Historical Foundations of Education
...erations of Greeks and Romans have immensely enjoyed the suspense of Homer’s epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey. These poems helped the Greeks describe dramatic portrayals of the Greek warriors in the battle against the Trojans. This helped the children preserve the culture by transmitting it from adults to the young. The poems cultivated Greek culture identity based on mythic and historical origins, and shaped the character of many children. In Greece, many children receive a formal education. The formal education provides the knowledge to the children how they can meet society’s expectations of a good life. However, during the fifth century B.C., the economy changed along with new social and educational patterns. The socioeconomic change created new conditions for the Sophists. The Sophists are group of traveling educators who developed new teaching methods with public speaking. They developed their communications skills so they can become successful advocates and legislators. The Sophists believed that the most important subjects were logic, grammar, and rhetoric. Protagoras, a very prominent Sophist, developed an effective teaching strategy. His first step was to deliver an outstanding speech. He did so to demonstrate to his students that he could do what he was attempting to teach them. He had the students examine the great speeches of famous orators to amplify the available models. Protagoras also had his students study logic, grammar, and rhetoric. Lastly, he made his students deliver public speeches and he would provide feedback. Socrates is very important in the educational history because he defended the academic freedom to think, question, and teach. Be believed the ethical principle to be that a person should strive for moral excellence, live wisely, and act rationally. Socrates’ teaching style differed greatly from any other person. He wanted to help individuals define themselves through self-examination. He would ask leading questions that would stimulate students to investigate concerns about life, truth and justice. Plato, Socrates pupil had a theory of knowledge that was based on reminiscence. It was a process in which individuals recall the ideas present in latent from in their minds. He had a curriculum that corresponded of hierarchical society. Plato had children live in state nurseries and he prepared environments that would develop good habits. He had students from the ages six to eighteen study reading writing, literature, arithmetic, choral singing, dancing, and gymnastics. From ages eighteen to twenty, his students would pursue intensive physical and military training. Aristotle, one of Plato’s students, founded an Athenian philosophical school called Lyceum. Aristotle insisted that humans have intellect the power to think and reason. He believed that children from ages seven to fourteen should study liberal arts. From ages fifteen through twenty-one, they would study mathematics, geometry, astronomy, grammar, literature, poetry, rhetoric, ethics, and politics. Finally, at the age of twenty-one his students should study physics, cosmology, biology, psychology, logic, and metaphysics. Aristotle was only concerned with male education because he thought women were intellectually inferior to men. His school’s primary goal is to cultivate each student’s rationality. He believes schools should offer a prescribed subject matter curriculum based on scholarly and scientific disciplines. The Greek rhetorician Isocrates believes that education’s primary goal was to prepare clear-thinking, rational, and truthful statesmen. His students who stayed at his school for four years studied rhetoric, politics, history, and ethics. He thought that he was responsible for influencing students by his demonstration of knowledge, skill, and ethical conduct. Only a minority of Romans were formally educated. Schooling was reserved for those who had money to pay for the tuition and the time to attend school. Older females learned to read and write at home while the men attended a primary and secondary school. Marcus Quintilianus was a master of oratory who believed there were three stages in education. The first stage was from birth to the age of seven. He told parents to select trained and well-spoken nurses and companions for their children. His second stage was seven to fourteen. The students were to learn from sense experiences, form clear ideas, and train his memory. Lastly, during the third stage from fourteen to seventeen, his students will learn both Greek and Latin grammar, literature, history, mythology, music, geometry, astronomy, and gymnastics. Arab scholars often tried to incorporate elements from the Hindus, Egyptians, and Syrians into their own cultures and civilization. They refined elements in mathematics, medicine, astronomy, science, and architecture from the Indians, and Greeks. During the medieval period, the church in parish, chantry, and monastic schools conducted education. Men who planned to enter religious vocations as priests or monks were the only ones to attended school. Medieval educators developed scholasticism. This was a method of inquiry, scholarship and teaching. Scholastic teachers were clerics, and the church was governed by the church. Their curriculum consisted of logic, mathematics, natural and moral philosophy, metaphysics, and theology. The Renaissance time period rejected scholasticism and turned to Isocrates and Quintillion. Renaissance humanists emphasized the importance of Latin. For it was the hallmark of the educated person. To be educated in this time period meant to have learned classical languages and literature. Throughout the religious reformation Protestants established the vernacular school. This school was to instruct children in their own group’s language. The Protestant reformation saw a major change in education and literacy rates. Reformers wanted both boys and girls to attend the vernacular schools in effort to increase attendance. One effect of the Protestant Reformation was to fix the dual track system of schools. Primary schools were for the common people and classical humanist schools for upper class boys and men. Marin Luther was one of the most important religious reformers in shaping Western education. Luther relied on Phillip Melanchton to implement education reform. They both wanted the state to supervise schools and license teachers. The school code that Melanchton drafted specified that primary vernacular schools should be established in every village. There the children would learn religion, reading, writing, arithmetic, and music. The colonization of America in the seventeenth century resulted in many encounters and violent conflicts between the Americans and indigenous peoples. The colonists created the socioeconomic class based on the dual track system, which they used in Europe. For the lower class the educational curriculum consisted of reading, writing, arithmetic, and religious indoctrination. However, the upper class boys attended a Latin grammar school, or commonly called a preparatory school. In the New England colony Puritans began to establish a school in the first years of settlement. The town school was a place where both boys and girls, ranging from ages six to fourteen, would learn reading, writing, arithmetic, catechism, and religious hymns. The Latin grammar school taught boys to read and write English. The children would learn about Latin authors and the more advanced would study Greek authors. There was very little concern with teaching the boys mathematics, science, or modern language because the Latin masters enjoyed higher social status. After the boys would finish, they would apply for admission to Harvard College. The middle colonies had a common language and religion. In New York the Dutch parochial schools taught reading, writing, and religion. The Quakers in Pennsylvania allowed all children, including blacks and Native Americas. The children were taught reading, writing, arithmetic, and religion. In the southern colonies, private tutors taught some children, and others attended private schools sponsored by the Church of England. Throughout the early national period, several political and intellectual leaders made educational proposals. These plans argued that education should prepare people for republican citizenship, included utilitarian and scientific emphasis, and be divested of European culture residues and create a uniquely American culture. Benjamin Franklin founded an academy. This was a private secondary school that taught English grammar, composition, rhetoric, and public speaking. Mathematics was taught for bookkeeping. History and biology let students examine the ethical decisions made by historical people. Thomas Jefferson wanted to establish public schools to resolve conflicts between equity and excellence. He also wanted to pass a bill that allowed students to receive an academic merit scholarship. He wanted to help students that could not afford tuition. Lastly, Noah Webster created spelling and writing books to help students learn Americanized English. His greatest piece of work was the American Dictionary that took twenty-five years of research to complete. In the first half of the nineteenth century the movement toward public schooling began. The common school (open to all children of all social and economic classes) offered a curriculum that consisted of reading, writing, and arithmetic. The common school (called public school today) took off between 1820 and 1850, and were popping up everywhere. The common school laid the foundation of the American public school system. Horace Mann was appointed to the Massachusetts state board of education in 1837. He believed that the common school should be financed by the sate and local taxes. The public had pa...