TOPICAL JOURNEY

Education is the movement from darkness to light.

Allan Bloom

Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.

John Dewey

Education is not filling a pail but the lighting of a fire.

William Butler Yeats

Education is learning what you didn’t even know you didn’t know.

Daniel J. Boorstin

Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.

Albert Einstein

The difference between school and life? In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.

Tom Bodett

I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework.

Lily Tomlin as “Edith Ann”

Public education was not founded to give society what it wants. Quite the opposite.

May Sarton

They spent the first three years of school getting you to pretend stuff and then the rest of it marking you down if you did the same thing.

Margaret Atwood

You send your child to the schoolmaster, but ‘tis the schoolboys who educate him.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Education makes a people easy to lead but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave.

Peter Brougham

Instruction does much, but encouragement everything.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Sparta. The boys of Sparta were obliged to leave home at the age of 7 to join sternly disciplined groups under the supervision of a hierarchy of officers. From age 7 to 18, they underwent an increasingly severe course of training. They walked barefoot, slept on hard beds, and worked at gymnastics and other physical activities such as running, jumping, javelin and discus throwing, swimming, and hunting. They were subjected to strict discipline and harsh physical punishment; indeed, they were taught to take pride in the amount of pain they could endure.

At 18, Spartan boys became military cadets and learned the arts of war. At 20, they joined the state militia – a standing reserve force available for duty in time of emergency – in which they served until they were 60 years old.

The typical Spartan may or may not have been able to read. But reading, writing, literature, and the arts were considered unsuitable for the soldier-citizen and were therefore not part of his education. Music and dancing were a part of that education, but only because they served military ends.

Unlike the other Greek city-states, Sparta provided training for girls that went beyond the domestic arts. The girls were not forced to leave home, but otherwise their training was similar to that of the boys. They too learned to run, jump, throw the javelin and discus, and wrestle. The Athenians apparently made sport of the physique prized in Spartan women, for in a comedy by the Athenian playwright Aristophanes a character says to a Spartan girl:

How lovely thou art, how blooming thy skin, how rounded thy flesh! What a prize! Thou mightest strangle a bull.

“The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.”

Aristotle

EARLY CIVILIZATIONS

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. To be able to function in complex societies, man needed some way of accumulating, recording, and preserving his cultural heritage. So with the rise of trade, government, and formal religion came the invention of writing, by about 3100 BC.

Because firsthand experience in everyday living could not teach such skills as writing and reading, a place devoted exclusively to learning – the school – appeared. And with the school appeared a group of adults specially designated as teachers – the scribes of the court and the priests of the temple. The children were either in the vast majority who continued to learn exclusively by an informal apprenticeship or the tiny minority who received formal schooling.

The method of learning 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.”

Of the ancient peoples of the Middle East, the Jews were the most insistent that all children – regardless of class – be educated. In the 1st century AD, the historian Flavius Josephus wrote: “We take most pains of all with the instruction of the children and esteem the observance of the laws and the piety corresponding with them the most important affair of our whole life.” The Jews established elementary schools where boys from about 6 to 13 years of age probably learned rudimentary mathematics and certainly learned reading and writing. The main concern was the study of the first five books of the Old Testament and the precepts of the oral tradition that had grown up around them. At age 13, brighter boys could continue their studies as disciples of a rabbi, the “master” or “teacher.” So vital was the concept of instruction for the Jews that the synagogues existed at least as much for education as for worship.

ANCIENT GREECE

The Greek gods were much more down-to-earth and much less awesome than the remote gods of the East. Because they were endowed with human qualities and often represented aspects of the physical world they were closer to man and to the world he lived in. The Greeks, therefore, could find spiritual satisfaction in the ordinary, everyday world.

The goal of education in the Greek city-states was to prepare the child for adult activities as a citizen.

In Athens the ideal citizen was a person educated in the arts of both peace and war, and this made both schools and exercise fields necessary. Other than requiring two years of military training that began at age 18, the state left parents to educate their sons as they saw fit. The schools were private, but the tuition was low enough so that even the poorest citizens could afford to send their children for at least a few years.

Boys attended elementary school from the time they were about age 6 or 7 until they were 13 or 14. Part of their training was gymnastics. The younger boys learned to move gracefully, do calisthenics, and play ball and other games. The older boys learned running, jumping, boxing, wrestling, and discus and javelin throwing. The boys also learned to play the lyre and sing, to count, and to read and write. But it was literature that was at the heart of their schooling. The national epic poems of the Greeks – Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad – were a vital part of the life of the Athenian people. As soon as their pupils could write, the teachers dictated passages from Homer for them to take down, memorize, and later act out.

The education of mind, body, and aesthetic sense was, according to Plato, so that the boys “may learn to be more gentle, and harmonious, and rhythmical, and so more

Do not train children to learning by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.

Plato

fitted for speech and action; for the life of man in every part has need of harmony and rhythm.”

At 13 or 14, the formal education of the poorer boys probably ended and was followed by apprenticeship at a trade. The wealthier boys continued their education under the tutelage of philosopher-teachers. Until about 390 BC there were no permanent schools and no formal courses for such higher education. Socrates, for example, wandered around Athens, stopping here or there to hold discussions with the people about all sorts of things pertaining to the conduct of man’s life. But gradually, as groups of students attached themselves to one teacher or another, permanent schools were established. It was in such schools that Plato, Isocrates, and Aristotle taught.

The boys who attended these schools fell into more or less two groups. Those who wanted learning for its own sake studied with philosophers like Plato who taught such subjects as geometry, astronomy, harmonics (the mathematical theory of music), and arithmetic. Those who wanted training for public life studied with philosophers like Isocrates who taught primarily oratory and rhetoric. In democratic Athens such training was appropriate and necessary because power rested with the men who had the ability to persuade their fellow senators to act.

ANCIENT ROME

The military conquest of Greece by Rome in 146 BC resulted in the cultural conquest of Rome by Greece. As the Roman poet Horace said, “Captive Greece took captive her rude conqueror and brought the arts to Latium.” Actually, Greek influence on Roman education had begun about a century before the conquest. Originally, most if not all of the Roman boy’s education took place at home. If the father himself were educated, the boy would learn to read and would learn Roman law, history, and customs. The father also saw to his son’s physical training. When the boy was older, he sometimes prepared himself for public life by a kind of apprenticeship to one of the orators of the time. He thus learned the arts of oratory firsthand by listening to the debates in the Senate and in the public forum. The element introduced into Roman education by the Greeks was book learning.

When they were 6 or 7 years old, boys (and sometimes girls) of all classes could be sent by their parents to the ludus publicus, the elementary school, where they studied reading, writing, and counting. At age 12 or 13, the boys of the upper classes attended a “grammar” school where they learned Latin or Greek or both and studied grammar and literature. Grammar consisted of the study of declensions and conjugations and the analysis of verbal forms. Both Greek and Latin literature were studied. The teacher would read the work and then lecture on it, while the students took notes that they later memorized. At age 16, the boys who wanted training for public service went on to study public speaking at the rhetoric schools.

The graded arrangement of schools established in Rome by the middle of the 1st century BC ultimately spread throughout the Roman Empire. It continued until the fall of the empire in the 5th century AD.

Although deeply influenced by Greek education, Roman education was nonetheless quite different. For most Greeks, the end of education was to produce a good citizen, and a good citizen meant a well-rounded individual. The goal of Roman education was the same, but for the Romans a good citizen meant an effective speaker. The result was that they disregarded such nonutilitarian Greek studies as science, philosophy, music, dancing, and gymnastics, basing their education instead on literature and oratory. Even their study of literature, with its overemphasis on the technicalities of grammar and its underemphasis on content, had the purpose of producing good orators.

When the Roman Republic became an empire, in 31 BC, the school studies lost even their practical value. For then it was not the orator in the Senate but the emperor who had the power.

Because of the emphasis on the technical study of language and literature and because the language and literature studied represented the culture of a foreign people, Roman education was remote from the real world and the interests of the schoolboys. Vigorous discipline was therefore necessary to motivate them to study. And the Roman boys were not the last to suffer in this situation. When the empire fell, the education that was originally intended to train orators for the Roman Senate became the model

ETYMOLOGY

OF THE WORD SCHOOL

The English word school comes to us through Old English scol from Latin schola from Greek

σχολή schole. The word schole is akin to the

Greek verb echein/schein ‘to have, to hold.’ Thus the prime and original meaning of σχολή in the most ancient Greek was ‘time held for yourself,’ that is, leisure time to use for learning important life insights, not job skills, but learning you chose to help you understand who you were and who you might become in an examined life. Greek

σχολή and Latin schola came also to mean ‘sitting for a learned lecture from a philosopher’ and

‘school.’

ETYMOLOGY OF ΣΧΟΛΗ SCHOLE

Although schole can be translated as leisure, that is not what the word meant to literate Greeks of Athens in the time of Plato and Aristotle. Aristotle, in particular, spoke of σχολή ‘schole’ as the most useful of times, time you set aside for your learning. You, the elite individual, set this leisure time apart from daily routine, not for idleness, but for discussion, learning. Aristotle wrote: “We work in order to be at leisure.” Once at leisure, we try to learn what is valuable to know. In his

Politics, Aristotle noted that “The first principle of all action is leisure. Both are required, but leisure is better than occupation and is its end.”

ASCHOLIA?

Interestingly, the ancient Greek word for work, job, labour was: ascholia. It means literally ‘not leisure’ or ‘lack of leisure.’ The ancient Romans had a similar concept, using Latin roots. The

Roman word for business was negotium, from which we get the English verb negotiate. Literally the Latin noun negotium means nec + otium = ‘not leisure.’

SCHOOL ALL OVER

Once introduced into European culture, Latin schola proved a popular word indeed, adopted in almost all the Romance, Teutonic and Celtic tongues: Old French escole, modern French école, Portuguese, Catalan escola, Spanish escuela, Italian scuola, Old High German scuola, modern German Schule, Dutch school, modern

Frisian skoalle, Swedish skola, Danish skol,

Modern Irish and Gaelic sgoil, Welsh ysgol, Breton skol, Russian школа ‘shkola’ and Modern Greek σχολείο ‘scholio.’ Of course, the modern

Greek was not borrowed from Latin but was inherited directly from classical Greek σχολή.

IDIOMS

ABOUT TEACHING AND LEARNING a for effort recognize that someone tries hard to do something even though they may not be successful

The students received an “a” for effort for their work on the class project.

above average better or higher than average

The boy received above average marks in all subjects except history.

ace a test to get a perfect score or to do very well on a test

I’m going to study really hard so that I can ace the test.

all-nighter a study or work session that goes through the night; studying without sleep (usually a last-minute course of action)

We pulled an all-nighter to finish the report. as easy as ABC very easy

Learning how to use a computer was as easy as

ABC for the children.

back to basics an approach in education which uses traditional ideas or methods that have been successful in the past

The teacher believed that back to basics was important in her classroom and the parents were happy with the results.

below average worse or lower than average

Most members of the class were below average in the math test.

blow something to do something poorly, to fail something

I can’t believe I blew another test. My grades are going down the tube.

bookworm someone who reads a lot

My sister is a bookworm and is always reading a book.

brain a very intelligent person

Mike is such a brain. He knows everything. brainstorm something try to develop an idea or think of new ideas

The students got into groups to brainstorm ideas for the school play.

call the roll call the names of students on a roll and usually expect them to answer if they are there

Every morning before the class started the teacher called the roll.

cap and gown the special cap called a mortarboard and the robe that is worn during academic ceremonies such as graduation

All of the students wore a cap and gown to the graduation ceremony.

catch up to (someone or something) move fast or work hard to reach someone or something that is ahead of you

After my illness I had to study very hard to catch up to the rest of the class.

copycat someone who copies the work of another

The children called the girl a copycat when they discovered that she had copied part of the test from another student.

count noses count the number of people

The teacher stopped to count noses several times during the field trip.

Compiled by Lydia Galochkina,

School No. 1171, Moscow

See more on CD.

Somewhere in the world, right now, students are hard at work in school. With over 190 nations spanning the globe’s 24 time zones, students and their academic years come in a variety of forms.

Australia

Students in Australia attend school for 200 days a year. Their school year lasts from late January to mid December. Since Australia is in the southern hemisphere, it experiences summer while it’s winter in the northern hemisphere. Summer vacation for Australian students is from mid December to late January. Their school year is divided into four terms, with each

term lasting 9 to 11 weeks. Students then have two weeks of vacation between each term. The typical school day is from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., and lunch is eaten at school. Students are required to attend school for at least eleven years, but they usually attend for twelve years. The average class size is eighteen students and there are about six computers per classroom.

School grades in Australia are called years. Kindergarten is the first year of formal schooling, followed by year 1 through year 6; secondary school is from year 7 to year 12. A 6 year old begins in year one, while an 18 year old finishes school by year 12. From year one to year six, students spend about 12 hours a week working on math and English. Many schools integrate subjects, meaning they combine two or more academic subjects. For instance, say your class is studying coral reefs. A non-integrated approach would have students study coral reels only in science class. An integrated method incorporates math, by taking measurements, for example, and language arts. Students would then use that information to write a report about coral reefs.

Brazil

In Brazil, kids start school at age 7. They stop going to school when they are 14 years old. The school day in Brazil runs from 7 a.m. to noon, and students typically go home at noon to share lunch with their family. Lunch is the most important meal of the day. Most schools require students to wear a uniform.

Math, geography, history, science, Portuguese, which is the national language of Brazil, and physical education are the main subjects studied by students in Brazil. Many schools can barely afford to teach those subjects, which means that courses like art and music are often

left out in poorer areas. The average class size is 30 or more students. Most schools do not have a computer in the classrooms, or have only one or two computers for 30 students to share. School vacation takes place from mid-November to mid-February.

China

Because China is in the northern hemisphere, its summer months are in line with Asia, Europe, and North America. The school year in China typically runs from the beginning of September to mid-July. Summer vacation is generally spent in summer classes or studying for entrance exams. The average school day runs from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., with a two-hour lunch break. Formal education in China lasts for nine years. China provides all students with uniforms, but does not require they be worn.

There are about 21 students in each classroom. All Chinese students study from textbooks that emphasize China’s unity, past and present accomplishments, and its future. Students in China also have great access to computer technology, with a computer to student ratio of 1:2. Chinese language and math skills are tested at the end of each year.

Math is typically taught by drill, which means students are repeatedly taught the basics of math until they are able to demonstrate comprehension. Education in China since the turn of the 21st century has been undergoing reform, with curriculum being redesigned to emphasize group activities and other methods believed to foster creativity and innovation.

Sources: http://www.factmonster.com; http://www.guardian.co.uk

Les Vinyes Primary and Secondary School by

MMDM Arquitectes S.C.P. – Barcelona, Spain

nd the World

France

The school day in France typically runs from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., with a half day on Saturday, although students do not attend school on Wednesday or Sunday. Lunch is a two-hour break for public school students. Students usually attend school from ages 6 to 18. The average number of students per class is 23. Uniforms are not required, but religious dress of any kind is banned. The school year for this country in the northern hemisphere stretches from August to June, and is divided into four seven-week terms, with one to two weeks of vacation in between.

Students in the primary grades, from age’s 6 to 11, learn basic skills in reading, writing, and math, as well as participate in exercises to develop observation, reasoning, imagination, and physical abilities. Older students study French, math, physical and natural sciences, foreign language, history and geography, economics, and civics.

Japan

Most Japanese schools run on a trimester schedule. The academic year begins in April and ends the following March, with breaks for summer, winter and spring separating the three terms. Uniforms are required and there are extensive rules for hair styles, shoes, socks, skirt length, make-up, accessories, and more.

In each classroom, the average number of students is 29 with five or six computers to share between them. Students in Japan study academic subjects, such as Japanese language, math, reading, social studies, music, and art, and they also receive moral education. Moral education involves teaching students about health and safety, living a disciplined life, courtesy, understanding and confidence, public manners, and environmental awareness.

Nigeria

The school year in Nigeria runs from January to December. The year is divided into three semesters with a month off in between each semester. Students must wear uniforms, as well as obey rules for hair, jewelry, and accessory restrictions.

There are about 40 students in each classroom in Nigeria. There they will learn one of the three main languages (Hausa, Yoruba, or Ibo), math, English, so-

cial studies, health and physical education, religious instruction, agriculture, and home economics.

North Korea

Students in North Korea must attend school for 11 years, beginning at age 5. Students must wear uniforms provided by the government, and many students receive room and board from their government.

Students study music, art, math, the Korean language, social education. Social education includes studying about the former leader Kim Il Song, and

“Communist Morality.” In later years they learn about the policies of the communist party. Social education also provides students with a controlled environment in which to learn so they are protected from “bad or unplanned influences.”

By Mark Hughes

http://www.huffingtonpost.com; iteslg.org

CONVERSATION QUESTIONS

•Do you go to a public school or a private one?

•What are the advantages of each type of school?

•Which type of school did you want to go to?

•Do most of your teachers take attendance?

•Do some of your teachers let class out early?

•What do you think when the teacher lets the class out early?

•Do you enjoy studying English?

•Math?

•Science?

•Art?

•Biology?

•Chemistry?

•What's your favorite subject?

•Why do you like it?

•Who is the teacher?

•Which subjects are you good at? (What are your strong subjects?)

•Which subjects are you poor at? (Which subjects are difficult for you?)

•What classes do you not like? Why don't you like them?

•Do you ever skip class?

•Do you have any evening classes?

•Do you still keep in touch with your best friend in elementary school?

•Have you ever been absent?

•Have you ever been late for class? If so, why? Did the teacher get angry?

•Have you ever slept in class?

•How do you get to school?

•How long does it take you to get to school?

•What time does your first class begin on Tuesday?

•How much homework do you do every day?

•Do you have to wear a uniform to your school? Do you like wearing a uniform?

•Do you think school uniform is a good idea? Why/Why not?

•Are the clothes you wear to school important?

•Do you feel pressure to wear expensive, designer clothes to school?

•Do you think fashion is important at school?

•What do you like best about your school?

•What do you like the least about your school?

•What do you want to do after you graduate?

•What were some of the rules you have to follow at your school?

•Which rules do you think are unfair?

•Did you ever get caught breaking any school rules?

•Who is your favorite teacher?

•What course does he or she teach?

•Why do you like him or her?

•What are the major characteristics you think a teacher should have?

•Who do you like to sit with in your classroom?

•Do you like to be taught by a male or female teacher?

•Which subjects do you think are not useful or needed anymore?

•Do you think girls work together much better if there are no boys around?