Classical education around the world
Although we frequently think of classical education in terms of ancient Greece and Rome, the idea of “classical education” is not unique to Western culture. Classical education in general is a system of learning that transmits the traditional culture of a society to the next generation. In India, this is based on the study of the Vedas and subjects based on it, such as medicine, music, archery, and martial arts. In China, this involves the study and understanding of the Four Books and Five Classics, the authoritative books of Confucianism. In the West, this focuses on the ancient cultures of, yes, Greece and Rome and the educational path blazed from that time through the Middle Ages, and up to the time of the progressive educational movement, at which point it began fading in popularity.
Classical learning in the West
The question of when what we consider “classical education” began is a topic of much debate. Some look to the traditions of the Middle Ages. Others consider classical education as beginning during the classical period. In this case, it would have begun during the time of ancient Greece, and then ancient Rome.
Early Greek education was divided into two parts: gymnastic (physical education and training), and music (music, arts, dance, and poetry). Both were considered necessary to fully participate in Greek culture, and both were part of teaching children, an activity that generally ended with adolescence. Higher education became popular in Athens around the time of Socrates, in the fifth century B.C. As the idea of higher education took hold, Greek learning expanded in the fields of mathematics, philosophy, astronomy, and dialectics. Education was mostly limited to free, wealthy Greek boys and men.
When the Roman empire came into existence, it incorporated Greece and made use of Greek learning as well. Many tutors for Roman families were, in fact, Greek slaves, and were often better educated than their owners. While the Roman sense of practicality did not value all that the Greeks did in education, they were still very much influenced by Greek thought, particularly in the area of literature, in which the Romans were lacking by comparison.
The Roman education system that eventually developed taught both girls and boys (though not together), and progressed somewhat similarly to education today, from an elementary level through higher tiers of learning. The earliest level of education took place either with private tutors, for the wealthy, or in a ludus litterarius, a primary school where students were taught how to read, to write, and to memorize and dictate texts, especially Greek poetry. The next level, taught by a grammaticus, focused on teaching the poets and the art of poetic analysis. The final stage, taught by a rhetor, focused on public speaking, alongside subjects such as geography, music, philosophy, geometry, mythology, and literature. Young men who progressed to this stage could go into law or politics. The very elite might then go on to study philosophy.
Education in the Middle Ages carried on the traditions from Rome and Greece, centering on the seven liberal arts of the language-focused trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric) and the math-focused quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music), the latter so-named by Boethius in the 6th century. The trivium was typically taught first, and then the quadrivium, which was considered necessary to study philosophy and theology. Though the exact form of education changed over the centuries that followed, these seven liberal arts prevailed throughout the Middle Ages, through the Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment, and into the Modern Era - until the progressive educational movement of the late 1800s.
This movement, particularly promoted by John Dewey, was characterized especially by its child-centered focus, its utilitarian goals, its reliance on science and testing, and its use of behavior modification and positive reinforcement in character development. As its proponents pushed their goal of progressive education through the government-funded public schools, the classical approach fell more and more out of favor.
Click here to read about the neoclassical approach that came out of this movement.
Early Greek education was divided into two parts: gymnastic (physical education and training), and music (music, arts, dance, and poetry). Both were considered necessary to fully participate in Greek culture, and both were part of teaching children, an activity that generally ended with adolescence. Higher education became popular in Athens around the time of Socrates, in the fifth century B.C. As the idea of higher education took hold, Greek learning expanded in the fields of mathematics, philosophy, astronomy, and dialectics. Education was mostly limited to free, wealthy Greek boys and men.
When the Roman empire came into existence, it incorporated Greece and made use of Greek learning as well. Many tutors for Roman families were, in fact, Greek slaves, and were often better educated than their owners. While the Roman sense of practicality did not value all that the Greeks did in education, they were still very much influenced by Greek thought, particularly in the area of literature, in which the Romans were lacking by comparison.
The Roman education system that eventually developed taught both girls and boys (though not together), and progressed somewhat similarly to education today, from an elementary level through higher tiers of learning. The earliest level of education took place either with private tutors, for the wealthy, or in a ludus litterarius, a primary school where students were taught how to read, to write, and to memorize and dictate texts, especially Greek poetry. The next level, taught by a grammaticus, focused on teaching the poets and the art of poetic analysis. The final stage, taught by a rhetor, focused on public speaking, alongside subjects such as geography, music, philosophy, geometry, mythology, and literature. Young men who progressed to this stage could go into law or politics. The very elite might then go on to study philosophy.
Education in the Middle Ages carried on the traditions from Rome and Greece, centering on the seven liberal arts of the language-focused trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric) and the math-focused quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music), the latter so-named by Boethius in the 6th century. The trivium was typically taught first, and then the quadrivium, which was considered necessary to study philosophy and theology. Though the exact form of education changed over the centuries that followed, these seven liberal arts prevailed throughout the Middle Ages, through the Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment, and into the Modern Era - until the progressive educational movement of the late 1800s.
This movement, particularly promoted by John Dewey, was characterized especially by its child-centered focus, its utilitarian goals, its reliance on science and testing, and its use of behavior modification and positive reinforcement in character development. As its proponents pushed their goal of progressive education through the government-funded public schools, the classical approach fell more and more out of favor.
Click here to read about the neoclassical approach that came out of this movement.