Watson, dewey, bruce and isaacs
 

I've just had to research 21 theories but i'm stuck on Watson, Dewey, Bruce and Isaacs, their theories and how they relate to todays practice. any help would be greatly appreciated. just need a very short summary on each befor my head explodes!!! :dizzy:

Hi,

Watson was one for the behavioural/behaviourism approach, his work supports learning through conditioning. His, along with Ivan Pavlov's ideas impacted on that of b skinner's. Collectively this put strategies in place for what we may still see in today's positive reinforcement, consequences/punishments that highlight cause and effect, and the reward systems that control children's actions, focus, aspirations and resonses, modelling the type of behaviour that authoritative figures expect to see and wish to have uniformly adpopted.

John Dewey theory supports reflective practice for practioners, promoting teamwork and enabling the evaluation of learning. His philosophy saw children learning experientially - http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-dewey.htm - Dewey is an interesting read

Tina Bruce is the honorary visiting proffessor at Roehampton university. Her works explores schema, holism/holsitic play and free-flow play. her theory developed twelve features of play, points that she presents as enabling play to take place - Time to play in early childhood education. 'children need first hand experiences' is a philosophical statement that connects Tina Bruce's work with that of John Dewey - 'children learn by doing' underpinned by the sentiment of F. Froebel's pioneering work.

Susan Isaacs theory was originally concerned with psychoanalysis, and children's developing emotions & identity. In an evolution away from this she held great belief in symbolic and fantasy/phantasy play as a release mechanism for children's feelings - page 20 & 21 of understanding child development by Jennie Lindon - amazon affiliate link. The Malting House Using observations as the cornerstone of her work with children, she supported a 'free and child centered environment, children's natural curiosity, their own interest based and lead learning.

I hope this helps a little, depending on your perspective the summaries you write may focus on completely different aspects :proposetoast: xx

Susan Isaacs

Children should be free to express their emotions hiding emotions is damaging to the child .She believed that the importance of play especially with others .Play gives confidence in themselves no less than friends and not only helps the child to feel less suspicious and aggressive to others .But by giving delight of action and sharing helping them discover the way in which they can carry out their own practical and imaginative pursuits .Which will lay down the foundations for a co operative and social life in later years .Make believe play helps intellectual problem solving .Children can use play to escape into real experiences or out of it. In doing so they learn about reflecting on life getting a sense of control over their lives and developing self esteem and freedom of expression in actions and development . This is done in own setting with role play , home corner and asking the children to express their feelings and how to rectify what they are feeling .That aggressions can be changed to asking politely and seeing how much faster this gets a reactions from other children .Teaching children to respect themselves and others.
this was off my level 2 work just a short sum up hope it helps

thank you very very much you two! thats a great help. hopefully i'll get this one finished this weekend now. thank you :cheerful: