In most cases, history of education either begins with or at least includes the Greek. This is not a mere convention. It is because the Greeks set forth many ideas and ideals basic to the principles and the practice of education. Is this basic factors which have formed the practice of the current western educational traditions.
Greeks explored problems of human nature. of the human mind, the learning process e,t,c. They also asked searching questions about the individual and the state. They also provided significant answers. Greeks were skilled as artisans, artists, and political theorists and scientists.
For example, Greeks asked questions about what education is and what purpose it serves in human lives. They devised schools and the methods of fulfillments of their ideals.
Greek education was guided by nationalistic emphasis this was possible because in the Greek social system, there was no infallible authority and there was no organized priesthood. This allowed free inquiries to flourish. This freedom developed a spirit of tolerance unequalled by civilizations in other parts of the world.
Even in Greece of the time, there were limitations to that freedom. We find for example that Anaxagoras, who was a pre- Socratic thinker, was persecuted because of his scientific views. And then, Socrates was made to take hemlock because some Athenians felt that he was corrupting the youths with his views and that he was subversive to the established religion and government.
The ideal of the Greek education upheld a combination of physical and intellectual excellence. This was based on the strong believe that both the mind and the body was to be trained.
To the Greeks, the educated man is the one without extremes on the pleasures of the world. It is the man who cultivates a sense of reason because reason is the most important quality in a man. Therefore the wise man will seek enough eternal satisfaction, friendship, and the good things of life so that his existence would be enriched. And the good man acted according to the laws of nature while the evil man violated them.
Greeks thought unlike Christianity, was based on naturalistic spirits. Life to the Greeks was to be enjoyed to the full but the idea of limitation came in based in the fact that the finite was good but, the infinite was regarded as the principles of the evil.
Greek ideals resulted in an integrative concept of education. For example it was believed that the best life was the one, which led to a full adjustment of man to his environment.
However may be the weakness of Greek education is its lack of application in practical life. But this was due to the deliberate regard among the Athenians of the time for labor as an inferior activity. For that reason we find that the Greeks developed many of the theories, which have furthered the progress of sciences.
However we then talk of the ancient Greek education, it is proper that we make a proper distinction regarding the kind of the education we are talking about. This is due to the fact that Greece of the time did not operate as one state. The people were Greeks but lived in administrative city states. The most notable of these city- states were Sparta and Athens.
The educational arrangements in Sparta and Athens provide some effectives contrast and excellent examples of the ways in which education and social structures are intricately interwoven. But the two important differences between the Spartan and Athenian is that , while the Athenian developed virtue of the ability of the wind, the Spartans went for the military prowess.
1.SPARTA
During the 8th c BC. Sparta was a primitive village in the Laconic plains in the northern Greece the basic social unit was the family. A century later Sparta had become a centre of a well developed culture, Which attracted poets and artists from far and its social Circle had expanded to that of the city state. It was then a peaceful competitor in the Olympic games
However by the 4th c BC Sparta had changed barbarous city petrified into attitude of more distrust and no longer centre. It was no longer education youth in arts but training them in skills of war.
The reason of this was the war struggles between Sparta and her neighbours where Sparta come out victorious. This experience changed entire lifestyle of the Spartan society from that OF PEACE TO WAR.
The creator of this new state was Lycurgus. He required that all citizens were subject of state strictly. His philosophy was that from birth, all children became the property of the state.
A committee inspected all babies and those found unfit were done away with. Those found to be fit were made to join others in a life specifically designed to make them physically fit.
Not tenderness was shown to a Spartan child either at home or elsewhere in the country. Right from the earliest years sneer, taught and flogging taught children to obey state rules of contacts
At the age of seven boys begun to attend classes for games and physical training. At the age of 12, they left home to begin their military career. They lived include barracks and were not permitted warm clothes even in winter. The children deliberately subjected to hardship in order to train endurance a factor necessary for war.
By the age of 20 the young men were inducted into a state organization. Their duties was to spy on the helots. They also had orders to kill harlots who showed any restlessness.
by the middle of the 6th c BC Spartan society consisted of three classes of people. Their classes were:-
i. The Spartan Aristocrat.
This was a group of people who were of Spartan origin and landowners. In other words they were a warrior caste.
ii. The periokio class.
This was a group of free Spartans but who had no political rights.
iii. The Helots (serfs)
This was a group of people who were the origin of Laconia but overrun by Spartans who then enslave them thus making them serfs or neglected people who became their servants. But, by population, their numbered 10-1
This social structure of the Spartan society was fixed. There was no allowance for crossing from one social class to another. One born in one class there you stay. The social classes were as fixed as were other aspects of the Spartan society at the time.
The society was so fixed that change, new ideas and strangers were not allowed and welcomed. even in terms language, a necessary words were not allowed in Laconic speech.
the Aristocratic Spartan made a reached out of the austerity which circumstance were imposed upon him. These conditions included among those were such as rejecting luxury, ignoring the acts idolization of the military power and accepting endure hardship and at the same time using Helots to providing their war materials.
And since the boys in Spartan society were going to spend their lives in military service their curriculum was arranged accordingly
-The art and sciences were thought unnecessary
they were taught national songs, dancing, martial music, the Homeric epics and the war like poems.
-They were taught numbers to extent they enabled to count head and weapons
-Literary wars restricted to reading writing in their redemptory forms .
-Although they too lived a vigorous life, the girls stayed at home but the were trained in running, wrestling and discuss throwing. The primary concern for the girls was the development of healthy bodies so that they could produce sturdy sons for the state.
The girls participated in the national festivals. During these festivals, the girls danced naked with the boys. The purpose for dancing naked was to display their physical fitness and not to indulge in orgiastic revelry, which would have been entirely alien to the Spartan behaviour, which was marked by strong discipline.
The Spartan education system was a successful story in spite of its limitations in its aim and objectives. We note in our time that it served as model for the totalitarian societies such as the Nazi Germany, the Communist Russia and the people’s republic of china
In spite of these seeming success of Spartan system of education of ancient time the limitation of the system led to its own end in the face of unfamiliar condition which in this case were created by the Thebans. This was due to the fact that where as the Spartan soldiers were well trained and properly disciplined, yet they were defeated due to their inability to adopt to methods which were not familiar.
Therefore they were defeated by the efforts of the Thebans
In short the Spartan education system was capable only for producing functionaries for a static militaristic society. This was due to the fact that, the system excluded considerations for important concepts such as:-
i. Intellectual development
ii. Individual self-fulfillment
iii. The exploration of knowledge
iv. The development of art forms
v. The self-initiative and the willingness to try new ideas.
Now to find these more adverse and more liberal elements of education, we will turn to the next Greek city state, Athens.
2.ATHENS
Athens is situated by the sea which she seems to have made full use of. She sent her colonists and traders throughout Mediterranean world and she also welcomed to her shares mariners and strangers with their different ideas.
On the other hand, Sparta which was encircled by mountains, regarded strangers with suspicion. Therefore it can be safe to conclude that that geographical conditions had a lot to do with the differing educational development in the two societies.
Athens grew from primitive village to a majestic, city states of temples, theatres and public squares which were greatly admired. Athenians developed a refined process of law making. In this way they created for themselves a democratic society devoted o general good of all men.
ATHENIAN DEMOCARCY WAS not a primitive form of egalitarianism. It recognized the difference in people based on birth, wealth and professional status.
The aristocratic members of the society derived their wealth from the land. Other Freemont earned their living from farming, trade, priests, potters tanners, weaver or even laborers. The slaves earned their livelihoods by serving their masters in many ways.
Schools first appeared in Athens in during 6th C B.C . These schools were private and they charged fees . In this way education was limited to only those who could afford to pay.
In spite of that Athens did not adopt a Lezzas-faire towards formal education were enacted where the first one was during the rule of Solo (640-559 BC). These laws regulated the hours of the school attendance and the ages of the pupils at school. They also required proper moral supervision for boys.
Only boys attended the school. But they stayed at home until the age of seven. The curriculum at this stage included the following:
-Wrestling
-Rudimentary health habits
-Music
-Writing and reading
-Counting
-Reciting poems (Homer)
Far most boys, instructions ended at the age of 14. But for the privileged supervised instructions continued though at a less formal level. The youth was introduced to public society, e.g theatre, law courts, public meetings, e.t.c
educational and the formulation of the theories about:
-What is knowledge/
-How do we learn?
-To what end do we learn?
Strongly enough, those substantial educational philosophers did not all have great impact upon their counterpart. Those views which were expanded by
-Socrates 469-399BC
-Plato 428-348 BC
-Aristotle 322 BC
were not heeded as much as those ideas of Isocrates yet those are the foundation of the western cultural, philosophical and educational traditions.
Titany answered the question on August 30, 2021 at 07:02