Lesson 4 TOPIC 4: Ancient Greece • Explore the educational

• The Sophists history of ancient Greece

• Socrates: Education by Self-Examination
• Plato: Universal and Eternal Truths and
Values
• Aristotle: Cultivation of Rationality
• Examines how leading
TOPIC 5: European Thinkers
• Rousseau: Educating the Natural Child
• Pestalozzi: Educating the whole Child’s
Mind, Body, and Emotions.
• Spenser: Social Darwinist and Utilitarian
Educator
and Rome illuminating the
origins of Western culture and
education.
education pioneers develop
new ideas about education
through innovative teaching
and learning strategies that
improved schools,
curriculum, and methods of
instruction.

Why This Lesson

In this lesson, we will be exploring how the ancient Greek ideal of the liberal arts and science shaped the course
of Western education. The second part of the lesson will examine how leading educational pioneers developed
new ideas about education for the improvement of schools, curriculum, and methods of instruction related to
the teaching and learning process.
ty
The Sophists

Who are the Sophists? The word Sophist is derived from the Greek, sophia which means wisdom or learning. In
general, it refers to the “one who exercises wisdom of learning.” The sophist could be a person who has specific
expertise in the conduct of life and higher kinds of insight associated with seers and poets.

The sophists were itinerant professional teachers and intellectuals who visited Athens and other Greek cities in the
second half of the fifth century B.C.E. In return for a fee, the sophists offered young wealthy Greek men an
education in aretē (virtue or excellence), thereby attaining wealth and fame while also arousing significant
opposition. Prior to the fifth century B.C.E., aretē was predominately associated with aristocratic warrior virtues
such as courage and physical strength. In democratic Athens of the latter fifth century B.C.E., aretē was
increasingly understood in terms of the ability to influence one’s fellow citizens in political gatherings through
rhetorical persuasion; the sophistic education both grew out of and exploited this shift.

The Sophists are not considered a “philosophical school.” They were individual professionals who are not
interested in the endorsement of specific doctrine.

Design new approach to teacning

Grammar, logic and rhetoric

Knowledge as an instrument

The most famous representatives of the sophistic movement are Protagoras, Gorgias, Antiphon, Hippias, Prodicus,
and Thrasymachus.

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 Protagoras Georgias
Relativist, Agnostic Rhetorician

Thrasymachus Critias
Rhetorician, "Realist" Atheist, Leader of Thirty Tyrants

Prodicus
Hippias
Grammarian, Theorist of
Polymath
Religion

Protagoras, one of the most famous of all Sophists, invented the role of professional Sophist. He was concerned
about issues of morality and politics, and quite relevant in crucial issues of the modern age. Protagoras is best
known for his claim, "Of all things the measure is man, of the things that are, that they are, and of things that are
not, that they are not.”

Watch this video:

https://youtu.be/2BkhnoQHxhs
https://youtu.be/3b4BhMR93Ww
https://youtu.be/jng9tz-a9As

Socrates: The Self-Examination

Socrates was born c. 469/470 BCE to the sculptor Sophronicus and the mid-wife Phaenarete. He studied music,
gymnastics, and grammar in his youth (the common subjects of study for a young Greek) and followed his father's
profession as a sculptor. Tradition holds that he was an extraordinary artist and his statue of the Graces, on the
road to the Acropolis, is said to have been admired into the 2nd century CE. Socrates served with distinction in
the army and, at the Battle of Potidaea, saved the life of General Alcibiades.

Socrates is one of the few individuals who shaped the cultural and intellectual development of the world He is
best known for his association with the Socratic method of question and answer, his claim that he was ignorant
(or aware of his own absence of knowledge), and his claim that the unexamined life is not worth living, for human
beings. He was the inspiration for Plato, the thinker widely held to be the founder of the Western philosophical
tradition. Plato in turn served as the teacher of Aristotle, thus establishing the famous triad of ancient
philosophers: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Unlike other philosophers of his time and ours, Socrates never wrote
anything down but was committed to living simply and to questioning the everyday views and popular opinions
of those in his home city of Athens. At the age of 70, he was put to death at the hands of his fellow citizens on
charges of impiety and corruption of the youth. His trial, along with the social and political context in which

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occurred, has warranted as much treatment from historians and classicists as his arguments and methods have
from philosophers.

The Socratic method is variously defined as:

• a pedagogical technique
• a teaching style
• a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue
• a form of dialogic discussion
• a form of inquiry and debate
• a method of inquiry and instruction
• a disciplined form of questioning

How to Use the Socratic Method?

Socrates is said to have exclaimed that an unexamined life is not worth living. This has been interpreted to mean
‘a life enriched by thinking about things that matter: values, aims, society’. Some scholars call attention to
Socrates’ emphasis on human nature here and argue that the call to live examined lives follows from our nature
as human beings. We are naturally directed by pleasure and pain. We are drawn to power, wealth, and
reputation, the sorts of values to which Athenians were drawn as well. Socrates’ call to live examined lives is not
necessarily an insistence to reject all such motivations and inclinations but rather an injunction to appraise their
true worth for the human soul. The purpose of the examined life is to reflect upon our everyday motivations and
values and to subsequently inquire into what real worth if any, they have. If they have no value or indeed are
even harmful, it is upon us to pursue those things that are truly valuable.

Watch this video: https://youtu.be/NCL6DOKhPto

Plato: Universal and Eternal Truths and Values

Plato is one of the world’s best-known and most widely read and studied philosophers. He was the student of
Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle, and he wrote in the middle of the fourth century B.C.E. in ancient Greece.
Though influenced primarily by Socrates, to the extent that Socrates is usually the main character in many of
Plato’s writings, he was also influenced by Heraclitus, Parmenides, and the Pythagoreans.

Plato began his career as a writer of tragedies, but hearing Socrates talk, he wholly abandoned that path and
even burned a tragedy he had hoped to enter in a dramatic competition. There can be no question of Plato’s
mastery of dialogue, characterisation, and dramatic context.

Plato valued education and the way it changes people. He was known for thinking about an ideal government
and society and believed that to maintain a stable state, it was necessary that all citizens were educated. Plato
was known for having ideas about a perfect state, and he believed that education was one of the keys to
eradicating evil and achieving this. Because if people were educated and sound, then the need for establishing
laws was unnecessary; but if they were uneducated, then the laws were useless. This was among the earliest
mooted the idea of idealism based on the notion of a perfect state.

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For Plato, education was more than just memorising facts while sitting in a classroom from youth to maturity.
Instead, education was a life-long process and even adults could be trained and educated, thus creating a
system in which even adults were trained.

In Plato’s The Republic, Plato wrote that education was not limited to youth and that one could continue to learn
even after one reached maturity. It wasn’t just the mind that was affected by learning, but also the soul in
different stages of growth. Thus, in different stages of life, people observed certain ways of learning. It starts in
infancy and childhood, where the character is trained through emotions. By adolescence, people can begin to
understand logical reasoning as well as science and philosophy. Younger adults can start to understand more
advanced physical and intellectual concepts and search for their own versions of their truth (read about Plato’s
“The Allegory of the Cave” to understand more about Plato’s beliefs on the truth).

But while Athenian education was limited to male children, Plato takes it one step further and argues that for a
truly perfect state, both boys and girls needed to receive an education. Plato didn’t see a difference between
what men and women were capable of, and their roles in a perfect society required both sexes to be educated.

Plato believed that in order to maintain a utopian society, the government had to control the education and
the information their people learned. He believed that it was a means for a ruler to shape his people’s beliefs
and provide them with patriotic commitment towards their state and the duties they needed to perform. He
believed that an educated state could lead to the perfect state. And this is what led to an educational system
similar to the one we see in most countries today. While some parts of his theories on education can be disagreed
upon given the current state of moral values, his philosophy proved that it was possible for people to continuously
learn and not just limit education to youths.

Aristotle: Cultivation of Rationality

Aristotle (c. 384 B.C. to 322 B.C.) was an Ancient Greek philosopher and scientist who is still considered one of the
greatest thinkers in politics, psychology, and ethics. When Aristotle turned 17, he enrolled in Plato’s Academy. In
338, he began tutoring Alexander the Great. In 335, Aristotle founded his own school, the Lyceum, in Athens,
where he spent most of the rest of his life studying, teaching, and writing. Some of his most notable works
include Nichomachean Ethics, Politics, Metaphysics, Poetics, and Prior Analytics.

Aristotle is a towering figure in ancient Greek philosophy, who made important contributions to logic, criticism,
rhetoric, physics, biology, psychology, mathematics, metaphysics, ethics, and politics. He was a student
of Plato for twenty years but is famous for rejecting Plato’s theory of forms. He was more empirically minded than
both Plato and Plato’s teacher, Socrates.

Aristotle was convinced that a genuinely happy life (eudaimonia) required the fulfillment of a broad range of
conditions, including physical as well as mental well-being. In this way, he introduced the idea of a science of
happiness in the classical sense, in terms of a new field of knowledge. For Aristotle, happiness is an end or goal

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that encompasses the totality of one’s life. It is not something that can be gained or lost in a few hours, like
pleasurable sensations. It is more like the ultimate value of your life as lived up to this moment, measuring how
well you have lived up to your full potential as a human being.

Aristotle’s ethics is sometimes referred to as “virtue ethics” since its focus is not on the moral weight of duties or
obligations, but on the development of character and the acquiring of defined virtues such as courage, justice,
temperance, benevolence, and prudence.

Watch this video: https://youtu.be/MVAQVAaBAbc

Reflection activity
Define the concept of “happiness”, from Aristotle point of view.

Rousseau: Educating the Natural Child

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was a leading proponent of the "natural" education of children and an
influencer of educators and teachers in his time. Arising in an environment that generated the French Revolution,
Rousseau was forever suspicious of the effect of institutions on the individual.

Rousseau’s views started to change parenting practices. Rousseau argued that children were inherently
innocent, weak, and easily tempted. He believed that humans were born pure until one’s interactions with the
environment caused negative effects on one’s development. Rousseau also believed that children needed
protection from child labor and negative influences within civilisation. In summary, he coined the famous quote,
“Man is born free but everywhere he is in chains.”

There are three fundamentals of nature, as proposed by him:

1. Isolation from society: Students should be isolated from society and brought up by the laws of nature.

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 2. Innate tendencies of the child: According to him, the innate tendencies to primitive emotions, instinctive
judgment, and natural instincts are a more reliable basis for action than the experience gained from
society.
3. Contact with the natural environment: Education is to make contact with the natural environment.
Accordingly, he will automatically become a rational being and act according to the voice of his
conscience.

Rousseau’s work is credited as being the first developmental account of childhood via his emphasis on
maturation and stages of development, in his famous book “Emile.”

• Childhood (0 to 12 years): children are guided by simple impulses and simply react to their surroundings.
• Pre-Adolescence (12 to 16 years): children begin to develop reason and are able to comprehend more
abstract ideas.
• Puberty and Adulthood (16 years and onward): children develop into adults that can navigate society
and its moral issues.

Rousseau in his book Emile came to believe that men and women are not and ought not to be constituted alike
in character and temperament. Women should be taught sewing, embroidery, and lace work. They should also
be taught singing, dancing, and accomplishment. Ethics and religion must be taught but not philosophy, science,
or art. Girls should be taught to be obedient and industrious. In respect of women’s education, Rousseau appears
to be conservation and traditional.

Read: Article 4.1

Watch this video: https://youtu.be/6jEd7GtpVlY

Pestalozzi: Educating the whole Child’s Mind, Body, and Emotions

Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827) is known as the Father of Modern Education. The modern era of education
started with him, and his spirit and ideas led to the great educational reforms in Europe in the nineteenth century.

Besides teaching children with his unique methods, Pestalozzi also taught education leaders of his day, including
Friedric Froebel, the founder of the kindergarten movement. Additionally, his methods and writings influenced
educational leaders and philosophers, such as Johann Friedrich Herbart, John Dewey, Maria Montessori, and
Jean Piaget.

Pestalozzi believed in the ability of every individual human being to learn and in the right of every individual to
education. He believed that it was the duty of society to put this right into practice. Pestalozzi was particularly
concerned about the condition of the poor. Some of them did not go to school. If they did, the school education
was often useless for their needs. He wanted to provide them with an education that would make them
independent and able to improve their own lives. Pestalozzi believed that education should develop the powers
of ‘Head’, ‘Heart’, and ‘Hands’. He believed that this would create moral individuals who are capable of knowing
what is right and what is wrong and of acting according to this knowledge. Thus, the well-being of every individual
could be enhanced and each individual could become an accountable citizen. He believed that empowering
and exalting every individual in this way was the only way to improve society and bring peace and security to
the world. He tried to create a complete theory of education that would lead to a practical way of bringing
happiness to humankind.

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He postulated that children learn through their senses and concrete experiences. Instead of teaching through
rote memorisation and recitation, Pestalozzi believed children should be actively engaged in the learning
process. To prepare children for life, Pestalozzi emphasised the use of concrete, or hands-on, instructional
materials. The primary characteristics of Pestalozzi’s teaching methods include recognising children’s potential
through careful observation, understanding the importance of teacher-student relationships, strengthening peer
relations, and providing opportunities for children to learn the senses.

Spenser: Social Darwinist and Utilitarian Educator

Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) is considered a harsh social Darwinist. He is best remembered for his doctrine
of social Darwinism, according to which the principles of evolution, including natural selection, apply to human
societies, social classes, and individuals as well as to biological species developing over geologic time. In
Spencer’s day social Darwinism was mentioned to justify laissez-faire economics and the minimal state, which
were thought to best promote unfettered competition between individuals and the gradual improvement of
society through the “survival of the fittest,” a term that Spencer himself introduced. He was a great English
philosopher and prolific writer.

The most significant contribution of Herbert Spencer to Sociology is the theory of evolution. He used the principles
of physical and biological evolution in order to elaborate and explain his theory of social evolution.
In physical evolution, a movement is from an indefinite incoherent situation to a definite and coherent situation.
Besides, the underlying principles of physical evolution are a movement from simple to complex and
homogeneity to heterogeneity. In biological evolution, only those creatures that survive in the struggle for
existence who are able to make effective adjustments with changing circumstances.

Theory of Value

According to Spenser, education should be directed to self-preservation,

care of offspring, preparing adults to enjoy nature, literature, and fine arts,
and prepare to be good citizens. Knowledge of science is worth more
than any other knowledge. Education is aimed at training the memory,
cultivating judgment, impart an admirable moral and religious discipline.

Theory of Knowledge

Knowledge is to be seen as the scientific study of education, psychology, sociology, and ethics from the
evolutionary point of view. There are two fundamental beliefs of knowledge – the importance of science, and
the sanctity of political and economic laissez-faire.

Theory of Learning

What is learning? How are skills and knowledge acquired?

According to Spencer, learning works as an individual effort. However, it should be achieved through
collaborative learning. Good training of the senses will lead to the rational explanation of phenomena. Children
habitually experience the normal consequences of their conduct. Motivation is important the interest of students
can be engaged through a variety of instructions.

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Watch this video: https://youtu.be/M6uNOGzKPTM

Reflection activity
Explain the concept of survival of the fittest by Spencer as compared to Darwinism.

References:
1. Ornstein, A. C., D. U., Gutek, G.L. & Vocke, D. E. (2017). Foundations of Education. (13e) USA: Cengage
Learning.
2. McNergney, R., & McNergney, J. (2013). Foundations of Education: The Challenge of Professional
Practice. (4th ed.). Boston: Pearson
3. Hall, A. (2015). The Philosophy Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained. London: DK.

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