Pioneers in Early Childhood Education: Charlotte Mason, Rachel and Margaret McMillan, Maria Montessori, and Susan Isaacs

This annotated bibliography raises the importance of early childhood education through revisiting the revolutionary and influential work of early philosophers, and five key early years pioneers: Charlotte Mason (b. 1842–d. 1923), an innovative British educator who saw learning as a lifestyle rather than as a means for passing tests and carrying out set tasks; Rachel McMillan (b. 1859–d. 1917) and Margaret McMillan(b. 1860–d. 1931), British social activists and educational reformers who established the idea of early childhood education and care as an interventionist approach; Maria Montessori (b. 1870–d. 1952), an Italian physician and teacher renowned as the founder of the Montessori method, a pedagogic reconstruction of early childhood education; and Susan Isaacs (b. 1885–d. 1948), a British psychoanalyst and educator who became Head of the Malting House School in Cambridge, England, where the provision was specifically designed for play and active inquiry providing an ideal environment in which to observe the natural development of children’s imagination and cognition. Contemporary early years curriculum theory and practice owes much to these five women who through their deeply held convictions, influenced by the ideas, values, and beliefs of early philosophers demonstrated the transforming potential of early childhood education in relation to sociocultural reforms and the educational rights and well-being of children. Philosophical, theoretical, and scientific interest in early childhood has a very long history dating as far back as Confucius (c. 551–479 bce) and Plato (c. 428–347 bce), but possibly more than anyone it was Plato’s student Aristotle (384–322 bce) who influenced ideas around education and recognized the importance of early experiences in identifying children’s talents and abilities. These ideas led to the progressive movement and although the emergence of progressiveness in education could be written as a man’s story given the dominance of Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and Froebel in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the Froebelian kindergarten movement fostered the creation of organizational infrastructures to promote both pedagogical practice and ideological constructs of the women’s role in the reconstruction of society. This eventually opened the route to women’s ultimate acceptance as paid professional educators in a new field of education. Consequently, educated women such as Charlotte Mason, Rachel and Margaret McMillan, Maria Montessori, and Susan Isaacs, who were part of the first wave of the European women’s movement, a period in which women not only campaigned for equality in voting right but organized themselves into high profile advocacy groups, were given the opportunity to make their mark on young children’s learning and development. Exploring the contribution that many leading pioneers made at the turn of the twentieth century to early childhood education is imperative to the complete understanding of the practice of the past, in the context of time and place, to provide a fuller comprehension of the present. The intention is that by reflecting on these pioneers’ enduring common principles, formulated in times of great difficulties, we move forward with greater understanding of the enduring values and principles of effective early years education and the significant role it plays in supporting the youngest learners and their families.