Friedrich Froebel
Can you imagine the life before kindergarten? Young children were made to work in factories and mines; with no birthday celebrations at all, children were considered as adults by the age of seven. Then came man named Friedrich Froebel and invented what we know as the kindergarten today.
Friedrich Froebel was a German educator who laid stress on pre-school education. He was the founder of the kindergarten and was also entitled to be one of the most powerful educational reformers of the 19th century.
Froebel was a spiritual visionary. He believed that everything has originated from God and hence, all different appearing objects are actually the same.
Froebel emphasized on the need to study a child’s nature, his instincts and impulses. He discovered that development of the human brain is most substantial between the birth and the age of 3. This actually gave a strong foundation to understand the importance of starting education relatively earlier than the age it was then imparted.
All of the essential educational procedures in the kindergarten and preschool are much beholden to his work and vision.
John Amos Comenius
John Comenius was a Czech educator who was the discoverer of practical education, which is the most remarkable contribution to the education imparted at
that time. He is famous as the “father of modern education”.
He was the first educator to discover and implement the usage of pictures in textbooks and also perceived it as a universal concept of education. He believed that education should originate in the earliest days of adolescence and continue entire lifetime.
Comenius also believed that every child–boy or girl, rich or poor, skillful or mentally obstructed–was rightful to full education. For him, every educational limitation was a prime hindrance in mankind’s progress. As a consequence, he took a stand to eliminate these limitations by writing a number of excellent textbooks.
Anne Sullivan
Anne Sullivan was an American teacher and the lady who took an extremely impaired girl named “Helen Keller” from an abnormal condition to graduation from the Radcliffe College. Helen became the first deaf-blind person to obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Tormented by the eye diseases which caused her to undergo many medical operations at the age of 16, she joined a school for the blind and completed her graduation in 1886. After some of her sight had recovered, Sullivan pursued the formidable task of teaching a child who was unable to see, hear, or speak. Through her miraculous innovation and the potential of the child, she was able to teach by using a type of sign language wherein she used to “write” onto that child’s palm.
Due to her remarkable work as a tutor, Anne Sullivan became symbol which taught the world about the value of educating the disabled children. By teaching a 6 year old deaf and blind girl when Anne herself was only 20 marked the beginning of its great and lasting impact on education.
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was a great Indian educator and also the first Vice President and second President of India. He was a great philosopher and was a famous teacher.
After receiving his M.A. degree in philosophy at the age of 21, Radhakrishnan earned a very high acknowledgement as a teacher of the most difficult concepts of philosophy. He laid a great emphasis on spiritual education. He believed that education that cannot develop spiritual feelings in students is not real.
Once asked by one his students whether he had been abroad for education he replied, “No! But I will go there to teach.” Such was his passion and determination towards teaching. He was quite friendly with his students. While teaching students at his home, he used to welcome them himself, offer them tea and even see them off to the door. He even used to shake hands with every student.
We can well accept his eminence for his birthday is celebrated as “Teacher’s Day” in India.
Savitribai Phule
Savitribai Phule was the first female teacher of the first women’s school in India and is also regarded to be the founder of the modern Marathi poetry. She is one of the incredible personalities who struggled against the autocracy of castes and other social evils prevailing in the early India.
With the support of her husband and her profound determination, she initiated the noble act of opening a school for untouchable girls at the time when even talking of untouchables was considered as impure. When others were reluctant to offer water to the thirsty untouchables, Savitribai and her husband got a well dig in their own house to serve water to the untouchables.
Her life as a teacher was full of hardships. The upper caste orthodox individuals used to contemn her opinions and actions, and they even threw stones and dung on her. Despite all the sufferings she continued with her teaching and slowly she manifested her principles. Finally, her contribution to education was honoured by the British government. In 1852 Savitribai and her husband’s efforts were also complimented by the government.
A lot of women in India today might not be aware of the efforts and achievement of Savitribai Phule, who plucked up the courage to undertake the noble act of ’teaching’ women in the very ‘Dark Age’. For her stand against the restrictions imposed on the women in India, today’s women society should be grateful to her.
