FOUNDATIONS OF EDUCATION

RENAISSANCE PERIOD

Renaissance was the revival or rebirth of learning, a belief of dignity of human

beings, a renewed spirit of nationalism, an increase of trade among countries, a period
of exploration. Scientific research was used to solve problems, books were printed and
thus made available to some people, and there was a renewed interest in the classic.

HUMANISM

Away of thought and life concerned with the realization of the fullest human
career. This caused a general rise in the standard of education among the clergy, and
increased the amount of liberal education offered in the church schools. The most
celebrated school was at Mantua in northern Italy, on a site chosen because of its
natural beauty. Near the classroom, and almost as important, was the athletic field, a
green meadow where students were taught running, fencing, wrestling, and various
games of ball. Athletics were important, not as a part of military training or as an
entertainment for spectators, but as an art which developed the body and personality.

AIM
The aim of education of northern humanism was more social than individual,
social reform and the improvement of human relationships. It aimed at eliminating
ignorance of the common people and the greed and hypocrisy of social leaders.
Many of the humanists, although themselves members of the clergy, criticized
certain of the religious practices of the time. Their leader was the Dutch scholar,
Erasmus, who won universal admiration or his wits and learning. Erasmus famous book,
Praise of Folly, was a satire which found something to make fun in all classes, not
expecting the clergy. By calling attention to abuses and encouraging people to think for
themselves, even in religious matters. Erasmus bring about the Protestant Reformation
although many humanists, including Erasmus, remained Catholics.
HUMANISM AND EDUCATION
1. Allows for the individual development of talents and total fulfilment.
2. Encourages total involvement and participation.
3. Humanists teachers encourage students toward self-actualization and self-
fulfilment.
4. Placing a value on humility and the individual.
5. Humanists teachers adapt readily to innovative teaching methods.
6. Teachers are creative and independent and encourage the same students.
7. Teachers work effectively with others and increase experiences and person-to-
person interactions.

REFORMATION
The great religious movement for the reformation of both doctrines and institution
of the Christian church. When a large group of German ruling princes and
representatives of three cities who had joined the reformers protested against the
decision of the imperial forbidding any further expansion of the reform. Its followers
came to be called Protestants, and the name of Christianity assumed to the name
Protestantism.
Encouraged by Martin Luther’s example, Protestant reformers in many countries
suggested changes and found governments willing to support them. Together they
formed a movement called Protestant Reformation. The Protestants all denied that the
Pope was the head of Christendom and they urged men to go directly to the bible as the
highest religious authority.
The leading French Protestant, John Calvin went further than Luther in removing
images and ornaments from churches, and he abolished all the rich ceremonial of
worship used by the Roman Catholics. His plan of church organization is called
Presbyterian (a presbytery is a council of ministers and laymen).

AIM
 The aim of the protestant reformers was religious moralism-living a worthy life will
guarantee a glorious life after. Education therefore, must provide adequate training in
the duties of the home, occupation, and the state.

Melanchthon, one of the greatest scholars, a survey in Germany the results of

which became the basis of the Saxony Plan. This was the first school system in History.
One of the provisions of this plan was the establishment of the secondary schools in
every town under the support and control of the state.

METHOD
Reading was taught by routine pronunciation of words, memorization of answers
to questions from gospel, hymns and psalms. Eventually, due to formalism, the
protestant classroom became a place of terror. Methods of teachings were rigid,
discipline was harsh, and religious indoctrination became the chief method.

THE CATHOLIC COUNTER-REFORMATION

The Catholic Counter-Reformation movement corrected the abuses of the
church. Realizing that the Protestants used education to further their ends, the Catholic
used also education to win back dissenters. Teaching orders and teaching
congregations were founded, parish schools were reorganized and seminaries were
opened to train leaders.

AIM
The aim of Education of Roman Catholic education was religious moralism.
Similar to the aim of the Protestants except the approach where the latter develop a
moral life through the individual’s own interpretation of the bible, while the Catholic
education aimed to develop an unquestioning obedience to the authority of the church.

EDUCATIONAL METHODS
1. Designated to train leaders.
2. Designated to teach the poor.
 3. Designated for spiritual salvation.

EDUCATIONAL REALISM
Realism refers to the philosophy of which holds that education should by concerned
with the actualization of life.
AIMS AND METHODS
Realists differed as to the methods by which such could achieve. This difference of
opinion gave rise to three groups:

1. Humanistic or Verbal Realists- aimed at a complete knowledge and

understanding as to fit the individual to the environment in which he lives.

From the point of view of this method, the verbal realists advanced the following
ideas:
A. Vives- Education should develop personality.
B. Rabelais- Aim of learning was the development of the whole man,
incidental method of teaching all learning to be made pleasant learning
facilitated through natural activities substituted for rote learning use of
reference books.
C. Milton- Education was to prepare for actual living. Reading for content
and nor for syntax use for resource person in the classroom discussion
and lectures by academic authorities.

2. Social Realists- were members of the aristocracy who aimed for education that
would develop the gentlemen and such an education could be best by direct
contact with people and their activities rather than books.
A. Montaigne- a social realist, proposed a broad education that would make
a young man of the world. Travel according to him would be most suitable
so that school had very little use. The private tutorial system became
 popular among the nobility. The finishing schools and the private military
academics of today are remnants of social realism.
3. Sense Realists- advocated a type of education in which scientific content would
be introduced and the scientific method used. Four educational thinkers
represent sense realism.
A. Richard Mulcaster- Children must be studied thoroughly and their innate
abilities respected make use of games, and exercise for learning purposes.
B. Francis Bacon- Give man dominance over things. He used the inductive
method of learning.
C. Wolgang Ratke- Developed a natural method of teaching, nothing is to be
learned by rote, repetition must be done as often as possible, learning by the
senses first and then exploration.
D. John Amos Comenius- The ultimate goal of education was eternal
happiness with God and education should prepare for the activities of life
through knowledge, learning should start from the senses, learning should
proceed from the known to unknown.

DISCIPLINISM
Disciplinism was characterized by two reactions during the first half of the 18th
century: (1) the rise of formal discipline, and (2) the development of aristocracy of
reason or rationalism.
John Locke in some thoughts concerning education, strongly advocated the
disciplinary theory of education, believing that the mind of the child was a tabula rasa, a
blank tablet. He postulated that everything in the mind came from experience, which in
turn was based on the perception of the senses. He believed that the development
came only through formation of habits through discipline.

AIM
The aim of disciplinism was the formation of the habits through discipline.

METHOD
 The mind could be developed by memorizing and abstract reasoning.

RATIONALISM
The rationalists upheld the right of each individual to his own opinion, liberty of
conscience, and freedom of thought. They believed that man could bring his own
reason, improved himself and his institutions, in order to bring about the general
welfare.

AIM
The rationalism aimed at developing an individual who could control all aspects
of his life by reason, suppress passions and display of feelings, to live in a highly
artificial society.
The education resulting from this aim was aristocratic, creating a class of
illuminati. They had no use for universal education, since they could not accept the idea
that the lower classes were capable of being educated.
The old moral values were replaced by sexual laxity, immodesty, infidelity, and
extravagance. This was probably the period when ethics and morality were at their
lowest.

SOME OUTSTANDING LEADERS DURING THE RENAISSANCE

1. Martin Luther- a German reformer, the inaugurator of the protestant reformation,

who insisted on state-founded compulsory education for both sexes especially in the
elementary level but also compelled parents to send their children to school. This
provision was considered one of the most important influences of the reformation.

2. Vittorino Da Feltre- taught in the court schools of northern Italy and was believed to
be one of the first teachers to combine physical and mental activity in a school
situation.
3. John Comemius- also known as Johann Amos, an educational reformer and writer.
Poverty delayed his education. His career included three phases, his church career,
his research in the organization of human knowledge, and his interest in practical
education. His famous work, the Great Didactic gives his theories and procedures of
practical education.

4. John Locke- an English philosopher known as the intellectual ruler of the 18th
century, whose theories and knowledge and political life are still widely felt. He
protested against the time devoted to study Latin and Greek and recommended a
broader curriculum and physical training, and strongly advocated the disciplinary
theory of education.

DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN THEORIES IN EDUCATION

The great movement of the 18th century and the beginning of the industrial revolution
aroused a profound humanitarian interest in the education of the masses.

1. Jean Jacques Rosseau- he was an educational theory based on naturalistic. Few

books have such profound influence on the theory and practice of education as he
attracted the formal education and insisted on nature as the best guide to the
educational process.

2. Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi- in his aim to psychologize education, he combined

physical, moral, intellectual, and manual work. His major emphasis on helping
children to learn by experience and observation, rather than by verbalism and
memorization. His own writings (Leonard and Gertrude 1781; How Gertrude
Teaches Her Children, 1801), exercised a widespread influence. His work came to a
crucial point in the history of education, when nations were beginning to establish
systems of compulsory education.

3. Johann Freidrich Herbart- his principle was that ideas are developed in the mind
through external stimuli, and the ideas have a dynamic force which reaches out for
 new ideas. Based on this principle, the teacher’s task is to select ideas in
accordance with the pupil’s backgrounds, to arouse the interest of the pupils, and
gradually to build ideas into a moral and intellectual structure. He advocated the
cultural epochs theory, based on the premise that the growth of children
corresponds to the development of the culture through the ages. To put his theory
into practice, he formulated five steps of instruction: preparation, presentation,
association, generalization, and application.

4. Friedrich Froebel- his theory was based on the concept of the absolute as a
creative force, of which the child’s nature is a part. The function of the teacher is to
promote the growth of the child as a human plant in the direction of its own inner
laws of growth. He stressed creative self-development and spontaneous activity,
making or unfolding the best in the child. He formulated a philosophy of child
development in his Education of Man, Pedagogics of the Kindergarten, and
Education by Development. As he worked out his history in his school at Keilhau,
which came to be known as the kindergarten. Froebel not only encourage play but
elaborated series of gifts and occupation which developed the idea of unity. In the
curriculum he encouraged, through language, song, and manual work. The
kindergarten was not accepted in Germany but it developed widely in the United
States.

5. Ms. Carl Schuurz - The first kindergarten was started by Ms. Carl Schuurz, for
German speaking in Wisconsin (1855); The first such institution for English speaking
children was established by Elizabeth Peabody in Boston (1860). The first public
kindergarten was opened by Susan Blow in St. Louis (1873). The leading exponent
of the kindergarten idea in the US was Professor Patty S. Hill of Teacher College,
Columbia University. Still later, the spirit of kindergarten was introduced in the
infant’s schools of England and France, where, where some aspects of the theory of
Maria Montessori, an Italian Professor, were combined with it.

6. John Dewey- he brought a new concept of the social function of education. Dewey
worked out his theory in his experimental school, which was corrected with the
 University of Chicago. Two principles dominated Dewey’s philosophy of education.
The school is a preparation for life, it is life and the school cannot be a preparation
for social life except as it reproduces the typical conditions of life. In other words,
education must start with the interest, activities, and experience of the child, the
process is one of the constructing that experience through sharing and participating
in group and social activities, in order to develop intelligent members of democracy.
SUMMARY
Both the idea of historical renewed and the use of the term Renaissance itself.
Italian scholars, historians, and students of the classics and often local patriots, begin to
display a remarkable new historical self-consciousness. They believed that their own
time was a new age, at once sharply different from barbaric darkness which they
imagined had preceded it and comparable in its achievements to Roman antiquity.

The history of Christianity during the Renaissance presents sharp contrast. In

various ways, the influence and prestige of the church were declining. Deeply rooted in
older patterns of life and traditional ways of thought, the ecclesiastical institution
adapted slowly to new conditions; and its leadership was often woefully inadequate to
meet the challenges presented by increasingly assertive national state or to satisfy the
spiritual needs of growing numbers of townsmen.