Historical Development of Early Childhood Education: A Reflection

This assignment explores the historical development of early childhood education, focusing on the perspectives of Greek philosophers such as Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle. It requires the creation of a timeline that includes five major viewpoints from ancient Greece through the Industrial Revolution, detailing how educators and philosophers viewed child learning, treatment, and education. The assignment also asks for a reflection, which incorporates the student's personal teaching principles based on the insights from the timeline, citing the resources used. The provided solution focuses on the Greek philosophers and their contributions to early childhood education, highlighting their beliefs about child development, learning methods, and the importance of intellectual and physical well-being. The assignment also provides the required references for the solution.

Running Head: HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
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HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
The traditional Greek Philosophers commented very less on the concept of early
childhood. However, this is a domain on which the Greek philosophy made an ample amount of
argument on early childhood education. For the timeline of early childhood education from the
perspective of Greek Philosophy, the discussion can be started with the renowned Greek
philosopher Plato. Plato (428 -348 BC) was the first philosopher who believed in the balance of a
child’s life revolves within the mental and physical well-being and development (Jonas, 2016).
He firmly believed that shaping the child’s future involves the intellectual self, the tradition and
the concept of socialization. According to Plato, children born with the knowledge and they only
need to know the utility of the knowledge. Plato believes in the method of learning through
playing for making the children socialized.
Socrates (470 – 399 BC) believed in the concept of enquiry and learning. Socrates was
the influencing personality of various writers and philosophers including Plato. Socrates believed
that the educational procedure must involve the mind and body of an individual (Maidou,
Plakitsi & Polatoglou, 2019). According to him, Gymnastics or athletics teaches the virtue
including perseverance and fairness including good and evil. He introduced the Socratic method
of learning that includes posing questions by the students. This is the method of enquire and
learn simultaneously.

1HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
Aristotle (384 – 322 BC) believes in the similar concept posed by Plato. According to
them early childhood is the formative time for human development (Lapsley, 2016). Aristotle
differentiated the schooling into three main stages namely – primary, secondary, and higher
education. He believed in purposefulness of education that means students must define their
purpose of learning before seeking for knowledge acquisition.

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References
Jonas, M. E. (2016). Plato's Anti‐Kohlbergian Program for Moral Education. Journal of
Philosophy of Education, 50(2), 205-217.
Lapsley, D. (2016). On the prospects for Aristotelian character education. Journal of Moral
Education, 45(4), 502-515.
Maidou, A., Plakitsi, K., & Polatoglou, H. M. (2019). Socrates’ house: A suitable paradigm to
introduce pre-service teachers to Education for Sustainable Development. Re-introducing
science Sculpting the image of science, 348.

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