This article was downloaded by: [Staffordshire University]On: 06 October 2014, At: 06:36Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK

Educational Studies: A Journalof the American EducationalStudies AssociationPublication details, including instructions forauthors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/heds20

The History and Philosophyof Education: Voices ofEducational Pioneers. MadonnaM. Murphy. Upper Saddle River,NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall,2006. pp. 402. $49.35 (paper).KELLY ANN KOLODNY aa Framingham State CollegePublished online: 05 Dec 2007.

To cite this article: KELLY ANN KOLODNY (2007) The History and Philosophy ofEducation: Voices of Educational Pioneers. Madonna M. Murphy. Upper Saddle River,NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006. pp. 402. $49.35 (paper)., Educational Studies:A Journal of the American Educational Studies Association, 41:2, 165-169, DOI:10.1080/00131940701312504

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BOOK REVIEWS

Perspectives on Philosophy of Education

The History and Philosophy of Education: Voices ofEducational Pioneers. Madonna M. Murphy. Upper Saddle River, NJ:

Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006. pp. 402. $49.35 (paper).

KELLY ANN KOLODNYFramingham State College

The History and Philosophy of Education: Voices of Educational Pioneers byMadonna M. Murphy traces the educational innovations of prominent figures fromthe time of ancient civilizations to the 21st Century. The readings are presented inchronological order. Each chapter of Murphy’s book focuses on a major historicalperiod, includes brief information about the time, as well as biographies of educa-tors from the period and a sample of their original writings. The term educators isbroadly defined by Murphy to include professional educators, politicians, publicspeakers, religious leaders, and sociologists who have in some sense contributed toeducational understanding and practice. Included in each chapter of Murphy’sbook also are questions that are developed to assist readers when examining origi-nal writings of selected educators, discussion questions about such writings, listsof references, Internet resources, and concluding chapter activities. The researchundertaken by Murphy is extensive. Forty-one educators and their contributions toeducation are examined during 12 major time periods.

Murphy begins the book with a brief review of education during the time ofearly cultures, particularly in China, and explores the life of Confucius, a moralteacher who taught using maxims. In her biography of Confucius, Murphy dis-cusses his early educational experiences, as well interesting pieces of informationabout him, such as the idea that he once met with Lao Zi, the founder of Taoism.Murphy also describes how Confucius became a well regarded teacher so that bythe time he passed on he had mentored more than 3,000 male students in an educa-tion that was both practical and moral. Primary writings that are explored by Con-

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fucius in this chapter include The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean.The chapters that follow in Murphy’s book, which focus on different time periodsand different educational thinkers, are written in a similar style.

After a brief exploration of education during early cultures, Murphy examineseducation during ancient Greece and the contributions of Sappho, Socrates, Plato,and Aristotle. When exploring figures such as Plato and Aristotle, Murphy doesnot specifically discuss the metaphysical, epistemological and axiological beliefsof these educators. She does not watchfully connect them with the philosophies ofIdealism and Realism. Rather, she offers a general discussion of the educator’scontributions to the field and explores examples of their primary writings, such as areading from Plato’s The Republic and Aristotle’s The Politics, which also are ac-companied by discussion questions. For example, Murphy asks the reader to thinkabout the type of education that Aristotle would have recommended for women, aswell as his views on liberal and vocational education, prior to reading a selection ofThe Politics. These are thoughtful questions that foster reflection and criticalthinking of the reader.

Following a review of notable educators of ancient Greece, Murphy examinesRoman educational contributions. An examination of the lives and contributions ofMarcus Tullius Cicero and Marcus Fabius Quintilian is undertaken. Thereafter, anexamination of notable educational thinkers during the rise of Christianity is as-sumed. Murphy, for example, examines the life of Jesus Christ, his teachings, and areading from Matthew of the Bible. When reading this section of her book, thisreader reflected on how the life experiences of Jesus Christ were presented in a bal-anced manner by Murphy, noting that he was an inspired teacher as well as consid-ered divine by some. Murphy, as well, undoubtedly contemplated this descriptionand representation. In her discussion of Jesus Christ, she writes, “The historicalfact of Jesus’existence is not subject to doubt. There are four accounts of Jesus’ lifefound in the New Testament and, in addition, explicit reference is made to him inthe Annals of the Roman historian Tacitus and in the Jewish Antiquities of FlaviusJosephus” (p. 73). Murphy lists important informational sources in this biography,as she has done in others as well.

A chapter on Medieval educational contributions includes an examination of thelife experiences of Charlemagne, Alcuin, Saint Thomas Aquinas, and Hildegard ofBingen. When one reads of the background of Hildegard of Bingen, one learns thatshe, like Thomas Aquinas, was promised to the church at birth, which shaped her ex-periences. When Hildegard was 8 years old, she was sent to live with Jutta ofSponheiminacottagenear theabbeyof theDisibodenberg.Shewas taughtLatin, re-ligion and moral life, and how to sew and embroider. Hildegard eventually becameabbess of the convent. Murphy noted that Hildegard, inspired with visions, wrotethem down. She wrote about a diversity of subjects that focused on religion, medi-cine, and music. She transformed many traditions of her time, as she was allowed bythe pope to write theological books, as well as to preach to clergy and laity. She madethe convent a place of learning. Some consider Hildegard of Bingen to be one of the

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first feminists, which prompted Murphy to ask the reader to compare and contrastHildegard to some contemporary feminists. This is an interesting and challengingtask, as the term feminist may generate many diverse conceptions.

Following a review of educators from the Medieval time period, Murphy sharesbiographies of educators from the Renaissance and the Reformation, a period ofgreat social change in Europe. Information is provided about this time period, in-cluding a review of the conditions that led to the rise of capitalism, commerce, andcities. It was during this time period that Murphy noted that Christine de Pizan be-came educated, started a family, suffered the loss of her father and husband, andeventually started her work as a writer of poetry, biography, morality, history, andeducation, and became an advocate for women. She is noted to have encouragedwomen to develop themselves and their talents, and to make a contribution to soci-ety. Indeed, Christine de Pizan is said to have been ahead of her time and subse-quently shaped the thought and work of other educators that followed, such asMary Wollstonecraft. The educational contributions of Erasmus—scholar, priest,and humanist—also are explored in this section of Murphy’s book. Murphy sug-gests that one important contribution of Erasmus was his emphasis on learning inthe early childhood years. Included with the biography of Erasmus was the selec-tion The Treatise of Erasmus, De Ratione Studii, That is Upon The Right Method ofInstruction. Biographies and selected writings from Martin Luther and JohannAmos Comenius are likewise woven into this chapter.

Additional themes and time periods that are explored in Murphy’s book includeeducational ideas in the Enlightment, education in the new world, developing anAmerican educational system, education for democracy, education for all, and ed-ucation for a global world. Biographies of educators such as John Locke,Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Bejamin Franklin, Noah Webster, Horace Mann, EmmaWillard, Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Dubois, John Dewey, Paulo Freire, andothers are included in these sections of Murphy’s book.

A strength of Murphy’s book is the in-depth research that was required and un-dertaken to produce a work about many diverse educational figures. The book pro-vides a succinct and broad introduction to 41 notable individuals. Standard bio-graphical information, such as date of birth, country(ies) of residence, childhoodexperiences and developments, and educational contributions are included. Alsoincluded are interesting facts about the life experiences of these individuals. Whilereading about these notable educators, I often experienced a yearning to learn moreinformation about these individuals, which might have been a purpose of the bookin itself, as valuable Internet resources and references were included.

Another strength of Murphy’s book rests with the educators that she selected towrite about and research. She included a diversity of educators (some women, Af-rican American, Native American, Hispanic) from different time periods. Many ofthese educators that Murphy wrote about represented a Western and American per-spective, although some represented the Eastern perspective. I would be interested,for reasons of curiosity, to learn more about how Murphy narrowed her list to these

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41 particular educators. In review of other texts that focus on the philosophic andhistorical contributions of educators, it is noticed that specific reasons guided theselection process. For example, in Titone and Maloney’s edited book Women’sPhilosophies of Education: Thinking Through Our Mothers (1999), the editorsnoted that they wrote about women who contemplated the education of girls andwomen and whose ideas had a significant impact on U.S. thought. In Sadovnik andSemel’s book Founding Mothers and Others: Women Educational Leaders Duringthe Progressive Era (2002), it was noted that the editors were interested in explor-ing women educational leaders of the progressive era. Reagan’s book, Non West-ern Educational Traditions: Indigenous Approaches to Educational Thought andPractice (2004), provides an overview of a number of non-Western approaches toeducational thought and practice. Murphy’s book spans the time of the 17th Cen-tury B.C. to the 21 Century, a tremendous compilation. I am interested to knowmore about the factors that helped her select the notable educators in her book. Ona similar note, how did Murphy select the particular primary readings that werewritten by these educators and utilized in her book?

An additional strength of Murphy’s book is the incorporation of definitions, ex-planations, and descriptions of key terms into the writing. For example, whenMurphy writes about the life experiences of Thomas Aquinas, she discussesThomism and the philosophical ideas that surround this thought. Murphy also in-cludes in her book timelines to depict key events, pictures of notable educators,and tables that visually depict their philosophic contributions to education. Thesevisuals further assist the reader in understanding key concepts.

Throughout Murphy’s book, she encourages the reader to reflect on particulareducational thinkers and connect these reflections with the development of a per-sonal philosophy of education. This is a valuable task, which leads me to offer asuggestion to Murphy for future consideration and perhaps future editions of thebook. Developing a personal philosophy of education is a nebulous and, at times,difficult task. One thought is that it may be helpful to the readers to have incorpo-rated into this book some brief introductory information about what a philosophyof education statement is and how it might be developed. Although brief informa-tion about the development of a philosophy of education is included at the end ofthe book, I feel that this information might be overlooked or missed.

The History and Philosophy of Education: Voices of Educational Pioneers byMadonna M. Murphy is a significant book that examines the educational work andtheories of prominent figures. A unique contribution of this book is the inclusion ofbiographies of these figures, as well as examples of their primary writings. Indeed,in Murphy’s discussion of Erasmus, she writes, “Read the original source, not asecondary source, and analyze the work yourself. You have heard this said beforein most of your college classes. This is actually the premise of this book that pro-vides you with the actual writings of famous educators” (p. 137). Murphy offersthis reflection in her discussion of the life of Erasmus because he, too, encouraged

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students to read original sources in their search for understanding, as Murphy as-tutely does as well.

This book would be a welcomed reading for history and philosophy of educa-tion classes. This book would complement nicely a variety of other philosophy andhistory of education books that take a different focus, including some of those writ-ten by Murphy’s graduate studies mentor, Gerald Gutek. Nonetheless, due to thelarge amount of material covered in the book, and because Murphy has identifiedso many on-line resources, this book could serve as the primary reading for acourse. Indeed, Murphy has noted that because a large number of educators are ex-plored in the book, instructors could select a specific and limited number to discussin class. In summation, Murphy’s book is a welcomed contribution for faculty andstudents interested in exploring the history and philosophy of education.

ReferencesReagan, Timothy, 2004. Non Western Educational Traditions: Indigenous Approaches to

Educational Thought and Practice, 3rd ed. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Sadovnik, Alan R., and Susan F. Semel, eds. 2002. Founding Mothers and Others: Women

During the Progressive Era. New York: Palgrave.Titone, Connie and Karen E. Maloney, eds, 1999. Women’s Philosophies of Education. Up-

per Saddle River, NJ: Merrill

Leaving Safe Harbors: Toward a New Progressivismin American Education and Public Life. Dennis Carlson. New York

and London: RoutledgeFalmer, 2002. Pp. x, 200. $ 125.00 (hardcover).

BARBARA J. THAYER-BACONUniversity of Tennessee

I have had the great pleasure of reading a wonderful book that was brought tomy attention by the editors of Educational Studies, not a book I found on my own. Iam troubled by my lack of awareness of this fine work, as it was published in 2002by someone whose papers I enjoy hearing at AESA conferences. I am referring tonone other than AESA’s president, Dennis Carlson and his outstanding book,Leaving Safe Harbors. It is my sincere hope that this review will help draw others’attentions to Leaving Safe Harbors, as well.

Dennis tells us his academic training was in sociology of education at the Uni-versity of Wisconsin-Madison in the 1970’s (along with curriculum and teachereducation with Michael Apple). In the early 1980’s, he was inspired by thereconceptualists in curriculum theory (e.g., William Pinar and Madeline Grumet),

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