Ancient Greece , a culture of many marvels. Among them their education system and its origins were by far, centuries ahead of any other civilization of its time. Could it even be as advanced as ours? Greek education was a main benefactor in the ancient Greeks lives, and culture and what I am going to tell you only scratches the surface of their extraordinary education system and how it started. Three people mainly started the Greeks education and Sparta 's and Athens 's view on education were very different.
In the beginning stages of education in the Greek empire three people helped to shape it into an extraordinary system. Socrates a well-known philosopher in his time had philosophized, an education system that would educate the masses. Education the entire population of a city or a empire is a very expensive and hard task, but if it can be accomplished its benefits are very great. After Socrates death in 399 BCE Plato took up where he left off and built a school named the “Academy.” (Ozman, Howard) This was a great step in the right direction that would help the entire Greek society. The school that he built was only available to the rich, or the brilliant people of it time so it could be considered more of a college or a university.
The last single Greek to work on the education system was, known mostly for his work in the fields of physics and mathematics, it was Aristotle. Much like Plato he too built a school. This one named the “Lyceum.” (Ozman, Howard) Often at this school much of the learning would be done out of class as students walked around with their teachers and asked them questions. This school was very similar to Plato's school the “Academy.” His school however did not help break barriers in the field of education as it had already been done and did little more than help establish education in the Greeks culture allowing greater advances to take place. Overall these three great Greeks helped mould and shape the education system into something way ahead of its time.
As education continued to evolve it could be said that Sparta and Athens approached their view on how education should be used for very differently. “The goal of education in Sparta , and authoritarian military city-state, was to produce soldier-citizens.” (Crystal, Ellie) Sparta was known for it's military power; therefore it used education as more of a “boot camp,” or military training grounds to train ordinary citizens into legendary soldiers. Boys who lived in Sparta would be taken from home at a very early age 5-6 to be trained to become soldiers. This is something that would not be accepted in modern day society. Because of this radical concept Sparta maintained a very strong military status. Also Sparta was so involved in its military strength that when an infant was born in Sparta a soldier would come to the home to check it for disease, birth defects, or any other abnormities. If anything was found the baby would be killed. The methods of removing an “Imperfect” infant, as they were often viewed as, were very cruel and inhumane. Sometime the infant would just be left on a hillside to starve, or even thrown off a cliff. These malicious acts were viewed as normal by citizens of Sparta , but in modern viewpoints this is something that would never even be considered as good. Although the education in Sparta was widespread in it's poulation and was well developed, it was used for military purposes and not for mental training like today's education.
“In ancient Athens , the purpose of education was to produce citizens trained in the arts, to prepare citizens for both peace and war.” (Crystal Ellie) The education although only for boys was very advanced. But it was also very different from Sparta . Athens was known for theatrical plays, literature, math, and it's many philosophers, so naturally its schools focused in the arts. The schools mainly taught literature but also focused on the area of math and science. The boys of ancient Athens would attend school at around the age of six to seven until they reached the age of thirteen or fourteen. These ages are similar to those of the schools in modern society elementary through middle school. Because of all of this schooling Athenians were the smartest people of their time. The main area of focus for schools in Athens was literature, and Athenians could choose between public, and private schools. This idea of public, and private schools is much like our own. Because of these great education systems in place, living in Athens must have been a great privilege. Athens education much like our own focuses of training the mind instead of the body. Focusing on training the mind rather than the body is not necessarily better though. Just because we are training mentally in modern schools doesn't mean that the Spartans education system was not as good, it was just different and well suited for its time.
Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato were major benefactors in the start of the education in ancient Greece , and their ideas and schools are very similar to the ones we have today. When education system became more widespread and public schools became available, Athens 's, and Sparta 's ideas on education went total different directions with Athens focusing of mental training and Sparta 's focusing on physical training. Although we mainly follow the example of Athens now days with our schools teaching literature, math, and science we still show a little of Sparta's education in our schools with PE, or physical education. Although the Greeks education is not as good as our current system it was still very advanced for a society that lived more than two-thousand years ago. In that time era most empires did not even have any formal education and everything that was learned was simply passed down from generation to generation. I appreciate your consideration on the topic of the Ancient Greeks Education.
