History of Education

Early civilizations

3100 BCE

With the rise of trade, government, and formal religion came the invention of writing.The school appeared. The scribes of the court and priests were designated as teachers. The method of learning was memorization, and the motivation was the fear of harsh physical discipline. The Jews
established elementary schools where boys from about 6 to 13 years of age probably learned
rudimentary mathematics and certainly learned reading and writing.

History of Education

Period: 3100 BCE to 1900

Ancient Greece (1200 bc-900bc)

1200 BCE

The goal of education in the Greek city-states was to prepare the
child for adult activities as a citizen.
The goal of education in Sparta was to produce soldier-citizens.
The goal of education in Athens was to produce citizens trained in the arts of both peace and war.
In Athens schools were private, but the tuition was low enough so that even the poorest citizens could afford to send their children for at least a few years

Greek schools

390 BCE

Until about 390 BC there were no permanent schools and no formal courses for such higher education. As groups of students attached themselves to one teacher or another, permanent
schools were established. It was in such schools that Plato, Isocrates, and Aristotle taught. Plato taught such subjects as
geometry, astronomy, harmonics (the mathematical theory of music), and arithmetic.Isocrates taught primarily
oratory and rhetoric.

Ancient Rome (753 bc-476 ad)

146 BCE

Roman boy's education took place at home.
The boy would learn to read and would learn Roman
law, history, and customs.
They studied reading, writing,counting, Latin or Greek or both and studied grammar and literature.students took notes that they later memorized. Latin was the language spoken in commerce, public service, education, and the Roman Catholic church. Most books written in Europe until about the year 1200 were written
in Latin.

Middle ages (476 ad-1453 ad)

476

Medieval church,which preserved what little Western learning had survived the collapse of the Roman Empire.
Cathedral, monastic, and palace schools were operated by the clergy in parts of Western Europe.
The schools taught students to read Latin so that they could copy and thereby preserve and perpetuate the writings of the Church Fathers.Students learned the rudiments of mathematics so that they could calculate the dates of religious festivals.

Rise of universities between 12th-13th centuries

1200

The university curriculum in about 1200 consisted of what were then called the seven liberal arts.These were grouped into two divisions. The first was the preparatory trivium: grammar, rhetoric,and logic. The second, more advanced division was the quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, music,and astronomy. By the 12th century the education of women was no longer ignored, though only a small percentage of girls actually attended schools

Renaissance (1300-1500)

1300

Began in Italy in the 14th century and spread to northern European countries in the 15th and 16th centuries. the early Renaissance humanists wanted education to develop man's intellectual, spiritual, and physical powers for the enrichment of life.After nearly a thousand years grammar at last was studied not as an end in itself but because it gave access to the vital content of literature.Education was excited. The basis of the curriculum was the study of Greek and Roman literature.

Reformation (1517-1648)

1500

The Protestants emphasized the need for universal education and established elementary vernacular schools in Germany where the children of the poor could learn reading, writing, and religion. This innovation was to have far-reaching effects on education in the Western world.

The Puritants

1642

Sought to make education universal. They took the first steps toward government-supported universal education in the colonies. In 1642 Puritan Massachusetts passed a law requiring that every child be taught to read.

John Amos Comenius (1592-1670).

1648

One of the educational pioneers of great stature was John Amos Comenius (1592-1670). Effective education, Comenius insisted, must take into account the nature of the child. Comenius believed that understanding comes "not in the mere learning the names of things, but in the actual perception
of the things themselves." He characterized the schools, as "the
slaughterhouses of minds" and "places where minds are fed on words."

Colonial America 17th Century

1650

. Most poor children learned through apprenticeship and had no formal schooling at all. New England, Southern,and Middle colonies differed from one another.Those who did go to elementary school were taught reading, writing, arithmetic,
and religion. Learning consisted of memorizing, which was stimulated by whipping. The secondary
school, attended by the wealthier children, studied Latin grammar.
The teachers were no better prepared, and perhaps less so, than the teachers in Europe.

John Locke (1632-1704)

1670

One of the men whose theories had the greatest impact on education was the English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704)One aspect of Locke's theory the notion that the mind is made up of "faculties" was interpreted to mean that the function of schooling was to "train" the various mental faculties.The more significant aspect of the theory, was the insistence upon firsthand experience with its implicit protest against the mere book learning of the Middle Ages and the humanists

17th and 18th Century Europe

1700

Teachers were incompetent and the discipline cruel.The learning methods were drill and memorization of words,sentences,and facts that the children often did not understand. Latin had ceased to be the language of commerce or the exclusive language of religion. In the 17th century it also slowly ceased to be even the exclusive language of scholarly discourse. Although the general state of education was retrogressive, there were some advanced educators
and philosophers.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78).

1748

He believed that the aim of education should be the natural development of the learner Attacked the teaching methods of his time. Since Rousseau believed that the child is innately good and that the aim of education should be his
natural development, there was little for the teacher to do except stand aside and watch.

18th-Century United States

1751

The spirit of science, commercialism, secularism, and individualism quickened in the Western world, education in the colonies was called upon to satisfy the practical needs of the era. Benjamin Franklin helped found in 1751 the first of a growing number of secondary schools.it also brought education closer to the needs of everyday life by teaching such courses as history, geography, merchant accounts, geometry, algebra, surveying, modern languages, navigation, and astronomy.

19th-Century Europe

1900

Established national school systems. France had one by
the 1880s, and by the 1890s the primary schools in England were free and compulsory. By the last half of the 19th century both France and Germany had established secondary schools for women.In the early 1900s Montessori was put in charge of the Case dei Bambini (Children's House) schools for 3- to 7-year-olds established in newly built tenement buildings in Rome. In these schools she emphasized freedom and individual development.