This article attempts to examine, from a systems-anthropological perspective, the fundamental concepts of developmental education, which have defined three main directions in the development of both Russian and global education: natural, free, and rational child development through learning. The direction of natural development is represented by the concepts of I.G. Pestalozzi and I.N. Ostretsov; free development – by John Dewey and O.S. Gazman – A.V. Khutorskoy; the theory and methodology of rational development is examined based on the works of V.V. Davydov, V.V. Repkin and D.B. Elkonin. Based on a deep historical and theoretical analysis, it was concluded that, ultimately, domestic approaches to developmental education for the general school system proved unsuitable and, in their substantive development, a dead end, precisely because they contradicted the basic anthropological principles of child development.
This article attempts to examine, from a systems-anthropological perspective, the fundamental concepts of developmental education, which have defined three main directions in the development of both Russian and global education: natural, free, and rational child development through learning. The direction of natural development is represented by the concepts of I.G. Pestalozzi and I.N. Ostretsov; free development – by John Dewey and O.S. Gazman – A.V. Khutorskoy; the theory and methodology of rational development is examined based on the works of V.V. Davydov, V.V. Repkin and D.B. Elkonin. Based on a deep historical and theoretical analysis, it was concluded that, ultimately, domestic approaches to developmental education for the general school system proved unsuitable and, in their substantive development, a dead end, precisely because they contradicted the basic anthropological principles of child development.