This volume is a critical study of one of today's most controversial topics in educational theory, setting the many arguments in perspective and clarifying the issues that arise when attention is focused on the learner. The author examines the problems of individual education, the distinctive demands childhood makes on the school and the claims of social education. The related questions of freedom, authority and discipline are then discussed, together with the ways in which curriculum development must take account of the learner's interests, needs and dispositions in preparing him/her for life. The concept of educating the whole person is critically examined, together with the claim that education for life and the development of personal integrity require an integrated curriculum. Since child-centred educational theory is often dismissed as irrelevant to practice, the book concludes with an assessment of the various limitations which concern with practical activity imposes on educational theorists.

Against an increasingly authoritarian background of testing and instruction, concern is growing about disengagement and loss of depth and quality in education at all levels. Child Centred Education seeks to explore the role of Primary education within this debate. The book will inspire teachers and head teachers seeking to make their practice more genuinely educational. The authors capture the current opinion that primary schools can begin to reclaim some of their autonomy, be innovative and become more creative. Based on wide ranging research, the book sets out to revive the creative alternative to the rigid and impoverished learning experienced by too many primary school children. The authors: - Trace the origins and history of the child-centred tradition - Set out its fundamental beliefs and values - Explore its place in education today This book is for teachers, school governors, local authority officers, undergraduate and postgraduate teacher training, and professional development courses.

Responds to ongoing discussion between proponents of child- or student-centered education, and, on the other hand, proponents of content- or curriculum-centered education. Offers explication around an existential orientation for the theory and practice of education

This text shows how child-centred education came under both political and popular pressure, and highlights the significance of the academic group led by R.S. Peters. The author challenges the view that philosophers have shown child-centred educational theory to be incoherent.

Pedagogies for Development takes a sociological approach to examine the introduction of child-centred education in contemporary Indian policy and school contexts. It investigates the promise of democratic learning in development discourses to ask how far child-centred models can address poverty and social inequalities in rural Indian communities. Drawing on in-depth ethnographic research conducted in the south Indian state of Karnataka, the book offers a multi-level analysis of international, national and state education practices of pedagogic reform. The book contributes to pressing debates about how ‘quality’ education should be conceptualised and assessed in development contexts, and brings into focus the assumptions which associate schooling to social justice.

Child-centered lesson planning provides a system to strengthen teaching. Great lesson planning helps teachers to choose a range of strategies that match what children are learning and doing-- from directed mini-lessons to facilitated group activities.

What is child-centred education? Where do its core ideas stem from? What do these ideas mean for children and teachers today? Child-centred education is central to contemporary debates about what constitutes effective teaching and learning. Frequently pitched against formal approaches to education, it is often understood to mean a laissez-faire approach to teaching and learning with little substance and little intervention on the part of adults. Others argue that child-centred education has been superseded by a subject-driven and target led approach, one in which the child’s interests and ideas have been marginalised and where teachers have become mere technicians, trained to deliver a highly prescriptive curriculum content. Child-Centred Education aims to unravel the complexities and nuances surrounding these polarised positions. Through an analysis of groundbreaking research, policy initiatives and illustrated with concrete examples of practice, it presents an accessible introduction to child-centred education. Key issues explored include: how far a child-centred approach is realistic in the modern classroom the role of play in learning and children’s live more widely the impact of new technologies and social networking creativity and personalisation child-centred approaches for the highly diverse classroom international research into alternative pedagogies for the primary school the relationship between the child, school and politics. Offering a detailed, engaging exploration of both historical and contemporary perspectives, Child-Centred Education is for all student and practising primary teachers, education studies students and all those undertaking related master levels courses.