PEOPLE KNOWN FOR: education
Chinese philosopher
Confucius was China’s most famous teacher, philosopher, and political theorist, whose ideas have profoundly influenced the civilizations of China and other East Asian countries. Confucius was born near...
associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
Clarence Thomas is an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1991, the second African American to serve on the Court. Appointed to replace Thurgood Marshall (1908–93), the Court’s...
German-American architect
Walter Gropius was a German American architect and educator who, particularly as director of the Bauhaus (1919–28), exerted a major influence on the development of modern architecture. His works, many...
pope
Sylvester II was the French head of the Roman Catholic church (999–1003), renowned for his scholarly achievements, his advances in education, and his shrewd political judgment. He was the first Frenchman...
Czech educator
John Amos Comenius was a Czech educational reformer and religious leader, remembered mainly for his innovations in methods of teaching, especially languages. He favoured the learning of Latin to facilitate...
Greek orator and rhetorician
Isocrates was an ancient Athenian orator, rhetorician, and teacher whose writings are an important historical source on the intellectual and political life of the Athens of his day. The school he founded...
English philosopher and scientist
Roger Bacon was an English Franciscan philosopher and educational reformer who was a major medieval proponent of experimental science. Bacon studied mathematics, astronomy, optics, alchemy, and languages....
Roman Catholic nun and teacher
In 1989 Thea Bowman was a keynote speaker at a semiannual conference of U.S. Roman Catholic bishops. The topic of her address, on what it means to be Black and Catholic, drew upon her experience as a convert...
French philosopher and humanist
Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de Condorcet was a French philosopher of the Enlightenment and advocate of educational reform and women’s rights. He was one of the major Revolutionary formulators...
Russian author and scientist
Mikhail Lomonosov was a Russian poet, scientist, and grammarian who is often considered the first great Russian linguistics reformer. He also made substantial contributions to the natural sciences, reorganized...
American evangelist
Bob Jones, Sr. was a prominent American evangelist and the founder of Bob Jones University (BJU), a conservative Christian liberal arts university in South Carolina. Jones was known for his unwavering...
Australian author
Catherine Helen Spence, was a writer and activist who sought to improve educational and welfare programs in Australia and to reform the country’s voting system. An immigrant from Scotland, she was a major...
American educator and activist
Mamie Till-Mobley was an American educator and activist who helped galvanize the emerging civil rights movement after her son, Emmett Till, was murdered in 1955 for allegedly flirting with a white grocery...
Swiss educator
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi was a Swiss educational reformer, who advocated education of the poor and emphasized teaching methods designed to strengthen the student’s own abilities. Pestalozzi’s method...
American first lady
Jill Biden is an American first lady (2021–25), wife of Joe Biden, the 46th president of the United States. She previously served as second lady (2009–17) when her husband was vice president under President...
American activist and scholar
Maulana Karenga is an American activist, scholar, and author. He is best known as the creator of Kwanzaa, the seven-day African American and Pan-African holiday. Ronald McKinley Everett was born to Levi...
French mathematician and public official
Gaspard Monge, count de Péluse was a French mathematician who invented descriptive geometry, the study of the mathematical principles of representing three-dimensional objects in a two-dimensional plane;...
Mexican American journalist, teacher, and activist
Jovita Idár was a Mexican American journalist, teacher, and activist who devoted her life to fighting the racism and discrimination that she witnessed during her life in Texas. She was also a staunch advocate...
American actor and acting teacher
Sanford Meisner was an actor and one of the most influential teachers of acting in the United States after World War II (1939–45). His students acted on the screen and the stage across the United States...
Native Hawaiian teacher, dancer, chanter, and composer
Edith Kanaka‘ole dedicated her life to the preservation of Hawaiian language and culture. A Native Hawaiian herself, Aunty Edith (as she was often called) ensured the continuation of Hawaiian traditions...
Muslim scholar
Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan was a Muslim educator, jurist, and author, founder of the Anglo-Mohammedan Oriental College at Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India, and the principal motivating force behind the revival...
Indian religious leader
Ram Mohan Roy was an Indian religious, social, and educational reformer who challenged traditional Hindu culture and indicated lines of progress for Indian society under British rule. He is sometimes called...
Russian statesman
Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev was a Russian civil servant and conservative political philosopher, who served as tutor and adviser to the emperors Alexander III and Nicholas II. Nicknamed the “Grand...
American educator
Horace Mann was an American educator, the first great American advocate of public education who believed that, in a democratic society, education should be free and universal, nonsectarian, democratic...
Indian social reformer and educator
Savitribai Phule was social reformer and pioneer of education for women in India. She was one of the first female teachers in India and opened several schools for girls with her husband, Jyotirao Phule....
American educator
Frances Willard was an American educator, reformer, and founder of the World Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (1883). An excellent speaker, a successful lobbyist, and an expert in pressure politics,...
Turkish American surgeon, educator, and author
Mehmet Oz is a Turkish American surgeon, educator, author, and television personality who cowrote the popular YOU series of health books and hosted The Dr. Oz Show (2009–22). In 2022 Oz ran as a Republican...
American business executive and politician
Linda McMahon is an American business executive and politician who serves as secretary of the U.S. Department of Education in the Republican administration of U.S. Pres. Donald Trump. During Trump’s first...
American political scientist and educator
Robert A. Dahl American political scientist and educator. A leading theorist of political pluralism, Dahl stressed the role in politics played by associations, groups, and organizations. (Read Dahl’s contribution...
American civil rights activist and educator
Nina Otero-Warren was an American public official and activist who was a leader in the fight for women’s suffrage in New Mexico. She was also the first Hispanic woman to run (1922) for a seat in the U.S....
political scientist and educator
Carole Pateman is a British political scientist and educator known for her contribution to democratic theory and feminist political theory. After leaving school at 16 years of age and working in lesser...
American author and educator
Margaret Fuller was an American critic, teacher, and woman of letters whose efforts to civilize the taste and enrich the lives of her contemporaries make her significant in the history of American culture....
American educator, media theorist, and social critic
Neil Postman was an American educator, media theorist, and social critic who made contributions to the discipline of media studies, the critical analysis of technology, and the philosophy of education....
American composer and music educator
Louis Ballard was an American composer and music educator best known for compositions that synthesize elements of Native American and Western classical music. Ballard experienced—and indeed oscillated...
American education scholar
Deborah Meier is an American education scholar, a leading practitioner of progressive reform within the U.S. public school system, and founder of the “small-schools movement,” a vision of education as...
American sculptor and educator
Augusta Savage was an American sculptor and educator who battled racism to secure a place for African American women in the art world. Augusta Fells began modeling figures from the red-clay soil of her...
American teacher and writer
John Holt was an American critic of public education who became one of the most-prominent advocates for homeschooling in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Raised in New England, Holt graduated from Yale...
South African activist, educator, and author
Fatima Meer was a South African antiapartheid and human rights activist, educator, and author. From the mid-20th century, she was one of the most prominent women political leaders in South Africa. Meer...
American author
Paula Fox was an American author who wrote books for children and adults using a straightforward writing style that belied the turmoil below the surface. Her keen insight into the way people relate to...
German educator
Johann Friedrich Herbart was a German philosopher and educator, who led the renewed 19th-century interest in Realism and is considered among the founders of modern scientific pedagogy. After studying under...
American priest, sociologist, educator, commentator, and author
Andrew Greeley was an American Roman Catholic priest, sociologist, educator, commentator, and author who devoted more than 50 years to addressing the teachings of the Catholic faith through nonfiction...
Russian ballerina
Agrippina Vaganova was a Russian ballerina and teacher who developed a technique and system of instruction based on the classical style of the Imperial Russian Ballet but which also incorporated aspects...
American educator and student free-speech activist
Mario Savio was a U.S. educator and student free-speech activist who reached prominence as spokesman for the 1960s Free Speech Movement (FSM) at the University of California, Berkeley. At the time dismissed...
Italian educator
Maria Montessori was an Italian educator and originator of the educational system that bears her name. The Montessori system is based on belief in the creative potential of children, their drive to learn,...
American stateswoman
Betsy DeVos is an American philanthropist and Republican political activist who served as the secretary of the U.S. Department of Education (2017–21) in the administration of Pres. Donald Trump. Her father,...
American anthropologist
Marshall Sahlins was an American anthropologist, educator, activist, and author who through his study of the people and culture of the South Pacific—primarily Hawaii and Fiji—made monumental contributions...
Native American educator, author and lecturer
Sarah Winnemucca was a Native American educator, lecturer, tribal leader, and writer best known for her book Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims (1883). Her writings, valuable for their description...
American educator
Booker T. Washington was an educator and reformer, the first president and principal developer of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now Tuskegee University), and the most influential spokesman...
American minister
Jerry Falwell was an American religious leader, televangelist, and founder of the Moral Majority, a political organization for the promotion of conservative social values. Although his grandfather and...
British educator
Joseph Lancaster was a British-born educator who developed the system of mass education known as the Lancasterian method, a monitorial, or “mutual,” approach in which brighter or more proficient children...