17) School education in Europe in the mirror of time! Written by Rainer: rainer.lehrer@yahoo.com Learn languages (via Skype): Rainer: + 36 20 549 52 97 or + 36 20 334 79 74

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School education in Europe in the mirror of time! The first really known schools in Europe were formed in Athens. Today's students would probably be happy to go to an academy as it was called at the time. Socrates taught in a park called 'Akademos'. So one did not teach in a building, but met in a kind of park, in which the trees offered shadow against the burning sun. An older inactive person answered the questions of inactive youngsters and they discussed. Plato, who deified his own teacher Socrates, wrote down some of these conversations. No subject seemed taboo and that was probably one of the reasons why Socrates was either driven to death or out of the city. He had long been accused of spoiling the youth. Even today's parents and heads of state would most likely have complained about one of the greatest philosophers of all time when he, Socrates, hung his feet in the water of a cooling spring at midday and explained to a 12-year-old what real love is; And he didn't even mean love between man and woman. The Romans then continued with “Ludus” (game), the school and “Magister”, the teacher. The wealthier bought an educated Greek on the slave market. However, the learned Greek was really treated like a slave. For example, he received the punishment that should have been given to the children because one couldn't touch the latter, since they were “liber” (free). Above all, one learned to write, read and of course the knowledge gathered from all over the Roman empire. The next major step were the organized schools of the Catholic Church, so that the necessary number of scribes would be available for their administrative tasks. This should secure the existence of the church for a period of 1500 years, since barbaric-warlike peoples and their rulers and later European kings based their administrative part of their power on this organizational ability. These schools also prepared for the universities founded since the 12th century, since lectures there were held exclusively in Latin. That only changed at the time of Napoleon, when he reorganized the state system. Offices were no longer sold, but were awarded on the basis of merit or knowledge of the civil service. This naturally made it necessary to set up a school system. The teacher no longer just gave a lecture (at the universities that had existed up until then, he hadn't really paid much attention to whether the audience learned something), but was forced to control the learning process of his protégés because they would have to take an exam at the end, and if too many failed, the teacher was held responsible. That was the second step to pedagogy. The first had already been done by John Lock, who condemned the beating of the students by the teacher as an upbringing method, or Rousseau, who dealt with it in his book "Emil, or on education". But corporal punishment lasted until we got the encouragement of the pupil by the teacher today via “laissez faire”. However, it has already been recognized that this is not necessarily the best thing, because children, like everyone else, have to learn in their lives how to cope with success and failure. Back to list!

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