Education in ancient civilizations

Education in ancient civilizations

Context :

With the gradual rise of more complex civilizations in the river valleys of Egypt and Babylonia, knowledge became too complicated to transmit directly from person to person and from generation to generation. Education was possible thanks to the invention of writing (3100 BC) that allowed the raise of trade, government and formal religion.

Aims :

To be able to function in complex societies, man needed some way of accumulating, recording, and preserving his cultural heritage, this was made to be teached in the future to the other kids and people.

Education has 3 objectives, ethic, intellectual and biological

Methodology :

For example, in the ancient Egypt the methodology was memorization, and the motivation was the fear of harsh physical discipline. On an ancient Egyptian clay tablet discovered by archaeologists, a child had written: "Thou didst beat me and knowledge entered my head."

In Greece, they used to study until 20 years and they study music and literature, science, mathematics and politics. Girls didn’t used to go to school and boys at the age of 18 must go to military training. They thought knowledge was more important than the art of speaking.

In the Mesopotamian education was too strict, they considered that if you knew how to write and read you may find a good job. Education was just for reach people and only for men. The length of the learning process was about 12 years.

Authours :

• Publius Vergilius Maro (known in English as Vergil or Virgil) was born in 70 BCE in the village of Andes, near Mantua, in what was then Cisalpine Gaul and is now northern Italy. His influence on the world's literature and the didactic of it.

• Plato literally established the first academy ever. It was even called the Academy.There's not much pressure to extract what he added to the academic system, seeing it is actually one of his creations. The academy is the first university in the history of the western world.

• Homero is one of the most influential authors in the widest sense, for the two epics provided the basis of Greek education and culture throughout the Classical age and formed the backbone of humane education down to the time of the Roman Empire and the spread of Christianity.

The movement at present :

There are lots of differences between the education now and before. For example:

It was less creative that modern students.

Before, they used to study static culture, and now the study dynamic cultures.

Now, the relation with the kids and teacher is much better than before, this helps to improve the development.

Now, teachers try to keep attention in the development of capacities, before they keep the attention just in the memory.

In the past, they had much less information of knowledge, now we have lost of sources to find information.