Educational Thinkers: Book Review (Book Review Sample)

Educational Thinkers: Book Review
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Educational Thinkers: Book Review
Taneja, V. R., & Taneja, S. (2000). Educational thinkers. Atlantic Publishers & Dist. ISBN-10: 8171561128
Educational Thinkers, written by V. R. Taneja and Mrs. S. Taneja, is a hardcover book containing 183 acid-free pages. The book is "quick read," as it can be carried anywhere easily. It was published by Atlantic Publishers & Distributors in 2000. Both V. R. Taneja and his wife S. Taneja have a strong background in the educational field. In 1981, Mr. Taneja retired as a Dean and Faculty of Education from Jammu University, Jammu, while Mrs. Tanje had been teaching at Government College of Education, Chandigarh.
The cover page of this book illustrates deep analysis of educational philosophy. It contains the images of various educational thinkers such as Plato, Friedrich August Froebel, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Dewey, John Dewey, and Mahatma Gandhi. The main title of this book is presented in simple writing style using two colors i.e. white and yellow. An image of Plato in background, which is hardly visible, presents the phenomenon of deep thinking indicating something innermost related to educational philosophy. The book is typical introduction and philosophy of educational thinkers and does not follow the traditional style of book format i.e. separate entry of introduction, chapters, conclusion, or bibliography. It merely represents the educational thinkers and their philosophy.
The book under review is a textbook that carries on to be variable conditioning vitally the process of teaching and learning. Educational Thinkers presents educational philosophy from various points of view to generate educative interactions between the teachers and the learner. The authors aim to advance the classroom instructions by presenting the educational philosophy in various dimensions. The book can be used to enrich the learning, as well as to revise and reinforce the previous learning. The utility and merit of understanding, practicing masterminds, and educational thoughts whether Western or other can never be over-emphasized. The most important reason for the existence of this book is that it is written using the approach known as experience-center.
The book is written in the form of argument on the basis of various thinkers' point of view. In this way, each thinker tends to describe his/her opinion related to education. In other words, a reader of this book can understand the aims and objectives of education in the viewpoints of various educational thinkers. For example, the authors present the philosophy of Plato, who is Idealist and believes in ideal Republic. In contrast, the educational philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau is based upon the realism theory, in which cognitive bias is not an error at all. Realism is considered to be a method of practical reasoning that should deal with the real world.
The philosophy of Plato is presented in the very first part of the book. The first paragraph represents the background of Plato and his interest of being disciple of Socrates. The most interested subjects of Plato are Republic (theory of a new form of government), a new Social Order, and a well-articulated educational system. He believes Education to be most important subject among all of the three mentioned subjects. Therefore, he speaks out about the education, "As the first and fairest thing that the best of men can ever have" (p. 1). In the book, Plato is described as humanistically idealist since he has visualized the approach of Ideal State in his book named as Republic. Therefore, it would be accurate to state that the philosophy of Plato is based the idealism. Plato highly values the education and takes "idealistic and intellectual view of education" (p. 4). Plato wishes the binary system of education such as "Education for Practical Affairs and Education for Service to the State" (p. 6). Plato puts a special focus on the teaching method of correlated lectures, as well as dialogues. For women education, he says, "all pursuits of men are the pursuits of women also" (p. 8).
In the light of idealist perspective, the fundamental goal of education is to develop and explore the abilities, as well as moral excellence of each to serve the society in more appropriate way. From this perspective, a special emphasis on curricular is considered to be the subject matter of mind including history, literature, religion, and philosophy. Concentration on teaching methods is to handle various ideas in term of delivering lectures and letting the students be engaged in discussion and dialogs. Plato defines the dialog as a method of teaching in which the process of questioning is used to help students clarify knowledge and discover a new idea. Insight, intuition, introspection, and whole-part logic are supposed to bring the awareness of concepts and forms that are hidden in the human mind. Finally, character of human is developed through replicating heroes and other examples.
In the second part, Jean-Jacques Rousseau is represented as a writer, who is a realistic philosopher and gives insight into social, political, and educational philosophy. His first dissertation "Project for the Education of M. de Sainte Marie" is based on the objectives of education for children. In other words, he is a great advocator of primary education, as he tends to lay down the fundamental aim of children education in the words "to form his heart, his judgment and his mind" (p. 10). He does not see the society as natural thing, rather than he considers the society artificial and states that a successful society is based on the knowledge of true nature, not on social aspects or meaningless traditional schools. Rousseau sees the nature as the chief teacher and says, "man is educated by three things: Nature, Men, and Things" (p. 14). The authors give special emphasis on the teaching methods of Rousseau, which let the students learn from nature, rather than from the traditional way of thinking.
In the next part of the book, the educational philosophy of Friedrich August Froebel is presented, whose philosophy is based upon absolute idealism. His concepts concerning to education reveal that schools are not supposed to "communicate a variety and multiplicity of facts, but should teach that there is an everlasting unity in all things" (p. 37). His theory and practice of kindergarten reveals that the pre-school education should never be neglected. His work "The Education of the Man" sheds light on the children education. The Philosophy of Dr. Maria Montessori is presented in the subsequent part of the book, which sheds light on the principles of education related to early childhood. Montessori considers the children as "forgotten citizens," and states, "They deserved much more careful consideration than was or is being gen...