Rousseau’s Educational Thoughts In The Confessions

Jean-Jacques Rousseau is a great enlightenment thinker, philosopher, educatorand litterateur in French. In his later years Rousseau wrote a book named TheConfessions, which is not only a biography and literary work, but also permeated byRousseau’s educational thoughts. Rousseau shows his educational thoughts by thedescription of his life experiences in his childhood, youth and adult. Includes fouraspects: first, respect for the nature of children; second, it is the parents’ responsibilityto teach children; third, Educators should comply with the natural law development ofstudents; fourth, early education of children should be far away from the urban butnear the natural environment.While knowing Rousseau’s educational thinking is progressive, you should alsosee there are limitations. First of all, Rousseau over-exaggerates the role of nature ineducation; Secondly, the purpose of education that Rousseau proposed is "naturalperson" training, but this idea is out of the social impact; Finally, Rousseau opposeshospital-feudal educational way, and completely negates the classroom teaching andsystem knowledge learning.After analysis of the pros and cons of educational ideologies in the "Confessions",the essential part is enlightening for China’s current ideological and political educationstatus: first, student-centered with full respect for the students; second, educationreturn to nature, out of preaching kingdom; third, education should be gradual andindividualized; fourth, students need a good learning environment; fifth, pay attentionto the students’ experience and active experience.This paper mainly adopts the following research methods: first, the text researchmethod. Read the book carefully and has a comprehensive grasp of the original idea.Second, induction and general research method. Extract, excerpt and generalizeeducation thoughts in the confessions. Third, analysis and synthesis method. Analysisthe education ideas in the confessions and combine them with Rousseau’s age background and educational practice in our country. We should analysis the advantagesand disadvantages, and draw the part of the essence finally.