is more than ever. Baker develops her argument by first shocking the reader with information on how the Swiss Death Clinic wants to provide suicide drugs to distraught widows of their suicide clients, followed by addressing the reasons people are in favor of assisted suicide, and then explaining why those reasons are not enough to justify assisted suicides. Baker writes to persuade readers that the consequences of legalizing assisted suicide would outweigh the benefits. She writes for an audience of people who may know someone who is terminally ill or elderly, and urges them to show genuine concern for them, and keep their hope alive. This article addresses an ethical issue, and is therefore composed of the authors opinion on the subject of assisted suicide. Baker bases her argument on moral, ethical, and religious values. That doesn't necessarily make the argument less convincing or truthful, and is appropriate to the topic, considering suicide is, for many, a moral and religious issue. I see myself using this source in the final draft of my research project because it supports a message of hope and encouragement, which what I'm trying to support.
