Elementary Education

Engaging Young Minds

The Education of Young Children

Topic Description and Links

How were young children taught from ancient to contemporary Greece? How specialized or unified where the subjects in their curriculum? What was the type and sequence of instruction? What was gymnasia and music and what did they become later? How were they prepared for further study? How did gender and economic status and other factors determine the type and quality of their education? These are some of the questions that you should consider as you compare elementary education from ancient to contemporary cultures.

The practical aim of ancient Greek education was to prepare young children for citizenship and leadership, and to develop the character in an idealized Hellenic community

Generative Questions and Hints

To help you reason through this case, answer these questions and record your responses to recall during the corresponding lesson activities in Greece and for the reports that you will make on what you have learned.

	What "law of learning" was applied then as a means of delivering instruction and how things have changed in contemporary education? See Hint#1 below.
	What was the subject-matter of the schools in ancient Greece? Is this different from the subject matter in contemporary schools? See Hint#2 below.
	How was education diffused through the society in ancient Greece? How is it diffused in contemporary societies? See Hint#3 below.

Hint#1: A law of learning as applies in contemporary education, which professes to deal, not with the pupil as such, by drill methods would be unacceptable for the ancient theory of education.

Plato was concerned with treating the persons as a whole whose unity is important: "You do not educate a man by filling up his plastic nervous system with all kinds of artificial complexes, fixed ideas driven in by intensity, and frequency. A man is educated when he is master of himself, of his soul, mind and body.

Our educational system today is influenced by the technocratic approach to learning and encourages learning to be limited only to what is useful.

Consider the following:

• To what extent are the ancient ideas stated above applied in contemporary educational practices?
• Why skill acquisition has become the primary aim of contemporary education?
• What social problems does skill oriented education cause?

Hint#2: The whole body of citizens is being given the standard education for citizenship and the subject matter of this education is gymnastic and music.

Training in music and gymnastics prepares the pupils for docile obedience, unquestioning loyalty, ungrounded opinion, disciplined habit of dependence.

Gymnastic education was composed of dance and sport:

• Dances should have good effect on children because they would teach rhythm and control of movement.
• Sports would allow the children to show the virtues of courage and self-control.

Music was taught as a such but also was used to make learning more suitable to children. The idea was that with music children take naturally to speaking pieces and to playing the lyre as they accompany their own singing. The myths and stories of moral achievement were taught during music classes.

Another usual teaching method in elementary school was dramatizing the content they wanted the children to learn. When the letters and rudiments of reading and writing had been mastered, the process perhaps being aided by metrical alphabets and dramatized spelling, the boys began to read, learn by heart and write down the fascinating stories of adventure and the romantic tales of Homer. There was no grammar to be studied. The boys began at once upon the best and more attractive literature in their language and it remained in their study for many years and was still remembered and loved in after life.

When boys recited Homer and Aeshylus or Euripides, they acted them, delivering even the narrative with a great deal of gesture and dramatizing the speeches as fully as they could. Greek literature was always read aloud. It was performed, acted out and the performer throws himself into the movements which express whatever emotion is being potrayed.

It is noteworthy that Hellenic boys began at once with the very best literature found in their language: there was no preliminary course of childish tales.

Hint:#3 Education was diffused through the community as a whole and educational emphasis was not concentrated exclusively upon the school. The school is only one of the social institutions that should contribute to the education of the young. There also were community festivals that were organized to have educational influence to young people.

Lesson Activity

While in Greece try when visiting the sites, monuments, and museums which can add to the information presented above about ancient Greek education. See what apsects are depicted in artitacts.

Explore sites where community festivals take place and compare them to archaeological findings that represent such festivals.

Try to design a lesson of literature that is based on the ancient Greek educational guidelines. Keep in mind that music and rythmic movements were central to teaching and that works of literature that were studied were often dramatized in the classrooms of ancient Greece. Also consider that the works of literature that were studied were not childish tales, but the considred the most important works of the time.

Topics for discussion:

After having the experience of the trip, your representations of knowledge will probably change becoming more specific and less abstract. The deeply situated knowledge you will experience will give more meaning and understanding to concepts and sites.

After your field trip, try to answer again the generative questions that were posed at the beginning of this presentation. Have your answers changed? In what way?

Gather data from your activity and record notes on your reasoning of this case for later analysis and reporting (and publishing on the QFK Web).

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