Republic of the Philippine

ZAMBOANGA STATE COLLEGE OF MARINE SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY

Fort Pilar, Zamboanga City
Tel No. 992-3092/Tel No: (062) 991-0643 Telefax: (062) 991-0777 website: http:www.zscmstedu.ph

GRADUATE SCHOOL
Education 501 – Foundation of Education (ALS)
Prepared by: Chloe Fe C. Maturan, Ed.D.
Subject Facilitator
Assignment 1 - Historical Foundations of Education (115 points)
Name___Genevive E. Caballes_____________________________________
Important aspects under the different period that contributed to the Educational Systems of Ancient Civilization
1] In bullet form, cite TEN (10) important aspects of the CHINESE EDUCATION (10 points)

● In China, the education is divided into three categories: basic education, higher education, and adult
education. By law, each child must have nine years of compulsory education from primary school
(six years) to junior secondary education (three years).
● Basic education in China includes pre-school education (usually three years), primary education (six
years, usually starting at the age of six) and secondary education (six years).
● Secondary education has two routes: academic secondary education and
specialized/vocational/technical secondary education. Academic secondary education consists of
junior (three years) and senior middle schools (three years). Junior middle school graduates wishing
to continue their education take a locally administered entrance exam, on the basis of which they
will have the option of i) continuing in an academic senior middle school; or ii) entering a vocational
middle school (or leave school at this point) to receive two to four years of training.
● Higher education is further divided into two categories: 1) universities that offer four-year or
five-year undergraduate degrees to award academic degree qualifications; and 2) colleges that offer
three-year diploma or certificate courses on both academic and vocational subjects. Postgraduate
and doctoral programmes are only offered at universities.
● Adult education ranges from primary education to higher education. For example, adult primary
education includes Workers’ Primary Schools, Peasants’ Primary Schools in an effort to raise
literacy level in remote areas; adult secondary education includes specialized secondary schools for
adults; and adult higher education includes traditional radio/TV universities (now online), most of
which offer certificates/diplomas but a few offer regular undergraduate degrees.
● The academic year is divided into two terms for all the educational institutions: February to mid-July
(six weeks summer vocation) and September to mid/late-January (four weeks winter vocation).
There are no half-terms.

● A primary school pupils spend about seven to eight hours at school whilst a secondary school
student spends about twelve to fourteen hours at school if including lunch time and evening
classes. Many schools hold extra morning classes in science and math for three to four hours on
Saturdays. If schools do not have Saturday morning classes, most parents would send their
children to expensive cramming school at weekends or organise one-to-one private tuition for their
children over the weekend.

● The educational system in China is a major vehicle for both inculcating values in and teaching
needed skills to its people. Traditional Chinese culture attached great importance to education as a
means of enhancing a person's worthy career.
● The Chinese educational structure provides for six years of primary school, three years each of lower
secondary school and upper secondary school, and four years in the standard university curriculum.
All urban schools are financed by the state, while rural schools depend more heavily on their own
financial resources. Official policy stresses scholastic achievement, with particular emphasis on the
natural sciences. A significant effort is made to enhance vocational training opportunities for
students who do not attend a university. The quality of education available in the cities generally has
been higher than that in the countryside, although considerable effort has been made to increase
enrollment in rural areas at all education levels.
● China’s educational system increasingly trained individuals in technical skills so that they could
fulfill the needs of the advanced, modern sector of the economy. The social sciences and humanities
also receive more attention than in earlier years.

2] In bullet form, cite FIVE (5) important aspects of the HINDU EDUCATION (5 points)

● Hindu education was character building, development of personality, preservation of ancient

culture and inculcation of spirit of social service and performance of religious duties.
Special emphasis was laid on discipline and self-dependence.

● The chief aim of Hindu education was character building, development of personality, preservation
of ancient culture and inculcation of spirit of social service and performance of religious duties.
Special emphasis was laid on discipline and self-dependence.
● There was no printed Premier and the children were taught orally. During the primary stage, the
children learnt alphabets and figures on wooden boards (Takhti) or on the dust of the ground in
their fingers. The pupils were usually taught under the shadow of a tree where they sat in rows. The
master attended to them either standing or sitting on a mat or deer skin.
● Hinduism education is an important means to achieve the four aims of human life, namely dharma
(virtue), artha (wealth), kama (pleasure) and moksha (liberation). Also, it is vital to the preservation
and propagation of Dharma, without which, declares vedic dharma, we cannot regulate our society
or families properly or live in peace. Vidya or education is the means by which an individual can
gain right knowledge, control his desires and learn to perform his obligatory duties with a sense of
detachment and devotion to God, so that he can overcome the impurities of egoism, attachment and
delusion and achieve liberation. In Hindu tradition, an illiterate person is considered to be equal to
an animal (pasu), because without education he will not be able to rise above his physical self.
Hence the belief that a person who is initiated into education is twice born, first time physically and
second time spiritually.
● Hinduism” consists of diverse systems of belief and practice, this is a vast undertaking. Specialists
of a region, time period, or community will find some specific studies missing in the following essay.
The attempt is to be suggestive rather than all-inclusive. In our second perspective, we focus on the
colonial and contemporary periods. Over the last two hundred years, there have been efforts to
construct institutions that are either directly “Hindu” in nature or that try to have a “Hindu”
component to their curricula or mission.

3] In bullet form, cite FIVE (10) important aspects of the ANCIENT EGYPT EDUCATION (5 points).

● Formal education in ancient Egypt was mostly reserved for the boys of wealthier families. Although
there is some evidence that occasionally, girls did go to school and even became doctors. Boys
usually started school at the age of 7 and they were taught to read and write as well as
mathematics.

● Ancient Egyptian education was a system which was implemented to educate the young children in various
subjects and topics. Common subjects included in ancient Egyptian education were reading, writing,
mathematics, as well as religious instruction and morals. Education was held in high regard and it was
common for people with proper means to send their children to schools after a certain age.

● In ancient Egypt girls were not sent to school and instead their education was conducted at home. Mothers
were the source of education for girls who instructed them in various disciplines such as sewing, cooking, and
reading etc. These tasks were considered socially important for women and education beyond that was
thought superfluous for women. People of lower classes usually could not send their children to schools
because of the limited number of schools, and these schools were typically reserved for children from royal
and rich backgrounds.
● Educated Egyptians often learned to read at the age of four. The pharaohs went to the equivalent of
exclusive private schools with the children of government officials, nobility and bureaucrats. The
 students learned to recognize and pronounce several hundred hieroglyphics, then they were taught
arithmetic and finally writing. A writing kit consisted of reeds and a palette of solid inks. Papyrus, the
material they wrote on, was made was made of the pressed fibrous material of a plant, and only the
richest people in Egypt could afford it.
● Higher education in ancient Egypt took place in the temples where sciences such as physics, astronomy, solid
geometry, geography, mathematics, measurements, and medicine were taught as well as ethics, music,
painting, drawing, sculpture, etc. Plato attended the University of "Eon" in Cairo.

4) In bullet form, cite important aspects of the GREEK EDUCATION (Sparta and Athens) (55 points)
4.1 Spartan Education (10 points)

❖ The agoge was the ancient Spartan education program, which trained male youths in the art of war.
The word means "raising" in the sense of raising livestock from youth toward a specific purpose. ...
Spartan girls were not allowed to join but were educated at home by their mothers or trainers.

❖ The education in Sparta was to produce and maintain a powerful army. Sparta boys entered
military school when they were about six years old. They learned how to read and write, but those
skills were not considered very important except for messages, Spartan girls went to school to learn
to be warriors.

❖ The goal of the agoge was the transformation of boys into Spartan soldiers whose loyalty was to the state and
their brothers-in-arms, not their families. Literacy was included in the curriculum but was not as important as
military training and survival skills. As in other Greek city-states, homoerotic relationships between older
candidates and younger were considered a natural aspect of growth and maturity but, in Sparta, seem to have
been encouraged to create a tighter bond between the men who would eventually serve in the armed forces.

❖ Lycurgus’ reforms were comprehensive, including every aspect of the people’s lives, and, as he had mandated
from the start, were not committed to writing; the laws would be kept in the people’s hearts because they
would know these precepts led to the best possible society. Among his reforms was the creation of formal
education and military training that became the agoge.

❖ Scholar Paul Cartledge describes the agoge as a "system of education, training, and socialization [that] turned
boys into fighting men whose reputation for discipline, courage, and skill was unsurpassed" (32). Lycurgus
may have been a mythological figure (his dates are given as anywhere between the 9th and 6th century BCE),
but whether he was history of myth, the program he is credited with establishing became the foundation of
Spartan society and military might.

❖ Spartan education was built around the need for a strong military. While boys were taught how to
survive as a soldier, girls were also educated so that they could produce strong offspring. Above all
else, it was a respectful society where everyone was taught respect for the individual.

❖ The education featured in the agōgē involved cultivating loyalty to Sparta through military training
(e.g., pain tolerance), hunting, dancing, singing, and social (communicating) preparation.The agōgē
was divided into three age groups, roughly corresponding to young children, adolescents, and
 young adults. Spartan girls did not participate in the agōgē, although they may have received a
similar state-sponsored education.

❖ Greek boys were taught to be patriotic, respect religious rights, and generally to always strive to
maintain a good appearance in public.

4.2 Athenian Education (10 points)

❖ They had physical education where they learned sports and gymnastics. They also learned basic
math, how to play musical instruments, how to sing, and how to write well. They memorized the
Odyssey and the Iliad by Homer because these were the most important works in their world.

❖ Girls were educated in the home and the only “well-educated” women were trained as “hetarae”
which were like Greek geishas.They memorized the Odyssey and the Iliad by Homer because
these were the most important works in their world.

❖ Girls were educated at home with the goal being they would become homemakers themselves,
they were only taught to read and write if their mother, or private help would do so. However,
they often participated in sports such as wrestling, in order to keep them strong and healthy.

❖ Athenian education was focused on aesthetics. The idea of beauty influenced everything that was
taught. Subjects taught in Ancient Athens included reading, writing, rhetoric, math, philosophy,
music, and poetry. Music and poetry often worked together as poems were set to music. Music was
viewed positively as a hobby but professional musicians were looked down on as common laborers.

❖ Physical education was also rigorously taught as beauty was so important. Subjects include
swimming, wrestling, running, and jumping. One field of study that was often neglected was moral
training. The Greek gods were not the best role models

❖ Girls were educated in the home and the only “well-educated” women were trained as “hetarae”
which were like Greek geishas.

❖ Boys were much more educated than girls. They had physical education where they learned sports
andgymnastics.__________________________________________________________________________

4.3 Who are the Sophists (5 points)

● Sophist, any of certain Greek lecturers, writers, and teachers in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE,
most of whom traveled about the Greek-speaking world giving instruction in a wide range of
subjects in return for fees.
● It is sometimes said to have meant originally simply “clever” or “skilled man,” but the list of those to whom Greek authors applied
the term in its earlier sense makes it probable that it was rather more restricted in meaning. Seers, diviners, and poet
predominate, and the earliest Sophists probably were the “sages” in early Greek societies. This would explain the subsequent
application of the term to the Seven Wise Men, who typified the highest early practical wisdom.
● The names survive of nearly 30 Sophists properly so called, of whom the most important were Protagoras,
Gorgias, Antiphon, Prodicus, and Thrasymachus. Plato protested strongly that Socrates was in no sense a
Sophist—he took no fees, and his devotion to the truth was beyond question. But from many points of view he
is rightly regarded as a rather special member of the movement._

4.4 Educational Theorists

4.4.1 Socrates (5 points)

● Socrates believed that there were different kinds of knowledge, important and trivial. He acknowledges that most of us know
many "trivial" things. He states that the craftsman possesses important knowledge, the practice of his craft, but this is important
only to himself, the craftsman. But this is not the important knowledge that Socrates is referring to. The most important of all
knowledge is "how best to live." He posits that this is not easily answered, and most people live in shameful ignorance regarding
matters of ethics and morals.
● Socrates makes the claim there are two very different sorts of knowledge. One is ordinary knowledge. This is of very specific (and
ordinary) information. He claims that to have such knowledge does not give the possessor of said knowledge any expertise or
wisdom worth mentioning.
● Socrates devotes much thought to the concept of belief, through the use of logic. He spars with students early in his career and
later with his accusers, at his trial, on the nature of his belief regarding the gods. To define belief, according to Socrates, was to use
naturalistic explanations for phenomena traditionally explained in terms of Divine Agency. His belief in the wisdom and goodness
of gods is derived from human logic and his natural skepticism.

4.4.2 Plato (5 points)

● Plato believed in a strong state-controlled education for both men and women. He was of the
opinion that every citizen must be compulsorily trained to fit into any particular class, viz., ruling,
fighting or the producing class.
● Education, however, must be imparted to all in the early stages without any discrimination. Plato never
stated out rightly that education system was geared to those who want to become rulers of the ideal state and
this particular aspect attracted widespread criticism.
● Plato was of the opinion that education must begin at an early age. In order to make sure that
children study well, Plato insisted that children be brought up in a hale and healthy environment
and that the atmosphere implant ideas of truth and goodness.
● Plato believed that early education must be related to literature, as it would bring out the best of the
soul. The study must be mostly related to story-telling and then go on to poetry..

4.4.3 Aristotle (5 points)

● Aristotle believed that education was central – the fulfilled person was an educated person. Here I
want to focus on those elements of his thought that continue to play a key part in theorizing
informal education.
● First, his work is a testament to the belief that our thinking and practice as educators must be
infused with a clear philosophy of life.
● Second, along with many others in his time, he placed a strong emphasis on all round and ‘balanced’
development. Play, physical training, music, debate, and the study of science and philosophy were to
all have their place in the forming of body, mind and soul.

4.5 Greek Universities

4.5.1 Rhetorical Schools (5 points)
● The school of rhetoric was the highest level in the three-tiered education system that originated in Greece in the third
century B.C. and spread to Rome in the first century B.C.; this system was maintained until the end of antiquity.
● The beginning program of studies in schools of rhetoric consisted of progymnasmata, which were preliminary exercises
in the composition of fables, narratives, chrias, maxims, refutations and confirmations of stories, amplifications, and
reproofs.
● The basic course included declamationes, speeches on invented topics, in the form of exhortations (suasoriae) or
addresses in fictitious legal cases (controversiae). The school of rhetoric was intended to prepare its pupils primarily for
a political career—which was impossible without the skill of oratory—but as time passed, the school’s cultivation of
verbal art became a goal in itself; this drew sharp criticism from practical orators, including Cicero, Quintilian, and
Tacitus
● In ancient Greece and Rome, the most common form of higher education in the humanities, alongside the more
specialized schools of philosophy and medicine.

4.5.2 Philosophical Schools (5 points)

● _The Ancient Greek philosophy extends from as far as the seventh century B.C. up until the beginning of the Roman
Empire, in the first century A.D. During this period five great philosophical traditions originated: the Platonist, the
Aristotelian, the Stoic, the Epicurean, and the Skeptic.
● The School of Philosophy of the University of Athens is the most populous University School of Greece and
consists of 13 Departments and 15 study halls. The School offers a wide variety of studies in the fields of: classical
and modern Greek, linguistics and literature of foreign cultures, classical and modern history, archaeology,
pedagogy, psychology, slavic studies, theatrology and music.
● Ancient Greek philosophy distinguishes itself from other early forms of philosophical and theological
theorizing for its emphasis on reason as opposed to the senses or the emotions.
● Socrates, who lived at the end of the fifth century B.C., was Plato’s teacher and a key figure in the rise of
Athenian philosophy.

4.6 Universities of Athens and Alexandria (5 points)

● A variety of ancient higher-learning institutions were developed in many cultures to provide institutional
frameworks for scholarly activities
[3][4]
● The Platonic Academy (sometimes referred to as the University of Athens), founded ca. 387 BCE in Athens,

Greece, by the philosopher Plato, lasted until 86 BCE, when it was destroyed during Sulla's siege and sacking of
Athens.
● _Around 335 BCE, Plato's successor Aristotle founded the Peripatetic school, the students of which met at the
Lyceum gymnasium in Athens. The school also ceased in 86 BC during the famine, siege and sacking of Athens
by Sulla.
● The reputation of the Greek institutions in Alexandria, Egypt was such that at least four central modern
educational terms derive from them: the academy, the lyceum, the gymnasium and the museum
● Some 400 years later, during the fourth century CE, the Platonist philosopher Plutarch of Athens started a school which
identified itself with Plato's Academy. That school lasted until 529, when it was closed following an edict from the
Emperor Justinian prohibiting pagans from teaching.
 In bullet form, cite important aspects of the ROMAN EDUCATION (40 points)

5.1 The Roman Educational System (5 points)

● The Romans education was based on the classical Greek tradition but infused with Roman politics, cosmology, and
religious beliefs. The only children to receive a formal education were the children of the rich. The very rich families
employed a private tutor to teach their children. Those that could not afford to do this used either slaves or sent their
children to a private school
● A Roman school would be one room with one teacher. Teachers were very badly paid and worked long hours. Children
learned to read and write. It was important to be able to read and write because words were everywhere.
● If a boy answered a question with the wrong answer, the teacher would beat him with a cane. If he spoke in class
without permission he would be dragged to the front of the class and beaten with a cane or a whip.
● Boys would be given lessons in honourability and physical training which were considered preparation for a man’s role
in society and the army. Although they learned how to do simple addition and subtraction more difficult mathematics was
not taught because it was difficult to add up numbers written in the Roman system
● Girls were only allowed to learn to read and write.

5.2 Early Roman Education (5 points)

● Education was very important to the Ancient Romans. The rich people in Ancient Rome put a great deal of faith in
education.
● While the poor in Ancient Rome did not receive a formal education, many still learned to read and write. Children from
rich families, however, were well schooled and were taught by a private tutor at home or went to what we would
recognise as schools.
● In general, schools as we would recognise them, were for boys only. Also, Roman schools were rarely an
individual building but an extension of a shop – separated from the crowd by a mere curtain!
● Boys were beaten for the slightest offence as a belief existed that a boy would learn correctly and accurately if he feared
being caned if he got something wrong.
● For boys who continued to get things wrong, some schools had a policy of having pupils held down by two slaves while
his tutor beat him with a leather whip.

5.3 Hellenized Roman Education (10 points)

● Something of these original characteristics was to survive always in Roman society, so ready to be
conservative; but Latin civilization did not long develop autonomously.
● It assimilated, with a remarkable faculty for adaptation, the structures and techniques of the much further
evolved Hellenistic civilization.
● Greek influence was felt very early in Roman education and grew ever stronger after the long series of gains
leading to the annexation of Macedonia (168 BCE), of Greece proper (146 BCE), of the kingdom of Pergamum
(133 BCE), and finally of the whole of the Hellenized Orient.
● The Romans quickly appreciated the advantages they could draw from this more mature civilization, richer
than their own national culture.
● The practical Romans grasped the advantages to be drawn from a knowledge of Greek—an
international language known to many of their adversaries, soon to be their Oriental subjects—and
grasped the related importance of mastering the art of oratory so highly developed by the Greeks.
● Second-century Rome assigned to the spoken word, particularly in political and legal life, as great an

importance as had Athens in the 5th century. The Roman aristocrats quickly understood what a weapon
rhetoric could be for a statesman.
● Rome doubly adopted Hellenistic education. On the one hand, it came to pass that a Roman was
considered truly cultivated only if he had the same education, in Greek, as a native Greek acquired;
on the other hand, there progressively developed a parallel system of instruction that transposed
into Latin the institutions, programs, and methods of Hellenistic education.
● Naturally, only the children of the ruling class had the privilege of receiving the complete and bilingual
education.
● In following the normal course of studies, the young Roman was taught next by an instructor of Greek letters
(grammatikos) and then by a Greek rhetorician.
● Those desiring more complete training did not content themselves with the numerous and often highly
qualified Greeks to be found in Rome but went to Greece to participate in the higher studies of the Greeks
themselves.

5.4 The Elementary School (5 points)

● Education in ancient Rome progressed from an informal, familial system of education in the early Republic to a
tuition-based system during the late Republic and the Empire.
● The Roman education system was based on the Greek system – and many of the private tutors in the Roman
system were Greek slaves or freedmen.
● The educational methodology and curriculum used in Rome was copied in its provinces and provided a basis for
education systems throughout later Western civilization.
● Organized education remained relatively rare, and there are few primary sources or accounts of the Roman
educational process until the 2nd century AD.

5.5 The Grammar School (5 points)

● Other hand, many schools of grammar or rhetoric acquired the character of public institutions supported (as
in the Hellenic world) either by private foundations or by a municipal budget.
● The adoption of Hellenistic education did not proceed, however, without a certain adaptation to the Latin
temperament: the Romans showed a marked reserve toward Greek athleticism, which shocked both their
morals and their sense of the deep seriousness of life.
● Although gymnastic exercises entered into their daily life, it was under the category of health and not that of
sport; in Roman architecture, the palaestra or gymnasium was only an appendage of the public baths, which
were exaggerations of their Greek models.

5.6 The Rhetorical School (10 points)

● The ancient Romans adopted many aspects of their culture from that of the ancient Greeks, especially
after all of Greece became part of the Roman Empire in 146 B.C. This was certainly the case with the
educational practices and rhetoric* of the Romans.
● Education in Early Rome. The city of Rome began as a village of farmers on the east bank of the Tiber
River. Like all peasant cultures, the earliest Roman people believed in the importance of the land.
● They valued cooperation, simplicity, self-reliance, discipline, and hard work. Early Roman education
attempted to preserve those virtues. During the earlier years of the Roman Republic*, most people
 distrusted professional teachers, especially Greeks, and upper-class children were taught by their
parents.
● The emphasis was on training children to become good citizens. For their first six or seven years, boys
and girls were educated by their mothers, who taught them respect for the traditional values evident in
Roman legends and history. Women also taught their children Latin and sometimes Greek.
● A Roman girl was trained by her mother in domestic tasks until the age of 12 or 13, when she married
and her education was considered complete. On the other hand, a boy was tutored by his father
between the ages of 7 and 16.
● He was expected to follow his father everywhere and learn from his example. The boy helped with his
father’s work, listened to debates in the forum* or in the Senate, and took part in religious ceremonies.
His father taught him to read, to fight in armor, to box, to ride a horse, to swim, to endure hardship,
and, above all, to know his own family’s traditions. Such training was for youths of the upper classes.
Little is known about the education of lower-class children.
● During a ceremony at the age of 16, a young man replaced his child’s toga* with a pure white toga,
signifying adulthood. He became an apprentice to a prominent older man, who trained him for public
service.
● As he had with his father, the young man followed his patron* to the law courts and to public debates.
The patron also trained the young man in the art of public speaking. A young man then served one year
in the army, under the supervision of an experienced military man.
● Thus, early Roman education emphasized the wisdom and experience to be learned from elders and
from Roman tradition.

* toga loose outer garment worn by Roman citizens

* patron special guardian, protector or supporter

● Education in Later Rome. By the middle of the first century B.C., education based on family and tradition
was no longer considered appropriate.
● Rome had become a leading political and military power. The Romans had defeated Carthage in the Punic
Wars and had conquered much of the Mediterranean world. Children of the leading families in the
conquered territories were often taken to Italy to be educated, returning afterwards to become local
leaders. They often returned more Roman than provincial.