Education: Notable Figures

American educator and mathematician, b. Sheffield, Mass. During his long administration (1864–89), Columbia grew from a small undergraduate college of 150 students into one of the nation's great universities, with an enrollment of 1,500.

Educator and writer, born in East Hampton, New York, USA. After her fiance’s death (1823), she founded the Hartford Female Seminary, launching a life-long campaign as lecturer, writer, and advocate for women’s education.

American educator and president of Harvard, b. Boston, grad. Harvard, 1853. Under Eliot's 40-year administration, Harvard developed from a small college with attached professional schools into a great modern university.

From Collins Dictionary of Sociology
(1921-1997) radical educationalist. His best known work Pedagogy of the Oppressed was translated into English in 1972. Freire used learning to facilitate the development of consciousness amongst oppressed and marginalised groups.

German educator and founder of the kindergarten system. Froebel stressed the importance of pleasant surroundings, self-activity, and physical training in child development.

From The Dictionary of Alternatives
A radical educationalist and social thinker. His first and most famous book, Deschooling Society (1971), argued for the replacement of prison-like institutions for education by lifelong learning webs.

American educator. Was made secretary of the newly created (1837) state board of education at a time when the public school system was in very bad condition.

Maria Montessori was a physician, an educational reformer, and an advocate for children and peace. She is best known for designing the educational system known as the Montessori Method, which flourishes today in more than 8,000 schools on five continents.

Although Piaget is internationally known for his work in child psychology, he regarded his work as a contribution to genetic epistemology, i.e. the theory of knowledge directed upon the development (genesis) of knowledge.

Swiss-French philosopher, author, political theorist, and composer. What was new and important about his educational philosophy, as outlined in Émile, was its rejection of the traditional ideal: education was not seen to be the imparting of all things to be known to the uncouth child; rather it was seen as the "drawing out" of what is already there, the fostering of what is native.

American educator, b. Franklin co., Va. Under his direction, Tuskegee Institute became one of the leading African-American educational institutions in America.

In the history of women’s education in the United States, Emma Willard was one of the first to advocate high schools for girls and the establishment of women’s colleges.

U.S. social reformer, feminist, and pacifist, who founded Hull House, a social settlement in Chicago: Nobel peace prize 1931.

Jerome Bruner's contributions can be anchored in three concepts which are concerned with how we learn to mean and to understand others’ meanings. These are intentionality, thinking and culture.

Dewey’s belief that the method of enquiry, the scientific method, should be applied to practical problems lent philosophical support to the rise and the vogue of the social sciences.

From Biographical Dictionary of Psychology
George Kelly grew up in Kansas and obtained his undergraduate education at Friends University and at Park College, Missouri. In the 1930s, in Kansas, he founded and directed a unique traveling psychological clinic for teachers, parents and children.

Swiss psychologist, noted for his work on the development of the cognitive functions in children.

Lev Semeonovich Vygotsky grew up in Gomel, near Belarus's borders with Russia and with the Ukraine. His early life and education were those of a well-to-do Jewish family of the time.

From The Dictionary of Alternatives
A Democratic school, originally founded in Hellerau near Dresden by A. S. Neill (1883–1973) in 1921. Neill was the headmaster at the Gretna Green school in Scotland, but left to pursue his idea that happy, free children are more likely to learn, and less likely to suffer the various problems associated with coercive education and emotional repression.