Famous & important figures in early child development studies

Assalamualaikum,

I was reading a book written by Asc Prof Dr Rohani Abdullah and her colleagues from UPM. There is one chapter in the book (actually the first chapter) that touch on some of the important personel or researchers or we also call them as "golongan pemikir" in early childhood development. It does give some ideas on what kindergarten and early childhood development is all about.

Let's see, we have John Comenius (1592 - 1670), who believed that children must attend school. They must learn on how to communicate verbally, learn to write and read through activities that will allow them to think and learn actively.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 1778) says that a child development must be natural process, without having them being force and controlled by the adults.

A guy name Friedrich Froebel (1782 - 1852) is the responsible person who starts the first ever kindergarten in Germany (in 1837). He called it as "Taman Kanak-kanak", where the children are having their fun time there as well as learning and preparing themself for their first year in real school.

Maria Montessori (1870 - 1952) is probably the most wellknown person in childhood development. She starts her own school in 1906, specialize in helping and guiding special children and she named it as Montessori School. She believed that children will only show their interest in certain things only when they are mature or ready enough to learn it. To achieve and facilitate that, we need to provide them with a condusive environment and supporting teachers to guide the students.

Okay, what do Muslim expert says about childhood development?

Imam Al-Ghazali says that children must be educate by the adults since the first day they were born. The education given must not be limited to formal education, i.e. reading and writing, but also on their akhlaq or manners and must be base on what is written in the Quran and hadith.

Ibnu Khaldun also shares his opinion on this topic where children must be taught in a gentle manner. Not to force them on learning something. Children are easy to get confuse when being taught on two different things at the same time. In order to prevent confusion, they must be guide and taught in one thing by another. He also emphasize on teaching the children on how to read Quran before having them to recite them.

Well, I think that's all on early childhood development. Hope it give use some idea on how to educate our children. Will update soon on other interesting topics...