ANCIENT ROMAN EDUCATION

LORENJONE S. VALDEZ

Discussant

OBJECTIVES:

• Cite contribution of early civilization to modern day education and culture.

• Describe the Roman Education and their practices.

• Realize the important influences of Ancient Roman Education.

PRIMITIVE EDUCATION

• Education is as old as life itself and must have passed on to their offspring, consciously and unconsciously, organized or unorganized, certain skills and attitude that enabled them to survive.

• Primitive education strives to secure the continued existence of the group by restricting the activities of its members.

Primitive Education is Relatively Simple

Mans’ activities are to feed, clothe, shelter and protect himself and those dependent to

him.

Has Narrow Social and Cultural Contacts

• His tribe is small area but the life of the tribe bounds the world oh his thinking and his sympathies.

• People are extraordinarily conservative and prone to superstition. They cling with great tenacity to old ideas and ways of behaviour. They believe in magic and in unseen beings, ghost, spirits and deities. Illness, famine and storms are attributed to actions of ill-disposed spirits. The safety of the group depends on witch doctors and faithfulness with religious duties and ceremonies.

The Organization of Primitive Life is Tribal not Political

One function of education is to enable one to live with his relatives.

The Absence of Reading and Writing

They possessed the art and information but they lack the methods by which they collected and available for use. They have stories, songs, implements and institutions but their educational activities are directed to the transmission of learning and not to the learners’ development or the increase of knowledge or the discovery of new skills.

WAY OF LEARNING DURING THE PRIMITIVE PERIOD

• Observation of activities in which they will later be participants

• Simple telling and demonstration of how things are done.

• Learn from consequences to avoid that which is dangerous.

The only Educational Program found in the primitive societies is the participation

of the young in rituals and ceremonies and in the incidental apprenticeship to the activities of the family and the tribe.

ORIENTAL EDUCATION

(The Transition period between the Primitive and Classical Era)

When Nomadic Tribes finally settled down, civilization developed and most are found in the region of Mesopotamia and Nile. As a result of conquering others tribe, they were able to establish a higher level culture with a well-organized political, economic, and religious institution which is centralized to maintain their ways of living. This made necessary a longer period of training for the members of the tribe to provide them with the skills needed to cope with complex living.

Significance of Oriental Education

• Man started to domesticate animals, practiced agriculture, developed arts and crafts, made weapons, constructed buildings and device transportation which increased knowledge and social relations.

• Man created basic institution which increased knowledge and social relations such as family life, the priesthood, commerce, the state, and industrial organizations. Through these, they were able to extend his language, created traditions and myths, devised symbols and signs to unfold his activities and taught, and give expression to poetry, music, and dance.

• The family became the basic unit of the society.

• Society was divided into classes.• Government was transferred to despots who

had absolute power.• Religion transcended nature worship and

animism with its bewildering number of gods and goddesses.

Significance of Oriental Education

EDUCATION IN EGYPT

Egyptian Education has been chosen as

a prototype of an era for elaboration. It

became the birthplace of ideas of

righteousness, character, conscience,

the concept of god, and arts.

Apprenticeship Method

• The father transferred to his son the necessary skills to run his life.

• On the higher social circles, boys were train to read and write by Scribes. Literacy was needed because of the organization of the state is staffed by civil officials. The court school was an apprenticeship in the duties of royalty where court officials taught a group of boys aspiring for office.

Three Aspect of Egyptian Education

• Vocational Training• Learning to write• Good conduct

These are not separate subject but correlated activities. Only knowledge and activities that are useful were being transcended. An Egyptian boy prefers application and does not reach a high level of theoretical intelligence. They were motivated by appealing to their ambition and by punishment.

TEMPLES

Became the centers of higher and advance learning. The high Priest taught applied Mathematics, Physics, Astronomy, Architecture, and embalming. Education in Medicine, Priesthood, and

Military is acquired by parental apprenticeship.

Decline of Egyptian Progress and Education

• Teachers were obstinately conservative• Formalism (any practice or ideas became the fixed habit of

the people)• Egyptian were mentally lazy• The incapacity of Egyptian Mind to ascend from the

practical and empirical to the scientific and universal. • Conceptual thinking, reasoning, creative imagination and

intellectual curiosity were foreign to them• They don’t have love for knowledge for its own sake.

GREEK EDUCATION

(The Era of Higher Culture and Enlightenment)

The beginning of creative activity and logical thinking that have made for genuine intellectual progress, the Greeks are nation of the Aryans and the Germanic people. The Greek state favoured a small and separate political unit so that each citizen could participate directly to civic and military affairs. Greek Cities were totalitarian and claimed full authority over the life of individuals (Greek considered to be the road to honor and glory). Marriage was duty to the state and a matter of religion and patriotism. To fulfill well the duties of citizenship was the chief essential of Greek Morality.

Totalitarian Soldier State where obedience and discipline reigned as the highest good.

free-functioning political entity whose citizens enjoyed self expression.

SPA

RTA

A

TH

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(The conquerors- strong and hardy, physically fit, terse of speech, austere, full of valor)

The Spartans

The government of Sparta prevent the citizen from being centered upon any public interest. Family life was reduced to minimum because they believe that this may lead to money making, which results to social inequality that may lead to the danger of the group. Their constitution reads more like a description of military academy than a government. Life of the individual was absolutely subservient to the public welfare. Public authorities decide whether marriage is sanctioned or forbidden and children belong to the state. A Spartan has all the time for the art of war, and training of the soldier. Every man was the father and schoolmaster to every Spartan boy.

Aims of Education

• To develop the capacity of the men only for war.• Inculcate courage, endurance, respect for elders, loyalty and

obedience to authority.• Provide complete training of children which began at birth. (For

seven years he will be taught by his mother with the most austere discipline.)

• The Paidonomous (youth commander/ drill master) will supervise their training into full citizenship when they reach the age of seven.

• At eighteen, they become a military recruit• At twenty, they become a soldier of the state. (Girls are to be

prepared to bear healthy children at this age.)

Concern of Spartan Education

• The highest ideals of valor.• Uncomplaining endurance of pain and

hardship.• Unfaltering devotion to the state.

THE ATHENS

Athenians are known to be inventive, versatile, enterprising, self-confident, and extremely

artistic. They are shallow and temperamental, talkative, pleasure loving, and incapable of a

deep sense of obligation to moral law. The social scale is composed of the citizens who own the land, the aliens who are engaged to commerce

and manufacturing, and the saves. Athens is the first state in the world where

all human capacities were allowed to develop freely. Education is a family prerogative.

Aims of Education

To produce a young man who would be charming in person and graceful in manners.

A beautiful soul in a beautiful body.

(embrace external and internal beauty, physical and mental harmony)

Process of Education• Up to the age of seven, the mother watched over his character,

make him healthy and decent. • At the age of seven, boys were taught intricacies of manners and

morals and assuring save delivery of his ward by a Paidogogus (slave but very learned).

• At the age of 14, education was over for boys due to none existence of higher education (only private and secondary education. It is in school where they learn to write, read, do arithmetic, gymnastic and music. (Even after schooling, the state provides public gymnasium called Palaestra.

• At the age of 18, he became an Ephebos, an apprentice militiaman.

• He would be in assemblies, councils, lectures, tournaments and be assigned to a frontier for a year to become a soldier.

Three Types of Teachers• KITHARIST – teacher of music. Poems and

stories were taught accompanied by music. Music is taught to mold character.

• GRAMMATIST - teacher of letters. Taught reading, writing, and rudimentary arithmetic.

• PAEDOTRIBE – teacher of gymnastic. Gymnasium was used for physical exercise which later on became an academic secondary school.

After the Fifth Century B.C.

Greater emphasis was placed upon the teachings of Sophists (scholars who give free education).

They emphasized the development of reasoning and critical thinking.

• Grammar • Rhetoric • Oratory

• The Rhetorical School- prepares the young for public careers initiated by Sophists.

• Philosophical School- teaches philosophical traditions initiate by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

THANK YOUFOR

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