Edgeworths - You'll never have heard of them but good on practical education...

Books and pamphlets on education were being constantly published and debated in the 18^th century. Now forgotten works, such as Maria and her father Richard Lovell Edgeworth’s Practical Education, pushed, like Locke, for early learning, good habits in learning and learning by doing. This is a side of learning that is overlooked as most writing the theory are academic theorists. The Edgeworths present a view of learners as autonomous, rational beings, who need to be encouraged to think for themselves. It is a remarkable text with as many progressive ideas as one would find in a modern book on pedagogy.

Attention and doing

Attention was a necessary condition for learning and tiredness its enemy. Children must not be overburdened, so teaching needs to be varied, structured and carefully sequenced. Rote learning and cramming are cast aside in favour of the application of principles. Knowledge was less important that judgement and the development of competences. At this time, there was also great interest in hands-on, practical skills, around agriculture, science, mechanics and chemistry. He recommended contextualising learning by making schools sit in farm-like environments, with pets and farm animals. The careful selection of toys, prints and materials were to give children meaningful tasks. He also advocated an early form of phonics. Habit, reinforcement and repetition are all important, especially the habit of attention. Here, again, we have an emphasis on the psychology of learning.

Educational experiments

The Edgeworths were among the first to test educational interventions, albeit in a rather unorthodox manner. In addition to gathering evidence from his grandchildren, he experimented on Peter, the ‘wild boy’, who lived close-by. This child was found in the German woods in 1724, without speech or social habits. Brought to England, by then an old man, he was studied by Richard Lovell Edgeworth. He concluded, from Peter, rather disappointingly, that the acquisition of language was a necessary condition for learning. However, education had become the subject of experimental science.

Influence

A strong advocate of universal schooling, he saw education, like many in the late eighteenth century, as the means of improving the lot of the poor, correcting their faults and keeping them from criminal activity. The Edgeworths were typical Enlightenment figures. He conceptualised and experimented with the first caterpillar tracks, never really producing one that was practical but was an inquiring mind, with a deep interest in education. A member of the famous Lunar Society, he mixed among the greatest minds of the day and saw that education could be furthered by the empiricism and experimentation of the age.

Wollstonecraft (1759-97) – Women and education...

Mary Wollstonecraft, mother of Mary Shelley author of Frankenstein, bursts with originality in her thoughts on education rejecting the dry, dull teaching of the day, even recommending peer-justice by students. So interested was she in education that she even tried to run a school.

However, she is best known for her ground-breaking work on the education of women that has resonated through to 20^th century feminism. She adopted the Enlightenment love of reason in educational theory, hugely influenced by Locke, but wrote a devastating attack on Rousseau’s crude recommendations on the education of women. Women deserved the same education as men and the right to be educated alongside men. But she had far more to say on education than this one principle.

Self-help book

With Thoughts on the Education of Daughters: with Reflections on Female Conduct in the more important Duties of Life (1787) she lays out rules for the conduct of a moral and relevant education for women. It reads like a self-help book with no end of detailed recommendations from  fairy tales to breast-feeding. But it has an edge, as she attacks the education of women into the role of card playing ornaments, absorbed in themselves and fashion. Rather harsh on the influence of servants, she was all for a strong parental influence on education. Like Plato she was antagonistic towards too much fiction, especially fairy tales, for your children. She wants strong women, mothers and daughters of independent mind but not as we see it today. Her vision was of women as mothers and teachers, playing roles in societal cohesion and progress. But this is a mere foretaste for her more detailed work on education.

Vindications

In her Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790), a political work, she is critical of the gender-based language and gender analogies used by Burke. She also launched an attack on the monarchy and aristocracy, in favour of republicanism. In this she invokes the Enlightenment ideas of reason and progress but it is in Chapter 12 of her A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) that she presents a detailed account of her educational views.

She launches a direct attack on the schools and schooling of the day, especially boarding schools, as she thinks it is vital that children receive both a home life with some structured respite for learning. However, she castigates educators for their ‘fear of innovation’ and decries the lines of benches and ‘parrot-like prattle’. State funded day schools should be available to all. Most importantly, she is firmly against single-sex schools. It is important that both girls and boys learn from and about each other for a harmonious society. Long vacations are undesirable, as they both disrupt learning, leading to forgetting, and place too much pressure on the home environment.

Teaching

Much teaching is pedantic and tyrannical with its recitation and focus on Latin and Greek. And in a prescient passage she notes that, “It is not for the benefit of society that a few brilliant men should be brought forward at the expense of the multitude”. With echoes of Rousseau she recommends a broad curriculum but with a focus on open air and exercise. And harking back to Socrates, she recommends that some subjects, notably religion, history, the history of man and politics, be taught through conversation. On discipline she recommends that peer-punishment, judgement by fellow students, be implemented, freeing from teachers, so that the students learn justice from practice. How innovative is that!

Women and education

Rousseau’s position on the education of women saw them as not only lacking the abilities of men, but that they be taught for the pleasure of men. Women, Wollstonecraft stated, must seek intellectual autonomy and should not depend on men for that goal. They are not, as some at that time claimed, slaves to their emotional passions and have the ability to develop rational and intellectual passions and abilities. In short, women have the right to the same education as men and to be taught alongside men.

In detail, she provides an analysis of the enslavement to the body beautiful 250 years before the feminism of the late 20^thcentury. Interestingly, she was sensitive to the different roles women have from men, as wives and mothers, but saw that this only has a bearing in the sense that education and reason improves the skills needed in these roles. This is a debate that is still alive in feminist thinking. But before we see her as a completely modern, educational theorist we must also remember that she thought that poor children should be taught in separate schools.

Influence

It is good to read of Enlightenment innovations on the curriculum, the school calendar and discipline that would put our modern-day educational establishment to shame. But her primary contribution is that she challenged society to offer equal political and educational rights to women, claiming that the only way to prove her case was to put it to the test. We did, and it passed the test magnificently. Although it was well into the 20^th century before it happened and even quite recently some Universities did not admit women. A recent vindication of her work is the fact that women, in many countries, now outperform men in education and that the education of women is seen as a key to economic prosperity in both the developed and developing world. 

A memoir published by her last husband portrayed her as a rather unconventional figure and this skewed her reputation for a century and more but her writings are now widely quoted by modern feminists and historians, as a major figure of the Enlightenment. Botting has written about her countering the influence of Burke and Rousseau, as well as her influence on nineteenth century American feminism. Ayann Hirsi Ali quotes her as a huge influence in her autobiography Infidel and many other modern feminists have quoted her as a having a considerable influence.

Smith (1723-90) – searing attack on Higher Education...

Adam Smith spent most of his life teaching, as a Professor and private tutor. Very much a product of the Calvinist push for universal schooling, Scotland had one of the highest literacy rates in the world. He was friends with fellow Scots David Hume, James Watt, James Hutton and James Black, a group of extraordinary minds who were all foundational in their fields and all the products of a renowned Scottish education system. But it was Smith that wrote most about education, with a searing attack on Higher Education. Literally reframing economics as the business of trade, rather than profit and bullion, he saw education as oiling the wheels of commerce.

Smith’s economic theories and his view in education are grounded in his philosophy. Indeed he saw himself not as an economist but philosopher. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, where his theory of human nature claims that we are fundamentally driven by self-interest but also have sympathy, from which comes justice, even benevolence. We use our imagination to better ourselves by imagining ourselves in better circumstances and can learn to apply moral sentiments. Reason and self-control can all be learnt as can beneficial social values. Parents have an essential role here as have friends and formal education.

His Wealth of Nations was written the same year as the US Declaration of Independence and his influence greater. The world has largely adopted variants of free-trade capitalism, where “it is not through the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that we expect our own dinner but from their regard for their own interest.” In this book he devoted a section to education preferring a combination of a modest private contribution and public support.

Basic education

In favour of learners paying teachers directly, he also realised that this was impractical for the poor, for whom a basic education should be supported at public expense, albeit retaining an element of direct payment for the masters. Note that he did not mean payment from tax revenue but from other sources such as land rental and philanthropy. 

Higher Education

He was in favour of teachers having to rely on their skills and reputation, with students paying for access and was highly critical of the University of Oxford and European Universities, of which he had some experience, as their large salaries encouraged them to disparage and even abandon teaching. “In the university of Oxford, the greater part of the publick professors have, for these many years, given up altogether even the pretence of teaching.” Student fees, by comparison,  were paid directly to professors in Scotland. In a rather prophetic passage he states that “the richest and best endowed universities have been the slowest in adopting those improvements, and the most averse to permit any considerable change in the established plan of education.”

Teaching

He was detailed in his criticism of ‘sham-lectures’ where the Professor simply extemporized on an ancient text. “It is the interest of every man to live as much at his ease as he can” says Smith, which is why teachers and Professors need to be renumerated directly by their learners or they will teach what they want rather than what the learners need.

Influence

Smith’s influence on economics and politics has been immense, as has his influence on education and training.  He is not a free-market ideologue in education. He favours a system that mixed personal contributions with public support. Many would agree that tenured academics have abandoned much teaching to adjuncts and abandon teaching whenever the opportunity arises. Many also agree that students who benefit from the University education should pay for that privilege. In the current debate around Higher Education, many countries have opted for variants of Smith’s recommendations.

Bibliography

Smith, A., 2010. The theory of moral sentiments. Penguin.

Adam, S., 2016. The wealth of nations. Aegitas.

Rousseau (1712-1778)... Noble savage...

It is hard to see a man who handed all five of his children up to an orphanage at birth, not even naming them or noting their date of birth, as an expert on the development and education of children. Prickly and paranoid, he managed to fall out with almost everyone, including those who tried to help him, like David Hume. Yet Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote extensively on education, including a major novel ‘Emile (On Education)’, still arguably the most important novel on education ever written and his influence on education has been long-lasting and profound.

Noble savage

As an exponent of The Noble Savage, although not as much as you may think, he saw civilisation as a corrupting influence, creating inequalities and conflict. His educational theories are an attempt to avoid such corruption within the mind of essentially good human beings, the antithesis of the Hobbesian notion of our intrinsic savagery.

Learner-centric

With a passing nod to Locke in the preface to Emile, he states his intention to build a complete theory of education from the point of view of the learner. Emile grows from a boy to a man and Rousseau tracks his inner, natural growth, matched by education appropriate to these natural stages of development. It is the learner that matters and the learner who develops in a natural fashion, not shaped by teachers but growing in response to opportunities for development.

The book develops over five sections. The first two are about giving the child freedom to explore and drink from his/her senses, as their ability to focus on serious learning is absent and when forced, is counterproductive. It is only at around 12 that the education of the mind should be considered. From 15-20 we are born again as we develop naturally into adults. This time of turbulent emotion allows us to learn about conflict, morals and religion. We must experience a gradual introduction into the ways of the world and wider society, but it is between 20-25 that one must be introduced to society. Here Emile meets Sophie, who he will marry. Rousseau takes this opportunity to draw differences between the education of men and women, based on his belief that the two sexes are naturally different.

Educational principles – nature, men and things

Education comes from nature, men and things; these are our three masters and nature is the most important. The child, naturally good, needs simple freedom and must not be rushed into inappropriate or unnatural educational activity. Play and self-reliance are important. From then on, each stage of natural development needs appropriate and personal education with learning appropriately matched to age. The focus is on motivation, first through restlessness, then curiosity and later goals. People do not need to be taught in a traditional sense; they need to be exposed to problems and come to their own Influences.

Influence

David Hume wrote, “He is plainly mad, after having long been maddish”, and although Rousseau's legacy has been profound, it is problematic. Having encouraged the idea of romantic naturalism and the idea of the noble and good child, that merely needs to be nurtured in the right way through discovery learning, he perhaps paints an over-romantic picture of education as natural development. The Rousseau legacy is the idea that all of our educational ills come from the domineering effect of society and its institutional approach to educational development. If we are allowed to develop naturally, he claims, all will be well. This may be an over-optimistic view of human nature and development, and although not without truth, lacks psychological depth. Emile, as Althusser claimed, now reads like a fictional utopia. Tom Bennett, of ResearchEd, notes that he is one of a long line of educational theorists who seemed to have no interest or actual experience in teaching children.

In many ways, the presentation of self-paced online learning, open access to knowledge through Google, Wikipedia and Open Educational resources and projects such as the ‘hole-in-the-wall’ work of Sugata Mitra, are heirs to the Rousseau dream. There is, to this day, a feeling that the strictures and structures of post-industrial revolution are harmful and counter-productive, and have led to a search for more natural and meaningful ways to learn.

Binbliography

Rousseau, J-J. (1762) Émile, London: Penguin.

Rousseau, J-J (1762) The Social Contract, London: Penguin. (1953 edn.) Translated and introduced by Maurice Cranston.

Rousseau, J-J (1755) A Discourse on Inequality. Translated with an introduction by M. Cranston (1984 edn.), London: Penguin.

Rousseau, J-J (1755) A Discourse on Political Economy. Available as part of The Social Contract and Discourses, London: Everyman/Dent.

Rousseau, J-J (1782) The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1953 edn.), London: Penguin.

Rousseau, J-J (1782) Reveries of the Solitary Walker. Translated with an introduction by P. France, London: Penguin.

Boyd, W.  (1956) Émile for Today. The Émile of Jean Jaques Rousseau selected, translated and interpreted by William Boyd, London: Heinemann.

Locke (1632-1704)... Motivation and habit...

Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1692), is a practical guide, rather than a theoretical treatise but that is what makes it so fascinating and readable. Widely translated, it became a manual for education among the upper classes for most of 18^th century.

As the greatest philosopher of his age, he laid the foundations for empiricism and the enlightenment view of knowledge, politics and education. Skeptical of the educational practices of his day, it was a break from the dry, educational stranglehold of medieval scholasticism. His is a sophisticated theory of education, explained in detail, built, not around the transmission of information, but the shaping of habits and character.

Motivation matters

As a libertarian he thought that the learner must not be coerced nor learn when they are not in the right frame of mind, neither should they be beaten. They must be made to feel as if it is in their own interest, and that they are acting from their own free will. Without pleasure and play, the child will become demotivated. Conversation is strongly favoured over lecturing, and the child’s character and temperament needs to be understood if they are to be taught well. Not that children should be spoilt, indeed he recommends that parents, in particular, should be tough on their children in their early years.

Habits

His approach is a series of very practical methods for encouraging good habits and character right down to details on curiosity, games, language learning, dancing and so on. Educational methods are recommended that focus on example and practice, rather than the teaching of information and principles, as children do not remember or apply rules. In this sense, it is not learning that matters, but the establishment of good learning habits. It is repeated practice that reinforces these behaviours so they become instinctive, through the use of the concrete rather than the abstract. We see here, the beginnings of a more psychological approach to learning, sensitive to curiosity, motivation and retention.

In particular, everyone should learn a manual skill, such as carpentry, as it helps relax the mind. Beyond this, his focus is on a healthy mind that has the basics in reading, writing, arithmetic and a knowledge of literature, along with the natural and social sciences. He was suspicious of the worth of the arts, and like Plato regarded them as either largely useless or dangerous. Detailed scholarly study should be left to those who want to become scholars.

Sceptical on schools

He does not recommend school for those who can afford tutors, and sets great store on the enthusiasm of parents, and the family in general. Schools, he thought, merely perpetuate bad company and bad habits of behaviour. He explicitly rejects the focus on Greek and Latin through the teaching of grammar. A cross-curricular approach should, for example, move from French through geography (places in France) and only after a knowledge of numbers, to longitude and latitude, then Copernican astronomy. This orderly approach to the curriculum, that puts the practical before the abstract, lies at the heart of his pedagogy. Lastly, and not many learning theorists touch on this, Locke recommends travel, not at 16-20, the gap year norm, but either before this age, to acquire a language, or after when one can truly appreciate the difference between your own and another culture.

Influence

His thoughts on education, although influential, are weakened by the fact that, like most pure empiricists, he saw the mind as a table rasa or blank slate. But this was tempered by his recognition of individual character. We can now see that he was also a product of the age, making a firm distinction between the education of Gentlemen and the masses.

These points aside, it is the idea of a free mind, that uses the power of reason to become contributory, autonomous adults in a free society, that mark out this educational theory. The sweeping scope of his thinking and thoroughly practical recommendations are impressive, couching education in a sophisticated theory of knowledge and liberal political society with observations and general views on education that point towards a tradition that focused on character and autonomy within society, rather than the transmission of knowledge. 

His pedagogical ideas have a psychological basis that reads like contemporary theory and lead to concrete ideas about what should be taught and how. Above all, we see the emergence of the autonomous learner, where motivation in the mind of the learner becomes paramount in pedagogy.

Bibliography

Aaron, R. (1971). John Locke. Oxford: The Oxford University Press

Cranston, M. (1969). John Locke Green and Co. Ltd. London: Longmans

Tarcov, N. (1984). Locke's education for liberty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Yolton, J. W. (1968). John Locke and the way of ideas. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Calvin (1509-1564) - Teachers as preachers... deficit model…

Education as a religious imperative

Calvin, with Luther, was a hugely influential Protestant reformer who attacked the Catholic Church and worked towards a return to a more basic form of Christianity, based on a personal relationship between God the creator, scripture and his subjects. It is also important to remember that his intellectual lineage is from St Augustine, so predestination, sin and eternal damnation figured large in his theological beliefs. We are imperfect sinners, born flawed and personal education is the path to salvation, work and redemption. In education, this reformed approach, with a new emphasis on the individual, and the Bible as a text, gave new impetus to self-improvement and universal schooling, made possible by the massive rise of cheap, printed books.

School as secular salvation

Influenced by humanists like Erasmus, we must know only God and ourselves through scripture. Idolatry and ritual were to be shunned. We are fallen creatures, with the burden of original sin and have to find redemption through Christ. Calvin was very much and internationalist and this fight against sin was to shape schooling and education in Northern Europe and North America for centuries, with its deficit model, matched by righteous schoolmasters who had to drill, beat and moralise leaners into improvement. Discipline, attention and punctuality were to become the virtues of the schoolroom. Illich thought that Calvinism had literally shaped schooling as we know it, with school as the new form of secular salvation.

Universal education

His second influence is on his emphasis one universal education from an early age. Education was part of the Protestant mission and compulsory, disciplined schooling was to be encouraged for all and so he encouraged the building of schools and free schooling for all, especially the poor. In countries like Scotland, where his acolyte John Knox pushed for a school in every Parish, literacy levels became the highest in Europe and some argue this led to the flourishing Enlightenment period in that country.

Calvin and print

Literacy was a virtue as it enabled the personal study of scripture direct from the printed word. Luther was another great influence on this policy. As an active promoter of the new publishing industry, he saw our personal relationship with God being truly mediated, not by the church and priests, but through personal reflection. Calvin’s support for the printed word, mostly scripture, came at a time in Europe when the print revolution was exploding and as books were no longer scarce, reading became a major pedagogic force.

This print explosion was to encourage other Calvinist evangelists, such as John Knox, to call in his 1560 Book of Discipline for a national system of education. This was in the spirit of the individualism of the Reformation but his primary reason was to allow all children to read scripture. This was to have an unintended consequence. 

In time, 1696 to be precise, the Scottish parliament passed the ‘Act for setting schools’, to legislate for a school in ever parish. By the end of the eighteenth Century Scotland would have the highest literacy levels of any other country. The Reformation by then has turned into the Enlightenment, not only in Scotland but across Europe. A more secular revolution has been set in motion by religious zeal.

Teaching as preaching

Calvin was never ordained and saw himself as a teacher rather than clergyman. Perhaps his most enduring, influence is on preaching, exposition and the repetition as pedagogic techniques. In other words, the traits of the preacher were to become that of the teacher. His teaching as preaching method was to read, deliver a sermon then sing (scripture through Pslams). The regular singing of Psalms, repetition of the Lord’s Prayer, moral assemblies each morning all made their way into schooling, reinforced in the Victorian era when schooling became compulsory and large numbers of children had to be looked after and schooled, as their parents were working in factories. We are still mired in this Protestant pedagogy, if not its theological predilections.

Criticism

It has been argued that the Reformation, Calvinism in particular, sees education as the rectification of weakness and not the building of strengths. What is produced and exposed is not success but failure, leading to fixed curricula, obsessive testing and a deficit model that interprets education in pathological terms. It can also be argued that many of the institutional behaviours and practices in schools regiment children in a way that as unnatural and unnecessarily restrictive. Morning assemblies, the teacher as transmitter of knowledge, rows of desks, bells on the hour, drill and practice, can be seen as strict Calvinist practices, where students are regarded as sinful beings that have to be saved from ignorance.

Influence

Through reformers like John Knox, schools were formed in every parish and they were to shape the Prussian model under Friedrich Wilhelm I, then the Napoleonic model and much of modern institutional learning, even into North America. The Puritan influence on the founding fathers in the US was also substantial. We see this teaching and learning, and religion for the people, get rooted in local parishes, communities and schools.

Calvinism also led, indirectly to the Enlightenment, where the focus on the text of eth Bible raised problems with that text and reflection on religion and philosophy. We see this directly in Scotland, where an educated population, produced some of the geniuses of the Enlightenment Smith, Black, Hutton and Hume. It’s influence on capitalism through Adam Smith is also powerful, with its ethos of discipline, hard work and earthy success.

Calvin’s influence on education through universal schooling has been immense, as is his influence on attitudes towards education as a deficit model, where the students are seen from the start as a flawed creatures. The religious view is that we are fallen creatures, born incompetent and the conceit of education is that the answer is always more schooling. The glass is always half empty and we always seem to have deep 'deficits' and 'divides'; digital divide, digital skills, maths, 21st C skills, qualifications, even happiness!

In a sense Calvin has been a curse and a blessing, with his emphasis on the virtues of education combined with the vices of, for example, learners as being deficient and teachers as preachers.

Bibliography

Tillich, Paul, (1968) History of Christian Thought, New York: Harper and Row

Reid, W. S. (1972) John Calvin: His Influence on the Western World, Michigan: Zondervan

Graham, W. Fred (1971), The Constructive Revolutionary: John Calvin and His Socio-Economic Impact, Richmond, Virginia: John Knox Press

Helm, Paul (2004),John Calvin's Ideas, Oxford

Luther (1483-1546) - Universal schooling... reform...

In Martin Luther’s call for universal education, literacy was part of his programme for ‘reformation’. It was education, schools and literacy that would put young people in touch with the realities of scripture and knowledge, without the mediating power of a priestly elite. Education would produce individuals who had direct access to the good book and therefore God. This was still education in the service of religion but a much more disintermediated and democratised approach to learning. There can be no doubt that he was a major catalyst for the reformation, which in itself had an enormous effect on shaping education, not only in Europe but around the world. It led, in the end, to a more secular form of education rooted in schools and Universities, free from the church.

Luther and learning

Luther expressed a keen interest in education, schools and teaching. Reflections on all appear across his writings but two texts stand out; the letter to The Mayors and Aldermen of the Cities of Germany on Behalf of Christian Schools and the sermon The Duty of Sending Children to School. This interest in learning and education had deeper roots in the Renaissance but the Reformation gave it new impetus.

Spiritual and civic education

In The Mayors and Aldermen of the Cities of Germany on Behalf of Christian Schools (1524), which he directs at town councillors, the duty to provide education is evidenced in Scripture, where in Psalms, it is God’s command that we teach the word of God and in Deuteronomy that we nurture and immerse youth in scripture, and inculcate respect for parents and authority. The state, he thought, should provide schools for all, rich and poor, that serve both spiritual and civil needs. An educated citizenry would be more structured, conscientious and produce better leaders. As to what was taught, he resorts to the renaissance model of the Classical curriculum, based on the works of Greece and Rome. The German Bible and other translations were important but he still revered the Greek and Latin versions.

Schools

Six years later, after the failure to see his recommendations realised and witnessing an anti-intellectual leaning in the Reformation, he wrote a more practical work, The Duty of Sending Children to School (1530). Here, he admonished parents for not seeing the value of spiritual education and knowledge of the Kingdom of God. Yet he is still loyal to his vision of seeing education as both a spiritual and civic matter, as the earthly realm, a gift from God, needs professionals and leaders to produce a prosperous society in which the spiritual can flourish.

Influence

The Reformation saw universal education as a ‘form’ of reformation. They saw it as a means of ridding the Catholic grip on beliefs and institutions, reconnecting all people to God through more direct means, their ability to read, study and understand scripture. But Luther was not as radical as some other reformers, who wanted to eradicate the reading and teaching in ancient languages. He was still a Renaissance preacher and teacher. Unlike Erasmus, for Luther, education was not an end in itself; it was a route to scripture and the gospels, all leading back to spiritual development. Nevertheless, the Reformation pushed an agenda that gave the individual learner the power to read, write and reflect. Whatever the means and ends, universal schooling and literacy was on the march. Lutheran influence in schools still exists in its original heartlands, northern Europe, and through emigration, in the US and Australia.

Ignatius (1401-1556) - Jesuit zeal… Give me a boy (don't take this the wrong way)…

Ignatius Loyola was a Basque soldier turned priest who formed the Jesuits, or Society of Jesus, a missionary order driven by a military-type zeal to spread the Catholic faith. He famously said ‘give me a boy until he is ten, and I’ll give you the man’. Education was to be their primary and most successful weapon. Jesuit education is apostolic and the order demanded missionary and educational service in whatever part of the world they were sent. It was a reaction tom the Reformation and Prtestantism and drove Jesuit priests into many remote lands and ever remoter locations to defend the faith and, above all make converts. The Jesuits are still active with tens of thousands in the order and educational activities in many countries.

Ratio Studiorum

Jesuit education was founded across Europe as part of the Counter-Reformation, to prevent what the Catholic Church saw as heretical teaching in the Universities of the day. After the publication of the Jesuit educational manual, the Ratio Studiorum, by Acquaviva, known as the second founder of the Jesuits, in 1586, the Jesuits had added a practical method to their zeal. Acquaviva formalised Jesuit education making it easy to replicate and scale. The book is a detailed account of how to set up a school, classes, curriculum, schedules, and methods of teaching. It attempted to do then what is common now, standardize teaching methods and the curriculum

The primary function of education for the Jesuits was religion, specifically the teachings of the Catholic Church, so that moral character and religious devotion became habitual. This was not done through direct religious instruction but through a religious approach to all learning. Boarding was encouraged as it was in line with the indoctrination of the whole student. Strong and well-trained teachers were essential, with constant evaluation and feedback throughout the year. Good teachers who were talented, prepared and inspiring were sought, poor teachers rejected.

In the days when educational theory was a matter of life and death, the Ratio Studiorum was condemned by the Dominicans to the inquisition, as it contained some unpalatable theological doctrines. The Jesuits compromised by removing the implicated chapters.

Curriculum

It is a highly academic education with a focus on the humanities and the classics in literature, history and language, with the emphasis on reason, leading to philosophy and theology. Mathematics, for example, was seen as a secondary, worldly subject. The curriculum, however, aimed to ‘form’ and not just ‘inform’ character through analysis. Critical thinking was encouraged. This is not to say that the curriculum was wholly academic, as the arts, especially drama and physical education, were also encouraged. They were keen on plays where students would debate and show moral dilemmas and issues on the stage.

Latin

As the idiom of religion and the Church, Latin was compulsory even into the 20^th Century. Not only was Latin taught but much of the teaching was done in Latin, with some schools not allowing vernacular to be spoken, even outside of the classroom. The Ratio makes it clear that Latin was not about helping learn other languages but about inculcating learners in the culture of the church and the classics. It was taught directly and through immersion, translation being frowned upon. The religious basis of Jesuit education is seen by many as an anachronism in our post-colonial and secular world. The promulgation of Latin can also be partly traced to its religious role in Universities, and not as is commonly assumed, for utilitarian purposes.

Influence

The Jesuits were a global educational enterprise, first India, then South America, Florida, Mexico, China and Japan. The used and wielded power but always saw ‘schooling’ as their modus operandi, raining money for schools, which are fixed, visible and useful entities within communities. Their buildings were often huge and ostentatious. Education means salvation, but also power. They were particularly good at adapting to local, indigenous cultures linguistically and culturally but also good at remaining elite and scholarly, infiltrating government and ruling entities.

Jesuit education has modernised and in its many universities and colleges, especially in the US, has become part of the mainstream educational landscape. They run 168 higher education establishments in 40 countries and 324 secondary schools in 55 countries, with around 20,000 in the order but it is estimated that their numbers are falling. 

Buddha (6th and 5th C BC) - Monasticism to mindfulness

The Buddha lived across the sixth and fifth centuries BC, although the exact dates are disputed. Buddhism plays a significant role in education directly and indirectly in China, Japan, Thailand, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia, South Korea, India and Malaysia. Seven countries have Buddhist majorities: Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Laos and Mongolia, where Buddhism plays a significant role in education through the monastic tradition and monastery schools.

Buddha as teacher

Teaching is one of the Buddha’s nine epithets as an ‘Awakened One’ but the texts show a man who is detached and hesitates to teach. There is no rush to action in his teaching of the road to enlightenment, as that would stimulate the very desires he wants to still. It should not surprise us, therefore, that the Buddha was disinclined to teach, as throughout his life, his method was largely by example. This also explains why he said so little about education and teaching. Buddhism is a practice, an inward looking practice that attempts to still the brain, not fill the mind with knowledge of the earthly word, the world of illusion, nor stimulate critical thought. However, there are parables and stories the Buddha tells that show his willingness to explain, such as the ‘Fields’ parable and use of the ‘Lotus’ as an analogous device. Bearing this in mind, one can see why Buddhism has not been a major force in educational thought but had been a force in religious, and therefore educational, practice.

What is taught

The Buddha is seen as the route to understanding, living and ultimately enlightenment. The moral guidelines are clear with a focus on honesty, purity, truthfulness, kindness and sobriety.  Generosity and self-sacrifice are also strong traits. Above all, the sublimation of the self away from greed and selfishness characterizes Buddhist education. There is, therefore, a strong belief in cooperation not competition. This is in direct opposition to many western values of individualism and education as a preparation for an active life and for a competitive position in the job market.

In Buddhism, the mind is everything and peace and enlightenment come from within. This is not a filling of the mind with knowledge but a stilling of the mind. There is teaching of sacred texts but the Noble Eightfold Path requires one to live a life based on a right view, right thought, right speech, right conduct, right vocation, right effort, right attention and right concentration. This is far from the liberal arts tradition in the west or more recent pragmatic use of education in the East. Its influence is more through cultural norms than its direct influence on education.

Monastic education

One significant cultural and methodological effect is the monastic tradition. The monastic tradition in Buddhism and submission to religious teachers and practices within monasteries is the mainstay of Buddhist education. To become a monk or nun is an alternative form of schooling in many in countries of South-East Asia. It was the mainstay in many countries before the modern era and still plays an important role as a supplement or alternative to state schooling.

Zen Buddhism

Interestingly, the monastic tradition wasn’t taken up with relish in China, as it clashed with the Confucian idea of staying within the family, so Zen Buddhism, a more personalized form of enlightenment, linked to Daoism, emerged. Zen teacher-master exchanges are a pedagogic product of this particular tradition. ‘Koans’ are stories or dialogues that are used to illustrate or a method to practice Zen teaching. The teacher guides the student, through dialogue, to Zen enlightenment.

Influence

With approaching half a billion Buddhists one would expect the Buddha and Buddhism to have had a significant effect on education but, apart from the Buddhist monastic tradition, there is little to suggest that it has had a significant effect on educational thought outside of religious teaching. Its effect is primarily cultural, through moral norms.

The one concrete influence has been the recent rise of Mindfulness in education is one example of Buddhist ideas influencing western workplaces and education, as the world becomes globalized, so ideas flow from one culture to another. This mix of Buddhist meditation, has taken root schools and training throughout the West.

St Augustine (354 – 430) – Bad-boy turned good… a tale of teaching and lust...

Augustine was a towering figure in Christian thought throughout the Dark Ages, as he helped transform the world of absolute forms and the world of representation into earthy and heavenly realms, Platonism into Christian theology. He was born in North Africa, then via Rome and a conversion to Christianity in Milan, went back to North Africa as a Bishop. Writing towards the end of the Roman Empire, on the cusp of the move from paganism to Christianity, he wrote Confessions a wonderfully reflective and human autobiography where he reveals his own failings, as well as many works of philosophical and theological weight. 

Confessions

Confessions, Augustine’s psychological autobiography, brings to life his distaste for the education he received. He loathed Greek, the language of teaching, which led to him disliking even the works of Homer and was bored by rote learning, artificial exercises and brutal punishment. It is this self-awareness and the fact that he himself was a classic bad-boy turned good, who redeemed himself later in life, showing that people can change through education, that makes him such a fascinating learning theorist. The book is a lesson in itself, where he teaches by example, explains his own conversion. It’s rather saucy and frank about his relationship with an unmarried woman with whom he has a child, his lust, even stealing. We see in this book an entertaining and readable book, someone who is interested in sex, who teaches by telling his own story. What makes St Augustine so interesting is that this is a man whose theological beliefs were shaped by Platonism, a wold of absolute good, and educational beliefs tempered by his negative experiences as a pupil.

De catechizandis rudibus

In The Teacher and De catechizandis rudibus Augustine shows a detailed interest in teaching methods. As one must be guided by a natural love of God, one must as a teacher give of yourself as a guide and mentor, encourage curiosity, motivate and not rely on punishment. Teachers should plan their work, learn as they teach, look for ways to stimulate learners and show patience. There is a real sense of teaching as a process that is enhanced by understanding learners. 

More than this he recognises that teachers themselves may be the problem, obsessed by their own work, too critical of slow learners or sometimes let personal concerns influence their work. As one of the first philosophers of language he warned us that the mind moves faster than the teacher’s words and the teacher may be communicating in the wrong way, so he recommends that learners interrupt to clarify issues. He talks about the ‘restrained style’ in teaching, in simple, direct language, then the ‘mixed style’ where one elaborates using more motivational language, then the ‘grand style’ for changing hearts and attitudes. First understand your learners as there are those who have a good grounded education, those who are trained in rhetoric who think they know but do not and then the uneducated. He recommends different approaches for all three.

He bring the Christian ethos of love and humility to the act of teaching, seeing pupils as people who must be treated with respect and encouraged towards finding their own inner truths. Remember that he is writing this in the 5^th century, showing a rare humility, in an age of religious absolutism. 

Influence

Augustine may have been a Platonist but he is not in terms of education. Within the confines of scriptural certainty, he is remarkably sensitive to the needs of the learner and the subtlety of good teaching methods. His two influences, his early bad experience at school and his conversion to Christianity, combine to form a rounded analysis of learning that reflects the humanity of the man. He remained a towering figure in theological thought for centuries, softened by the realism of his early years and as a practising teacher.

Bibliography

Augustine, St. 1952. The First Catechetical Instruction (400), trans. Joseph P. Christopher. Westminster, MD: Newman Press.

Augustine, St. 1968. The Teacher (389), trans. Robert P. Russell. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press.

Augustine, St. 1997a. On Christian Teaching (426), trans. R. P. H. Green. New York: Oxford University Press.

Augustine, St. 1997b. The Confessions (400), trans. Maria Boulding. New York: Vintage Books.

Brown, P. 1969. Augustine of Hippo. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Chadwick, H. 1996. Augustine. New York: Oxford University Press.

Rist, J. M. 1999. Augustine. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Stock, B. 1996. Augustine the Reader: Meditation, Self Knowledge, and the Ethics of Interpretation. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.

Rorty, A.O. (Ed) (1998)  Philosophers on Education: Historical perspectives. London and New York, Routledge.

Howie, G (ed and trans) 1969. St Augustine: On Education, Chicago: Henry Regnery Company.

Superintelligence by Nicholas Bostrum - abstract, at times esoteric but worth the effort

The author makes it clear that what he is about to discuss is unlikely to happen any time soon, perhaps within this century, perhaps not. He does, however, think it will happen – the creation of an intelligence greater than ourselves – a superintelligence.

He starts, reasonably, with a potted history of AI and the state of the art predictions on progress. Multiple routes to superintelligence are then laid out, biological, technical and organisational. They all have trade-offs – brain emulation, brain-computer interfaces, networks and organisational collective intelligence and so on, some are more incremental, others offering a faster route to real ‘super’ intelligence.

So how will this superintelligence manifest itself, how quickly will it explode into disruption and is it a winner takes all endgame? This is where the book comes into its own. His thought experiments, in terms of paths and possible outcomes is outstanding, along with a detailed treatment of the problems of control. Chapters 7, 8 and 9 are the meat in the sandwich, as they tackle the issues of where this could take us and what we can do to control it.

It is less confident in turning to economic issues like employment, welfare and social consequences but comes back to the boil on values. I like his phrase ‘Philosophy with a deadline’. This debate is full of clichés and exponential thinking about technology that doesn’t yet exist. I found it a little wanting on the limits of AI itself, but has breadth when it comes to considering all the arguments. Whatever you think about the concept of superintelligence, its timeframe or even whether it will happen at all, this book pushes the boundaries in terms of the sheer detail he amasses on each topic.

Reading the book is like going off on a series of long walks, many of which result in dead ends but wander you will, as there is no one path but many paths to many outcomes. Unlike most reviewers, I tip my hat to the sheer effort he makes in covering all of the possible paths on each topic, not settling on the obvious or easy. I also enjoyed his clear respect for Eliezer Yudkowsky, another AI theorist. 

For me the book is too speculative, as AI is not as good as we think it is and not nearly as bad as we fear. It is so theoretical that it feels like an exercise in theory rather than real practice. You really do have to have a high tolerance for abstract thinking to get the most from this book. 

I did like hi afterword. Although dismissive of an impending AI winter, he does fear an ‘AI safety winter’, where ethical theatre, much of it amateurish, simply prevents good beneficial work from being done in AI. That, I fear, is more likely than AI doing much harm.

First published in 2014, which is an eon ago in AI years, it was updated in 2016 but remains topical, as good ideas are good ideas. Bostrum’s an academic at the Oxford Martin School and the book has an academic style making it a read that needs ‘effort’, as technical and philosophical issues do if they are to be credible… but it is well worth the effort. 

Mohammed (570AD –632AD) - Recitation

It is claimed that Mohammed was illiterate and the Koran literally the word of God, transcribed by others from his revelations. Mohammed is therefore a prophet and teacher but in reality a mouthpiece for the absolute message of God.

Koran and education

In Islam, books, especially the Koran, are held in the highest regard and mosques functioned as repositories of books. One even had to wash before touching the Koran. This reverence for the ‘book’, especially the Koran, is paramount. Indeed it was almost immediately made into a ‘codex’ (book form), as they had acquired paper technology from captured Chinese sailors in 751AD.

The dominant role this one book, of similar length to the Christian Gospels, on education in the Muslim world cannot be underestimated. For five centuries after its emergence in the 7^th century, the so called ‘Golden Age’ of Arabic culture, flourished in centres of learning in Damascus, Bagdad and Cairo. Their libraries collected and distributed Greek and Roman classical texts and made advances in mathematics, science, philosophy and law.

Recite and repeat

Prayer is one of the five pillars of Islam, recommended five times a day, so the repetition of recitation, known to be effective for embedding knowledge in long term memory, becomes an ingrained habit, as does listening attentively, especially at Friday prayers and also through the attentive reading of the Koran. Koran means ‘to recite’ and the text was originally meant to be read aloud. It has been argued that this has led to a dependence on rote learning. Some argue that this focus on recitation and repetition tends to infect studies across all subjects and education in the Islamic world has been criticised for its dependence on simple recitation at the expense of critical analysis.

Memorisation

Islam literally means ‘submission’ and it has been argued that this also affects the way learners and teachers approach education. In Sura 75:15–18 attentive reading is specifically mentioned and, in particular, memorisation of the Koran, an act which has been admired for centuries in the Muslim world. Those who manage to learn the entire Koran are greatly respected. With traditional paternalism, authority of the state and dominance of religion, some argue, comes a lack of questioning, passive learners and didactic teaching. Obedience and compliance, not unusual in other educational systems, arguably can be much more embedded in Islamic countries. The time spent on religious studies also squeezes out time available for other subjects. This may be another reason for the low levels of original research and patents in countries where Islamic education is dominant.

Koran and writing

With a foucus on reading came writing. Writing, not only through the Koran, but in other expository texts, is a strong feature of Islamic education. Sura 96 urges believers to ‘recite’ but also explains that God taught man through the ‘pen’, namely writing. Writing, especially calligraphy is regarded as a high art form, as it is in the Far East, but never was in in the West.  The double-edged sword is that the power of the pen is seen as the power of God’s absolute religious knowledge, not the freedom to write critically. Indeed, writing, even drawing, has led to death threats ‘fatwas’, on novelists and cartoonists. Islam, like Christianity, has supported the extremes of rigorous scholarship and education but also bans on education, especially for women. Such are the advantages and disadvantages of religion in general, in education.

Places of education

The madrasa goes back to the time of Mohammed, who was a teacher and had followers and students. These provided education on a scale at all levels for centuries. Places of higher learning, with teaching, libraries, even observatories, appeared as early as the 9^th century and some argue that these were the proto-Universities we saw emerge in Europe. They certainly provided a depth of learning and a reverence for books from the ancient world. Many that survived and helped create the Renaissance (rebirth) owe their existence in the modern world to these Islamic institutions.

Influence

For all its educational qualities, the focus on one book, its absolute truth and primitive recitation, repletion and memorization, often seem like primitive pedagogies, leaving little room for active and critical thought. Islam, like the extremes of Christianity and Judaism, can be seen as a return to an absolute form of belief, where young minds are locked down before they have had a chance to reflect or choose. This is an anathema to secularists who believe that education should open young minds not close them down. On the other hand, let us not forget that the Islamic world encouraged learning, scholarship and intellectual endeavour, gifting the world those texts of the Classical world we now so admire.

Bibliography

DawoodJ.  (Transl. 1956, revised 2000) The Koran Penguin Classics

Lyons M (2011) The Book Thames & Hudson

Hitti P.K. (1936) History of the Arabs MacMillan

Whitaker B (2009) What’s Wrong with the Middle East