The
answer to the question “How ‘R’ you?” over the centuries has come to epitomise
who is considered an educated person. ‘R’ is the defining
letter when it comes to understanding the evolving story of western education.
‘R’ stands for Reading, of course, but the ‘R’ of ‘Riting and ‘Rithmetic follow
not too far behind. How they got added and how ‘R’ was redefined from Rhetoric
to Religion to Reason, reveals the changing emphasis of education, which is
what we’re talking about here.
We
begin the story with the Spartans for whom an unyielding Resolve was the
essence of education.
The
Spartans considered the art of fighting, courage and valour as the end game of
education for their lads (not the girls mind you, they had to learn sewing,
knitting and cooking from their mums and nurses). If you have seen the movie 300, you know this. The setting is the
Battle of Thermopylae fought in 480 B.C. where King Leonidas of Sparta, with
just 300 soldiers, shows the Persian army a thing or two about daring gallantry
and superhuman grit. That was what Spartan education aspired to impart.
Rowdiness and bullying would have probably got you an A+ in a Spartan school!
After
defeating the Persians in the Battle of Marathon earlier in 390 B.C., their
neighbours, the Athenians, had become a little wussy. Their sense of duty to
the State had got diluted and to them, the sign of an educated man (again not
the women and men only if they could claim the right antecedents) was a person
literate in grammar – elegance of language, and in rhetoric – the fine art of
argumentation. Their teachers, called Sophists, through discussions and
debates, trained Athenian students to reason effectively on both sides of an
argument. Sophists would make a killing today tutoring politicians!
Socrates
was the rockstar teacher and he added the ‘art of living a good life’ to the
Athenian curriculum. Man became the measure of all things, emphasis was on
correct individual thinking and 'Know Thyself' became the key mantra of good
education. Socrates’ superstar student, Plato, founded the ‘Academy’ in 386
B.C. that became the model for famous schools like ‘Lyceum' started in 335 B.C.
by Plato’s protégé Aristotle (same chap who was tutor to Alexander the Great)
and the school of the Epicureans, founded by Epicurus in 306 B.C., among
others.
Then
the Romans came along. They were doers, not really into philosophical
ruminations. They believed great education meant excellence in agriculture and
the ability to engineer fine aqueducts so that rich Roman citizens could have
luxurious baths in the comfort of their homes. They built an Empire and gave it
law and order. When the Romans clashed with the Greeks, this alchemy led to the
philosophical, intellectual and aesthetic education cultivated by the Greeks,
being enjoyed and promoted through much of the vast Roman Empire.
The
next big change in education came with the rise of Christianity and the zeal
with which its believers wanted to influence (some would say indoctrinate)
those with a more pagan bent of mind. The spread of churches meant that a
greater number of trained clergy was required and a rudimentary form of school
called Episcopal schools emerged to meet this growing demand. In 529, St
Benedict, a wealthy Roman, tired of corruption in his city, founded the
monastery of Monte Cassino, with a strict curriculum that included living a
life of poverty, chastity, obedience, labour and religious devotion. (Read: No
fun!) This idea caught on and thousands of monasteries were established. Among
other things, the monks diligently copied famous classical texts like writings
of Plato and Aristotle, thus preserving this knowledge for posterity. Good
thing there were no copyright lawyers then!
Christians
loved their choir music and Song schools emerged to impart training. This was a
welcome move for the monks who could now focus on advancing knowledge in the
seven liberal arts – the Trivium: grammar, rhetoric and dialectic (logic), and
the Quadravium: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music. They created advance
schools called Grammar schools. The rising demand for church schools meant more
teachers were needed and the obvious way to meet this demand was to train more
assistant teachers, under the supervision of the diocese. And in 1150, the
License Raj in teaching emerged as a License to Teach was required to join a
church school.
The
3Rs of education at this time were Reading, ‘Riting and Religion.
