Ancient Philosophers and Their Impact on Education

Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle all had a goal of creating a virtuous and morally good person through education. If asked, most teachers would say that one of his personal goals for teaching children is to instill a set of values in his students. Character education comes from the idea that it is the teacher's responsibility to teach what is right and wrong in addition to teaching basic skills of learning. Socrates used the Socratic Method to draw out the knowledge the student held within. He believed that the teacher and the student both held knowledge and ignorance within themselves. His form of questioning was designed to release the knowledge from within the student so that he could find the answers he needed. This method of inquiry is seen in present-day classrooms as a teacher and student have dialogue about what is being learned. Plato. He was a student of Socrates and shared his teaching style of using dialogue to help students discover knowledge on their own. Plato felt that a good education would prepare students for his or her role in life. He felt that men and women deserved an equal education based on their ability to learn and not based on gender. Education would help people to understand what is good and therefore would create a just society. In today's schools, students are taught citizenship and leadership abilities to help them achieve goals in life. Plato believed that quality of life would depend on the education each person received. Today students are given a well-rounded education to produce individuals that will one day be leaders and good citizens Aristotle was a scientist as well as a philosopher. He was a student of Plato. Plato had a heavy impact on Aristotle's thinking. Aristotle contributed many things to the educational world. He made great

advancements in the study of biology, ethics, and logic. He viewed education as a way to allow people to act as they were expected to act and in turn to be happy. He felt the teacher held the key to this knowledge and would lead students to the correct way to live. He felt that a student must practice behaving properly until he could make those choices on his own. This is typically the way discipline and behavior is managed in the classroom today. The teacher must remind students constantly to practice what they know to be good behavior, with the idea that eventually the student will make the choice to behave properly on his own

Education in Ancient Times In ancient Athens, boys started going to school at about the age of six or seven. They had to go to three different schools one for sport, one for music, and one for things like reading and writing. The Three Kinds of Schools Boys did physical education at the palaistra an open field. Men trained there at the same time. You had to take all your clothes off to do any sport. At the palaistra, boys learnt javelin, discus, long jump, running, boxing and wrestling. In music lessons, boys mostly learnt the lyre, which is like a small harp. They were also taught how to sing along with the lyre. At their third school, boys learnt to read and write and to do arithmetic. They also studied literature, learning passages from poets like Homer off by heart. The poetry was mostly selected to teach the boys about right and wrong. Sometimes boys were also taught drawing and painting. The teachers could be very strict students who misbehaved were hit with sandals!

Did Girls go to School? Athenian girls were not as well educated as boys. Some of them were taught by their mothers at home, others seem to have gone to special girls' schools. Some girls may have learnt to read and write, but they were probably mostly taught how to do housework. School Rules All of the ancient Greek schools were private and the parents had to pay fees. Parents decided how long their sons should stay at school, and that sometimes depended on how much money they had. There were no laws which said that boys had to be educated for a set number of years, and some people received no education at all. Other people only went to one or two of the three schools. The Greeks didn't agree on which school was the most important.

Augustine's Confessions is a work of metaphysics and Christian theology that had (and continues to have, to a lesser degree) a very prominent influence in proceeding philosophy. Augustine himself is the leader of an entire monastic movement, and so also has a strong religious influence today. Anselm of Canterbury St. Anselm was another quite prominent Christian philosopher, although he came much later than Augustine - the 11th century. Anselm is probably best credited for the ontological argument for God (referenced by later philosophers Descartes and Kant), a very influential argument that has been both widely supported and objected to. Maimonides Maimonides was perhaps the most influential Jewish philosopher, and lived in the 12th century. His works included significant interpretations of the 613 Jewish commandments, and an analysis of the concepts entailed by monotheism. He also focused his philosophy on creation, and developed a theory with classical influences. His philosophy, too, has been very influential in theology and metaphysics. Ibn Sina Ibn Sina (also known as Avicenna) was one of the most prominent Muslim philosophers of the Medieval era, and also lived in the 12th century. Although it is difficult to point out a specific Islamic thinker that dominated this period, Ibn Sina is likely one of the more significant influences. Like other medieval philosophers, his extensive works often covered metaphysics, but from an Islamic point of view. Much of his philosophical pursuits focused on the reconciliation of rational philosophy with religion (a very relevant issue, soon made apparent in the Renaissance). His other influences include law and medicine.

INFLUENTIAL PHILOSOPHERS DURING THE MIDDLE AGES St. Augustine of Hippo St. Augustine (4th-5th century) is borderline medieval, but very crucial to an understanding of much of medieval philosophy (since theology dominated during this period).

Augustine of Hippo 13 November 354 28 August 430), also known as St. Augustine, St. Austin or St. Augoustinos, was bishop of Hippo Regius (present-day Annaba, Algeria). He was a Latin philosopher and theologian from the Africa Province of the Roman Empire and is generally considered as one of the greatest Christian thinkers of all time. His writings were very influential in the development of Western Christianity and translations remain in print. Augustine is regarded as the greatest of the Church Fathers. He is primarily a theologian and a devotional writer, but much of his writing is philosophical. His themes are truth, God, the human soul, the meaning of history, the state, sin, and salvation. For over a thousand years, there was hardly a Latin work of theology or philosophy that did not quote his writing, or invoke his authority. Some of his writing had an influence on the development of early modern philosophy, such as that of Descartes. Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480 c.525) was a Christian philosopher born in Rome to an ancient and influential family. He became consul in 510 in the kingdom of the Ostrogoths. His influence on the early medieval period was also marked (so much so that it is sometimes called the Boethian period).[14] He intended to translate all the works of Aristotle and Plato from the original Greek into Latin, and translated many of Aristotles logical works, such as On Interpretation, and the Categories. He wrote commentaries on these works, and on the Isagoge by Porphyry (a commentary on the Categories). This introduced the problem of universals to the medieval world