Book Review: Emile, or On Education

Emile, the book The Social Animal is based on, is a fantastic look into Rousseau's pedagogy and general philosophy. It has interesting insights and practices for teachers and parents. Here's what struck me from the book:


First, Rousseau's education is completely predicated on -- his interpretation of -- an education consistent with nature. He takes Emile away the city and moves to the country. He has Emile read only the "classics" (Robinson Crusoe is his main recommendation) because the older authors were closer to nature. For Rosseau, everything is about timing and stages of development: Don't introduce topics like God, religion, or sex when they are not yet ready for it (not before 15, in his opinion). Rousseau is adamant about this: He would rather have Emile know nothing about a topic than know something incorrectly. This logic pervades throughout the book.

I have a couple objections:

1) What type of censorship would Rousseau encourage in today's world?  With just a modem, any ten year-old can see religious vitriol, bare nipples, and (or perhaps on) South Park.
2) How accurate is Rousseau in his analysis that certain topics are best learned at certain stages of development? How accurate is childhood development as a science anyway? My friend insists that High school is the formative years, and thus we should focus more on K-12 than on higher education. David Brooks has said that Pre-K is the most important. Locke argued that the "associations of ideas" that one makes when young are more important than those made later because they are harder to change.

Second, Rousseau, like Dewey, believes education has to relate to the child's real life, otherwise they will not care about it. "How does it concern a schoolboy to know how Hannibal encouraged his soldiers to cross the Alps? If instead of these grand speeches you showed him how to induce his prefect to give him a holiday, you may be sure he would pay more attention to your rules." And echoing Dewey again: "The art of teaching consists in making the pupil wish to learn." In a word, tie everything to the child's current self-interest. Never encourage a kid to make promises, for instance, because he/she is simply not capable of looking into the future and keeping it.

Third, Rosseau expresses the importance of a strong body in relation to a strong mind.  He delays cultivating "reason" in Emile and instead focuses on physical development. Would Rossaeu, I wonder, think that modern day physical experiences -- gym excercises, adventure vacations, or social gatherings -- simulate the physical training he had in mind back then? He continues: "Reading, solitude, idelness, a soft and sedentary life, intercourse with women and young people, these are perilous paths for a young man, and these lead him constantly into danger"

This, of course, is how I spend most of my time. For my own personal education, would Rosseau deem sufficient a consistent routine consisting of calisthenics, basketball, and yoga or would he say, on the contrary, that I'm a utter waste of space and urge me to do real manual labor and go on nature expeditions. (In Michigan? In the winter?)

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Here's what most fascinates me: Rousseau thinks that humans come into the world pure and good but culture and society corrupts. While there's something to be said for the simplicity and strength of the Noble Savage, I don't buy his argument. It's culture that gives us the social practices, habits, institutions that raises standards of living, lubricates social interactions, and gives us access to the world's best and brightest. Culture can both help and hinder the development of a child, but, with smart planning, a child need not leave the real (and virtual) world to get a natural education.  It seems sensible (to me) to imagine the State of Nature in the middle of a spectrum with the Noble Savage at one end and Hobbe's State of War at the other, with culture serving as an added force: Effective cultural practices promote the tranquility, strength, and honor of the Noble Savage, and ineffective ones the melancholy, chaos, and violence of the State of War.