Promotion of Education in Panorthosia
By John Taylor; 2009 July 14, Kalimat 01, 166 BE
I intended to write another essay on Comenius and economics but there turned out not to be enough material, so today let us move on to the next principle, education.
Many if not all aspects of the Baha'i principle of promotion of education were pioneered by John Amos Comenius. Indeed Comenius is better known for his contributions to educational theory than what we have been concentrating on here, his ideas about reform as laid out in his last, largely posthumous work, Panorthosia. He devotes two full chapters of Panorthosia to educational reform, one laying out the structure of the entire branch of his proposed tripartite world government devoted to education and another chapter on the specifics of reforming schools that already exist. In future essays we shall be looking at these in detail, but to begin let us devote some time to looking over his general ideas on education as a principle, and more specifically how he defines education.
Education is for Everyone
Long before public education existed Comenius argued that education should not only be for the rich and privileged, it should be for everybody. In his Great Didactic, his most important work on education, Comenius wrote,
"Not the children of the rich or of the powerful only, but of all alike, boys and girls, both noble and ignoble, rich and poor, in all cities and towns, villages and hamlets, should be sent to school. Education is indeed necessary for all, and this is evident if we consider the different degrees of ability. No one doubts that those who are stupid need instruction, that they may shake off their natural dullness. But in reality those who are clever need it far more, since an active mind, if not occupied with useful things, will busy itself with what is useless, curious, and pernicious." (John Amos Comenius, The Great Didactic, 1649 (translated by M.W. Keatinge 1896, http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/7905/web7005.html)
This point remains current, especially in the United States where wealthy elites apply sophisticated measures to undermine public education both by throwing money at private alternative schools, by founding charter schools (based on the not entirely invalid argument that unionized teachers in public schools are not motivated to innovate in their teaching methods) and in more subtle ways, for example by raising tuition so high that poorer students are effectively made into debt slaves for the first decade or two of their careers.
Instead of making knowledge into a marketable commodity, Comenius argued in Panorthosia that we should give schools the name "factories of light," using the analogy of the sun, which provides the world with more light and heat than it can possibly use, without thought of reciprocal exchange. And the first step to that universality is literacy.
"Thirdly, they will attend carefully to the factories of Light, the Schools, so that these are opened throughout all Nations and all communities of human society, and are kept open and gleam with constant light. For just as the Sun fills its Planets with its light, and enlightens the whole sphere of the world (except where it turns away and seeks the shadow among the bodies of darkness), so they must enlighten the whole scholastic world which has been assigned to them. They will therefore impress upon leaders of states and churches everywhere that they must not tolerate any home, village, city, or province where reading and writing are not taught with wisdom." (Ch. 16, para 5, pp. 224-225)
Comenius goes on to suggest that universal literacy implies a universal social goal of instituting one of these factories of light in every place where human beings abide.
"This means that every community and village where people are living together should have its primary school, every city its grammar school, and every kingdom its university, and to keep things right everywhere, scholars, teachers, wardens and superintendents should be appointed to permanent posts, and finally visitors who make an official appearance at definite times and maintain their efficiency or make improvements wherever any irregularity has crept in." (Ch. 16, para 5, pp. 224-225)
While it is true that even today this goal is far from fully implemented in poor nations, still there is no doubt that Comenius would be astonished to see the proliferation of schools in wealthy lands. On the other hand, he would be less than pleased to see how poorly coordinated the curricula are, especially since the arrival of the Internet. While knowledge is disseminated with unprecedented efficiency, there remains no single body of knowledge being taught in schools around the world. The result is that one cannot rely upon every world citizen being familiar with even basic, clearly visible facts about the world around us. This explains why we are so inept and dilatory in responding to the clear and present danger of global warming.
Instead, Comenius says, we should treat the factories of light as a sort of theatre of wisdom which prepares graduates to go out into the world where, with new eyes, they will fully exercise their senses, their reason and their faith -- that is, they will identify with and coordinate their careers with their own ideas and viewpoints, and with science and religion. This means integrating schools not only with each other but with the workplace and every other part of our world.
"Since human nature has been blinded by its corruption ... all men should be wisely guided from the earliest age and constantly thereafter through the theatres of wisdom, and should all have endless opportunities of exercising their senses, their reason, and their faith." (Comenius, Panorthosia II, Ch. 9, para 11, pp. 146-147)
Next time we will look at how Comenius defines education, and how he proposes that it integrate knowledge under a single, universal light.
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