Education in ancient Greece
Education for Greek people was vastly "democratized" in the 5th century B.C., influenced by the Sophists, Plato, and Isocrates. Later, in the Hellenistic period of Ancient Greece, education in a gymn school was considered essential for participation in Greek culture. The value of physical education to the ancient Greeks and Romans has been historically unique. There were two forms of education in ancient Greece: formal and informal. Formal education was attained through attendance to a public school or was provided by a hired tutor. Informal education was provided by an unpaid teacher and occurred in a non-public setting. Education was an essential component of a person's identity.
Formal Greek education was primarily for males and non-slaves. In some poleis, laws were passed to prohibit the education of slaves. The Spartans also taught music and dance, but with the purpose of enhancing their maneuverability as soldiers.
Athenian systems
[Classical Athens] (508–322 BCE)
Elementary EducationElementary education had a long history in Athens as Aristophanes called it the arkhaia paideia. But it was only fully developed in the early fifth century BC and attained its recognisable form. In its developed form, the old education consists of three divisions, gymnastikē or physical education, mousikē or music, and grammata or letters. The boys would attend the classes concurrently and there were separate teachers for each of the disciplines. Although it is similar to modern day elementary level study, this traditional education of the Athenian boys was neither mandatory nor free. The education came at a price and it was up to the fathers’ decision of what and how long the education would be. While the elementary education normally ended when the boys reached their adolescence at around 14 to 15 years old, children from wealthier families would start earlier and end later. Since education commonly ended in early adolescence, a large part of adolescent education was informal and relied on simple human experience.
Physical education
Among the three divisions, the physical education held the prestigious place. It was not because Athens needed her citizens to become competent warriors through physical training. Another institution, the ephebeia would deal with military training. There were two purposes of the sports education. One was to prepare the young boys for local and Panhellenic sports games. The other purpose was to cultivate a strong and beautiful body which was essential to Greek culture.
The teacher of the physical education was called a paidotribēs. The paidotribēs was often a professional athlete himself. A main part of the training was the fighting arts, wrestling, boxing and pankration. Another important component of the training was the athletic sports, racing, discus and javelin throwing and long jump. The paidotribēs supervised and instructed the training in a privately owned palaistra. The famous Athenian public sports centre gymnasium was for the adult citizens. Little was known about how much the paidotribēs would actually charge. It could be very high as Athenaeus mentioned that a course could cost a mina. And a mina could afford the living of a four-people family in Athens for up to three months.
Music education
A kitharistēs was responsible for the music education. He would teach the students to play the kithara, to sing and compose lyric songs and to dance.
The education of music was an essential part of the old education. Plato asserted its parity with the sports. He stated that “gymnastics for the body and music for the soul.” By this, Plato meant the moral function of music and poetry. Aristophanes also emphasised the importance of musical education, stating that the boys would go to the music class “even if the snow is falling as thick as flour.” Given this importance, if one cannot play the lyre and sing in a choir, he was indeed uneducated at all. Accordingly, since the education was heavily charged, ignorance in music was also a symbol of lower socio-economical status.
Letter education
In order to take part in trade and politics, the demand of skills in reading and writing arose to become the third discipline of the old education. Hence, through the practical perspective, education in literacy was the most important among the three disciplines. If the father is not wealthy enough to send his son to attend all three classes, he will send him to a grammatistēs, a letter teacher.
The Athenian boys would study the following subjects at a grammatistēs, reading and writing, literature, and arithmetic. The boys would firstly engage in memorising the Greek letters. In the initial stages, they were required to recognize letters in short syllables. While they were familiarising with the alphabets, they started to write as well. Under the assistance of the grammatistēs, students would write with a stylus on a wax tablet as shown in the paintings on the Douris’ Cup. There is also a detailed written description of the process in Plato’s Protagoras:
...just as writing-masters first draw letters in faint outline with the pen for their less ad- vanced pupils, and then give them the copy-book and make them write according to the guidance of their lines,...After the boys got some progress in the letters, they would proceed to the reading of the poets. Reciting poetry was very important to the adulthood life of the Athenians, especially those of Homer and Hesiod, whose works were highly regarded by the Athenians. Familiarity of Homer’s epic was the permit to the banquets for an educated Athenian man. Furthermore, this component of the syllabus served as another motivation for a poverished father sending his son to the grammatistēs. To learn the stories of the legendary heros by heart was critical to the Athenian identity.
Higher education
The emergence of higher education in ancient Athens was the result of the so-called Sophists Reform happened in the latter half of the Fifth Century BC. It was a higher form of education compared to the old education. Although Freeman and Marrou proposed a classification within this Higher Education, secondary education and tertiary education, Beck refused the proposal. Nevertheless, there was a huge expansion in the subjects student could learn, astronomy, philosophy, mathematics, rhetoric, history and grammar.The sophists were professional teachers and most of them were foreigners, i.e. non-Athenians. They emerged because of the continuously growing need of higher knowledge than basic literacy and numeracy in the democratised Athens. The study normally took three to four years and the tuition fee was reasonable. For example, Protagoras charged a thousand drachma, which would be 10 mina. Despite of all the branches of studies mentioned above, rhetoric, or sometimes referred to as the “art of persuasion” was considered the most critical and fundamental parts of curriculum. This was primarily because mature skills of rhetoric bought the student a ticket to the politics.
Education of Athenian Women
Women and girls in Athens did not participate in formal education. Most women remained at home throughout the majority of their lives, and any schooling that young girls did receive was the responsibility of their mothers and other female elders. While formal education taught boys physical education, letters, music and mathematics, it was a priority that girls learned to manage and take care of the home and family. Girls learned skills such as textile work, cleaning, maintaining the household, and taking care of the younger children in the family. They were also taught to manage a household staff.There were certain conditions in which girls were expected to spend time away from the home. This included being sent on errands and attending religious events and ceremonies. Participating in religion was a way for women and girls to immerse themselves in their community and to learn about their culture. Religious Indoctrination rituals were said to have been important in teaching girls about their purpose, about what was expected of them, and about societal virtues and values that they should represent. Another significant part of girls' education, both inside and outside of religion, was education on bearing and raising children.
Classical Athenian educators
Isocrates (436–338 BC)
was an influential classical Athenian orator. Growing up in Athens exposed Isocrates to educators such as Socrates and Gorgias at a young age and helped him develop exceptional rhetoric. As he grew older and his understanding of education developed, Isocrates disregarded the importance of the arts and sciences, believing rhetoric was the key to virtue. Education's purpose was to produce civic efficiency and political leadership and therefore, the ability to speak well and persuade became the cornerstone of his educational theory. However, at the time there was no definite curriculum for Higher Education, with only the existence of the sophists who were constantly traveling. In response, Isocrates founded his school of Rhetoric around 393 BCE. The school was in contrast to Plato's Academy which was largely based on science, philosophy, and dialectic.Plato (428–348 BC)
was a philosopher in classical Athens who studied under Socrates, ultimately becoming one of his most famed students. Following Socrates' execution, Plato left Athens in anger, rejecting politics as a career and traveling to Italy and Sicily. He returned ten years later to establish his school, the Academy – named after the Greek hero Akademos. Plato perceived education as a method to produce citizens who could operate as members of the civic community in Athens. In one sense, Plato believed Athenians could obtain education through the experiences of being a community member, but he also understood the importance of deliberate training, or Higher Education, in the development of civic virtue. Thus, his reasoning behind founding the academy – what is often credited as the first University.It is at this school where Plato discussed much of his educational program, which he outlined in his best-known work – the Republic. In his writing, Plato describes the rigorous process one must go through in order to attain true virtue and understand reality for what it actually is. The education required of such achievement, according to Plato, included an elementary education in music, poetry, and physical training, two to three years of mandatory military training, ten years of mathematical science, five years of dialectic training, and fifteen years of practical political training. The few individuals equipped to reach such a level would become philosopher-kings, the leaders of Plato's ideal city.