The History of Education
Happy Friday, everyone.
In our elementary, middle, and high school classrooms, the study of history is the underpinning of everything our students learn. Instead of merely learning how to add, subtract, multiply and divide in their math lessons, for example, our elementary students learn about the history and invention of number systems, the amazing breakthroughs that have happened in mathematics throughout time, and the awe-inspiring individuals who spearheaded each discovery.
The reason we place such an emphasis on history is because an inspired understanding of the past—not primarily as a list of facts and dates to memorize, but as a living tapestry that is relevant, practical, and tangible all around us—is the foundation of engaging with the messy, interdependent, and otherwise unfathomable network that is humanity.
To put it more simply: we need to understand the past if we want to make sense of the present or hope to effect change for the future.
And this is as true for our students as it is for us.
The history of education—of its invention and evolution, of its challenges and innovations—is fascinating.
Primary school is a 2 millennia old invention, originally designed to do two things:
Teach literacy
Make children good
Schools accomplished these things, or at least tried to, in a simple way: with teachers who would give students something to copy, over and over again. A bit of the alphabet, a sentence from the Bible, an argument from Solon. The teacher models it, the student copies it.
Many people throughout the centuries have argued for changing this model. But it wasn’t until the 20th century that changes started taking place. Universal education became a state function, at exactly the same time as progressive educators were changing how it looked.
Today’s education system is the result of 100 years of intense arguments about what education should be, layered on top of a 2500-year-old approach to schooling. And Montessori plays a singular role in this story, standing apart from both traditionalists and progressives, adopting a unique perspective which she used to drive change globally.
A couple years ago, we partnered with Prepared Montessorian Institute (PMI) to lead a 12 week course on the history of education with Dr. Matt Bateman, former executive director of Montessorium and current board member of Higher Ground Education.
We’re now making the readings and recordings of the course available for free for anyone interested in learning more about the history of education in the west: from ancient civilization, through the origin and entrenchment of the classical tradition, to the birth of progressive education, through the modern day.
You can find the whole course with readings and recordings from our February 2022 cohort HERE, along with each of the 12 lessons listed below and a link to the recording.
I hope you’ll take advantage of this series and use it as fuel for understanding and transforming education as we know it today.
Lesson 1: The Birth of Education in Antiquity
Themes: What is education? Education as practice first, theory second. Why did education emerge? Skepticism about education. The domains of education. Texts and methods at the dawn of education.
Lesson 2: Sparta, as Inspiration and Foil
Themes: Totalitarian, public education. Systematic education. Educating for public virtue. The “whole-child” pedagogy of the spartan system. Endorsement and critique.
Lesson 3: Plato’s Intellectualization of Education
Themes: Virtue as fundamentally intellectual; education as fundamentally intellectual. Ethics and epistemology as inputs to education. Education and social reform. Math, logic, dialectic, and virtue. Elitism in education, in Plato and prior.
Lesson 4: The Path to the Liberal Arts
Themes: From Plato to Martianus Capella. The seven liberal arts: the trivium and the quadrivium. Academic learning for the first millennium AD. From De nuptiis to Aristotelian scholasticism.
Lesson 5: Pansophism and Pictures
Themes: The Renaissance reaches education: learning from experience, rejecting authority. Comenius’s vision for education reform. The Orbis Pictis as a textbook. Classicism in the Enlightenment.
Lesson 6: Enlightenment Philosophy of Education
Themes: From moderate independence of thought to increasingly radical freedom of thought, choice, and interest. Locke’s moderate program. Rousseau’s radical program. The lack of implementation of either.
Lesson 7: Education in 19th c. America
Themes: The status quo. Webster’s speller. Classicism… still! Generalism vs. specialization in education in America. Emersonianism. From a society without systematic education to progressivism about institutions.
Lesson 8: The Birth of Social Science
Themes: Education finds scientific footing? Early psychology, sociology, developmental medicine and science, learning disorders, and more. Early attempts at engineering a pedagogy scientifically.
Lesson 9: Progressive Education
Themes: Wilson, Tocqueville, and progressive technocracy. The rejection of classical education. American Pragmatism meets Enlightenment natural philosophy. The relative lack of programmatic substance in progressive educational institutions.
Lesson 10: Montessori in Context
Themes: A “progressive” approach—rejected by progressives. A detailed programmatic plan, to a fault. Education reform reaches early childhood. Education reform and the dark realities of the first half of the 20th century.
Lesson 11: 20th century Threads
Themes: Contemporary learning science. The ossification of K12. Progressive and classical educators try to meet the moment. Higher education, standardization, credentialing, advanced/specialized degrees. Science education comes into its own.
Lesson 12: Themes, Questions, Conclusions
Themes: Was “the factory model” ever a thing? Is the way forward in education paved by research? How do we make sense of modern policy and pedagogical debates and issues, like school choice and STEM education, in light of history? Are there any emerging consensuses in the field of education, and if so, what is driving them? A discussion of these and other issues that have emerged in the class.
Happy Friday and have a great weekend,
Ray Girn
Founder and CEO, Higher Ground Education