Leo Tolstoy
Dan Moulin (Author)
How do we know what we should teach? And how should we go about teaching it? These deceptively simple questions about education perplexed Tolstoy. Before writing his famous novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Tolstoy opened an experimental school on his estate to try and answer them. His experiences there incited his life-long inquiry into the meaning and purpose of religion, literature, art and life itself. In this text, Daniel Moulin tells the story of the course of Tolstoy's educational thought, and how it relates to Tolstoy's fiction and other writings. It begins with his experience of being a child and adolescent, incorporates his travels in Europe, the experimental school, his literature, and his views on art, philosophy, and spirituality. Throughout, the relevance and impact of Tolstoy's thinking on education are translated into applicable theory for today's education students
eBook, English, 2014
Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2014
History
1 online resource (224 pages)
9781472504845, 1472504844
1064296064
Intro
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Series Editor's Preface
Foreword
Author's Preface
Introduction
Part 1 An Intellectual Biography of Leo Tolstoy
Chapter 1 Early Experiences and Influences
Education in Tolstoy's early literature
Tolstoy's early adulthood
Early influences on Tolstoy's educational thought
The tour of Europe
Chapter 2 Tolstoy the Educator
The Yasnaya Polyana school and the origins of Tolstoy's literature
Pupils as coauthors
The end of the experiment
The reopening of the school
The 'great battle' with the pedagogues
The education of Tolstoy's own children
Chapter 3 The Prophet of Yasnaya Polyana
Religious conversion in Tolstoy's literature
Tolstoy's definition of religion
The Scribes and the Pharisees
Tolstoyanism
Excommunication and death
Part 2 A Critical Exposition of Tolstoy's Educational Thought
Chapter 4 The Pedagogical Laboratory
The problem
The solution
Some characteristics of the experimental school
Chapter 5 The Results of the Yasnaya Polyana Experiment
The importance of children's freedom to form their own concepts
History, geography and sacred history
The arts
Literacy
The Azbuka, New Azbuka and Russian Books for Reading
Tolstoy's restatement on popular education
Chapter 6 The Devil of False Education
Education and progress
The problem of a national education system
The problem with universities
Criticism of formal education in Tolstoy's novels
False education as the work of the devil
Chapter 7 The Spiritual Nature of a Genuine Education
Later writings on education
Tolstoy's last essay on education
The educational vision of Tolstoy's last major works
The wisdom of children
Part 3 The Legacy of an Overlooked Educator. Chapter 8 The Reception and Influence of Tolstoy's Educational Thought
The reception of Tolstoy's educational thought in the twentieth century
Tolstoy's ideas and Anglophone educationists
Tolstoy and the progressives
Tolstoy and John Dewey
Tolstoy's influence
Chapter 9 Tolstoy's Relevance for Today's Educators
Knowledge, curriculum and indoctrination
Tolstoy and religious education
Tolstoy's view of the relationship between theory and practice
The autonomy of the teacher and Tolstoy's view of educational research
The relevance of a literary genius
Chapter 10 Conclusion
Epilogue
Bibliography
Tolstoy's writings
Biographical sources
General references
Index