Educational Thoughts

This book is designed for general readers or professionals seeking to understand the origins of many current educational theories and practices. It tries to insert thinking into all levels of education by infusing critical thinking into existing disciplines. It provides procedures to enable students at all levels of education to become more thoughtful, more reasonable, and more judicious. While critical thinking is important and highly valuable, it is not sufficient; students must develop creative and caring thinking as well. The book also provides methods for integrating emotive experience, mental acts, thinking skills and informal fallacies into a concerted approach to the improvement of reasoning and judgment. This book will serve as a useful primary or supplementary text for any undergraduate or graduate course in the history of education, educational thought, social foundations of education, philosophy of education, or curriculum theory. Readers learn first-hand from the leaders of various movements and intellectual traditions within Indian education. The readings cover a time frame that begins in the late 17th century and ends in the early 20th century. Readers will be able to compare and contrast the thought of nationalist leaders such as Tilak and Gandhi with that spiritual leaders like Vivekananda and Aurobindo. The echoes of voices from all of the thinkers can be found in virtually all discussions of Indian education today.