John Locke's Influence On Education

John Locke was a political figure and well known for his studies in medicine. Locke also was well educated in medicine. He was a key advocate of the observed approaches of the Scientific Revolution. During his final years John Locke wrote and published all of his most significant works. One of them was his “Essay Concerning Human Understanding” in which he advanced a theory of the self as a blank page, with knowledge and identity arising only from accumulated experiences. Locke made a perfect example: “Rejecting the divine right of kings, that societies form governments by mutual (and, in later generations, tacit) agreement. Thus, when a king loses the consent of the governed, a society may remove him—an approach quoted almost verbatim in Thomas Jefferson’s 1776 Declaration of Independence.” In the end Locke came up with a final answer from all of his studies that explained his work. Locke said “A child is a blank slate that is formed through experience.”2
This is true for everyone in this world. This fact cannot be changed no matter how hard we try. Our past determines our future outcome. In a NPR research program it was stated by Lee Raby, a psychologist and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Delaware who led the study, ”that about 10 percent of someone’s academic achievement was correlated with the quality of their home life at age three. Later experiences, genetic factors and even chance explain the other 90 percent.”5 A child goes to school and because of that he becomes intelligent. Also the article explains why children are impacted through childhood and that becomes their future. Another theory suggests that an individual’s behavior, incentive to do well in life, and mental status can be guided by the child’s social environment. This social environment needs to correspond to the child’s psychological needs in order for the child to be