Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Rousseau appears in The Science of Learning as the historical root of a strain of educational thinking the piece critiques. Quoting Kate Walsh of the National Council on Teacher Quality, the source traces teacher-educators’ reflexive rejection of proven methods to “a romanticism dating back to 18th century Swiss Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a distrust of formal education for threatening children’s true and good natural state.” The piece frames this as “a kind of anti-intellectualism that almost disdains Knowledge” — positioning Rousseau as the lineage behind the romantic-naturalist resistance to structured pedagogy that the rest of the article (favoring well-sequenced Curriculum and evidence-based teaching) pushes against.

Context: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) was a Geneva-born philosopher of the Enlightenment whose treatise Emile argued for education that follows a child’s natural development. His ideas profoundly shaped progressive and child-centered education.

Where this appears

• The Science of Learning — cited as the origin of the romantic, naturalist distrust of formal education the piece critiques as anti-intellectual.