HISTORICAL COMPARISON CHART OF FORMAL EDUCATION

	Person 1	Person 2	Person 3
Name	Plato	Aristotle	John Dewey
Time/Place	Greece	Greece	America, mid 1920’s through 1950’s
Characteristics of the time period	Free society	Free society	Cold war
Cultural beliefs about education	- capacity to feel pleasure and pain at the right moment - individual was best served by being subordinated to a just society - selective public education	- creation of sound mind in a sound body - considered human nature, habit and reason to be equally important forces to be cultivated in	- process of living through a continuous reconstructionof experiences - saw education primarily in sociological and psychological terms
Who received an education?	Boys and girls	Boys and girls	Boys and girls
What were the prevailing attitudes towards children?	act as guardians of the city and care for the less able	good and virtuous citizens	learn to be flexible problem solvers
What was the person’s contribution to the field of education?	Education would be holistic, including facts, skills, physical discipline, and music and art, which he considered the highest form of endeavor.	placed great emphasis on balancing the theoretical and practical aspects of subjects taught	produced major lasting innovations in American education
How was the person a reflection of his or her times?	believed that a realm of externally existing "ideas," or "forms," underlies the physical world	provided a synthesis of Plato's belief in the universal, spiritual forms and a scientist's belief in the physical world we observe through our senses	He hoped that his school reforms would alter the social fabric of America, making it a more democratic nation of free thinking, intelligent citizens.
How did the person change education for future generations?	insisted that those suitably gifted are to be trained by the state so that they may be qualified to assume the role of a ruling class	taught that the virtuous life consists of controlling desires by reason and by choosing the moderate path between extremes	educators attempt to fit the curriculum to the perceived needs of children as well as to their immediate interests