Throughout history, philosophers and educators have proposed various pedagogical approaches and theories of education. Socrates employed the Socratic method of questioning to facilitate independent thinking. Plato believed education fulfilled the soul. More recently, Montessori believed children teach themselves through interaction with their environment, while Freire advocated for dialogue and praxis to transform systems of oppression.

1. Historical development of
pedagogy

2.  Throughout history, educators and philosophers have discussed different
pedagogical approaches to education, and numerous theories and techniques
have been proposed
 In the Western world, pedagogy is associated with the Greek tradition of
philosophical dialogue, particularly the Socratic method of inquiry.
 Socrates employed the Socratic method while engaging with a student or
peer. The instructor in this learning environment recognizes the learners'
need to think for themselves to facilitate their ability to think about problems
and issues.
 Plato describes three castes: one to learn a trade; one to learn literary and
aesthetic ideas; and one to be trained in literary, aesthetic, scientific, and
philosophical ideas. Plato saw education as a fulfillment of the soul.

3.  Since the time they launched their first school in 1548, the Jesuits believed
that a high quality education is the best path to meaningful lives of
leadership and service. The Jesuits adapted available educational models
while developing their own pedagogical methods to become the
"schoolmasters of Europe.“
 During the mid-1600s in what is now the Czech Republic, the
educator Comenius wrote the first children's textbook containing vivid
illustrations, entitled The Visible World in Pictures. Known as the "Father of
Modern Education," Comenius believed in a holistic approach to education. He
taught that education began in the earliest days of childhood and continued
throughout life, and that learning, spiritual, and emotional growth were all
woven together.

4.  During the 1700s, the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau presented his
methodology on the education of children in his novel Emile, the story of the
education of a young boy. Within his novel, Rousseau described the importance of
having a focus on both environment and personal experience. Different learning
stages are described: for example, during the "the age of nature" (from ages 2 to
12), Rousseau argued that a boy should receive no moral instruction or verbal
learning, as the mind should be "left undisturbed until its faculties have
developed." Instead, education during this stage should be focused on physical and
sensory development.
 In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi,
a Swiss pedagogue and educational reformer, greatly influenced the development
of the educational system in Europe and America. His educational method
emphasized the importance of providing a loving, family-type environment in
which the child can grow and flourish naturally, balancing their intellectual,
physical, and technical abilities, with emotional, moral, ethical,
and religious growth.

5.  Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbel, a German educator, also made substantial
advances in children's education, particularly the invention of
the kindergarten system for young children. His own difficulties as a child, his
love of nature, and his faith in God, combined with his experiences
with Pestalozzi's educational system, were the foundation for his insights into
the education of very young children. He recognized the importance of play in
order to allow their creativity to unfold and blossom. His school included a
large room for play, as well as a garden outside for the children to grow
flowers and other plants.
 John Dewey believed that meaningful learning is participatory, and he
emphasized relevance over authoritarianism. His theory was also linear in
that the past and the present shapes the future.

6.  Maria Montessori’s theories werethat children essentially teach themselves;
the teacher’s primary responsibility is to create the appropriate environment
for learning and provide the spark that allows children to develop naturally.
Given the ability to be mobile and learn from their surroundings rather than
being forced to sit still and be lectured to, most children, even rough inner-
city kids, flourished under her system.
 Paulo Freire created an approach to emancipatory education and a lens
through which to understand systems of oppression in order to transform
them. He flipped mainstream pedagogy on its head by insisting that true
knowledge and expertise already exist within people. They need no
“deposits” of information (what Freire calls “banking education”), nor do
they need leftist propaganda to convince them of their problems. What is
required to transform the world is dialogue, critical questioning, love for
humanity, and praxis, the synthesis of critical reflection and action.