Structure of Education
The parents presented the boy at birth to state officials for purposes of inspection before exposing the weak ones to snow. The intention was to have only healthy children live and later become citizens. After this exercise, the boys went through practices meant to integrate them into the community. This was done at home by the mothers and slaves in; games, stories, singing, and manners, among others. The child was also trained to be tough through compulsory fasting and overcome fear by being left in darkness alone, among others.
At the age of seven, the boys were enrolled in the barracks to train in judgment through stealing. This was accompanied by very harsh discipline, military drills among other activities.The girls on the other hand were trained at home in strength to enable them give birth to strong boys later on in life. This was done through activities such as; running, jumping, throwing of javelin, short put etc
At the age of 18 years, the boys graduated into cadet-citizens (ephebi) and started professional studies in warfare. This went on for two years and ended with graduation at the alter of artemis where boys were flogged thoroughly in what was called whipping exams. Those who qualified entered manhood with honors being bestowed on those who received most floggings without crying or flinging. After this, the boys qualified as Eirens at the age of 20 years and became eligible for election into citizen clubs. They however never became full citizens till the age of 30 years. The new status allowed them to marry but continued to stay in the barracks and continued with military drills until inability due to old age when they got discharged.
Insistence on education for military efficiency meant that Sparta failed to produce any art, literature, philosophy science or great thinkers.
-Athenian Education
While Sparta led other Greek city states in military prowess, Athens was always the centre of Creek life. It boasted of "the leading lights of an intellectual and artistic culture without parallel in the history of western man (Lucas, 1972:62). Athenians led other city states in thought, art and government.
Athens started off as an agricultural society but it quickly transformed into an urban centre of prosperous trade and commerce. Before 8th C BC, Athens was just a monarch like other states but it transformed into a democracy under Solon (639-559), the great lawgiver. The Athenians had an elected office of the King which was done annually and the eligible citizens were involved in the deliberations of the state on the acropolis.
Athens transformed itself into an empire in the 5th c BC (461-429), which ushered in the Golden Era or periclean Age where many discoveries and innovations were recorded. The state however became severly weakened by the Peloponnesian (civil) Wars fought by the Greeks (431-404 BC) which led to its fall. In 338BC, all Greek city states had been seriously weakened leading to the conquest by Philip of Macedonia.
The people of ancient Athens were divided into three classes; the citizens, metics (resident aliens or non- Athenian Greeks), and slaves. It is important to note however that the disparity between the rich and poor was not big compared to Sparta.
-Early Athenian Education
Athenian education had very little in common with that of Sparta. Education aimed at the Greek ideal of individual excellence for public usefulness. It stressed full rounded development of mind and body and public usefulness. People were prepared for active participation in the affairs of the state in times of peace as well as in times of war. Emphasis in education was placed on man of action. While the Spartans aimed at strength and endurance, Athenians focused on beauty and grace of body, mind and spirit. The whole purpose of early Athenian education was the development of virtue (civic virtues).
Unlike Sparta, education was not controlled by the state but was left in the hands of the parents, most of whom took a lot of pride in ensuring that their sons received education. Education was given as per ones class and was only limited to male citizens and excluded girls and slaves.
Structure
It was the responsibility of the father to decide whether to expose the infant son to death or to live. This was then followed by ceremonies of recognition and acceptance where both the boys and girls grew up in the home under the care of nurses and mothers up to the age of 7 years. They then started elementary learning with the boy attending two schools, first, the Didascaleum or music school for; reading, writing, arithmetic, poetry and music under the citherist or music teacher. The second school was called the Palaestra (gymnastic school) for exercises, sports and games under the gymnastic master. It is possible that the boy attended both schools in one day accompanied by a slave attendant, the pedagogue. Discipline in elementary schools was severe especially corporal punishment. It was said that if one was not flogged then such a person had not been educated. On the other hand, elementary teaching was considered a worthless occupation, not meant for free citizens. And since it did not require advanced qualification other than reading, schoolrooms became places of refuge for the distressed.
Secondary education was attended by boys between the age of 16 to 18 years with the youth being enrolled in the public gymnasium for physical training mostly in athletics and military drills. Full tuition was paid for organized physical instruction. After the two years and a demonstration to state officials that the youth was physically and morally qualified for citizenship, the boy took an ephepic oath, a pledge of allegiance to the state. At 18 years, the youth qualified as a citizen cadet (ephebos) and got enrolled in novitiate for a two year military service accompanied by severest military discipline. At the age of 20 years,
the youth was accorded the privileges of full citizenship and assumed definite duties in the assembly and or the juries.
Athenian education was very progressive and produced individualistic and democratically conscious people. The system led to the formation of a liberal, cultured and intelligent society, a major departure from the rigid class systems of the ancient period.
New Athenian
The defeat of the Persians around 480 BC by the Greeks under the Athenian leadership transformed the city state into the centre of Greek life. Athens took on a cosmopolitan character and interactions between traders, travelers and other foreigners and an interchange of ideas developed wider interests and diversified community life. Consequently, old traditions and basic ideals of the early Athenians were abandoned. Trading and commerce led to individual prosperity as opposed to the old communal prosperity. Wealth and power became new measures for greatness as opposed to birth and service to the state. Citizenship initially a preserve of the Athenians was now opened to all free inhabitants.
The goal of education for the new order focused more on the preparation for personal advancement, individual excellence as opposed to the old objective of social service and public usefulness. The new demands were met by a group of paid traveling teachers called sophists that exalted the individual himself as the new authority. Man became the measure of all things. The aim of sophists was to prepare their students for active and successful life in politics and public affairs. The approach was later on condemned by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle who accused them of creating a moral gap among the youth. The three great educators sought a reconciliation of individualism and social stability by advocating education for virtue and good life.
This necessitated a new education that was organized at three levels:
1) Primary education was given in private schools from the age of 7 to 13 years. The teacher, the grammatist taught; reading, writing, arithmetic and chanting.
2) Secondary education was also given in private schools for boys between 13 to 16 years old. They were taught by the grammatical a content that touched on; geometry, drawing, music, grammar and rhetoric.
3) Higher education was offered in rhetorical and philosophical schools for boys of 16 years and above. This level of education focused purely on literary and intellectual training for public life that placed emphasis on clear thinking, elaboration and debate.
The new system of education enabled Athens transform itself into a chief intellectual center until AD 380. For instance, the University of Athens which began about 200 BC remained in existence until Ad 529 when Emperor Justinian ordered it closure on the pretext that it was the centre of pagan thought.
- Greek Educators
Plato (427-346)BC
Plato was born in an aristocratic family and received the customary schooling becoming an ephebos before going on to become a student of Socrates. Plato traveled widely to places such as; Egypt, Cyrene, Sicily and Southern Italy. His love for education can be seen in the decision to abandon a political career to engage in a teaching career in Athens in 398 BC. He later on established his own institution, the Academy in 387 BC where he must have taught for 40 years.
Plato developed a dialectic method which for him simply meant an educational procedure that enabled one to answer questions adequately and scientifically. This could only be taught to mature persons between the ages of 30 and 45 years.
Educational Ideas
Plato believed that justice could only be secured by the rule of educated men in an ideal state. Accordingly, he proposed that men should work towards the perfection of man and the perfection of the state. In the Republic, Plato proposed a practical application of his philosophy of an ideal state. He argued that no man is self-sufficient and can only achieve his purpose through the structures and procedure of the political state. And man can only attain knowledge if the state is organized in a manner that can allow it, only possible where the state has the best constitution.
Plato was of the view that each individual should be given training and occupation appropriate to his capacity and social
functions:
• Education for iron men. These were artisans guided mostly by the appetite.
• Education for silver men. These were mostly men of courage-warriors and executives or auxiliaries who were guided by the spirit.
• Education for the Golden men. These were guardians-rational or philosopher Kings full of wisdom.
His ideas as articulated in the Republic discuss at great length the proper training of the guardians, people to be entrusted with the responsibility of exercising leadership in the society for purposes of securing the state in its ideal form. Those designated as future guardians had to be properly selected and exposed to the best elements of society right from early stages in life
marto answered the question on March 19, 2019 at 08:35