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Johan Amos Comenius Jan Amos Komensky From: The Great Didactic written(1628-32) |
The proper education of the young does not consist in stuffing their heads with a mass of words, sentences, and ideas dragged together out of various authors, but in opening up their understanding to the outer world, so that a living stream may flow from their own minds, just as leaves, flowers, and fruit spring |
If we examine ourselves, we see that our faculties grow in such a manner that what goes before paves the way for what comes after. |
| 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 |
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| Why, therefore, should not Cicero, Livy, Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Tacitus, Gellius, Hippocrates, Galen, Celsus, Augustine, Jerome, etc., be treated in the same way and epitomized? |
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Geographers [and mapmakers] present to the eye huge
tracts of sea and land on a small scale, so that they can be taken in at
a glance.
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| These epitomes should contain the whole author, only somewhat reduced in bulk | |||
| The pupil should understand that what he learns is not taken out of some Utopia or borrowed from Platonic Ideas, but is one of the facts which surround us, and that |
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a fitting acquaintance with it will be of great service in his life. | |
| Much can be learned in play that will afterwards be of use when the circumstances demand it. | ||
| Aristotle compared the mind of man to a blank tablet on which nothing was written, but on which all things could be engraved. There is, however, this difference, that on the tablet the writing is limited by space, while in the case of the mind, you may continually go on writing and engraving without finding any boundary, because, as has already been shown, the mind is without limit
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John Amos Comenius From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comenius |
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was a
Czech
teacher,
scientist,
educator, and
writer. He was a
Unity of theBrethren/Moravian
Protestant
bishop, a religious
refugee, and one of the earliest
champions of
universal education, a concept
eventually set forth in his book Didactica Magna. Comenius became
known as the teacher of nations. He is often considered the
father of modern education
He attended the
Latinschool in Přerov,
Moravia, where he
returned 1614-18 as a teacher of the school. He
continued his studies in
Herborn (1611-13) and
Heidelberg (1613-14).
Comenius was greatly influenced by the Irish Jesuit
William Bathe as well
as his teachers
Johann Piscator,
Heinrich Gutberleth,
and particularly
Heinrich Alsted. The
Herborn school held the principle that every theory has
to be functional in practical use, therefore has to be
didactic, ie morally instructive. Comenius had a few
wrinkles on his mentors' thoughts later published in
Janua linguarum reserata (1631) which may have made
him and the Moravian Church especial targets of the
Counter Reformation.
Alternately, the work may have resulted from the pogroms
which drove him and his church out of its homeland into
exile, but in any event, the work led him to widespread
prominence and fame while suffering exile.
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| Comenius became a pastor at age 24 and led the Brethren into exile when the Protestants were persecuted under the Counter Reformation. He lived and worked in many different countries in Europe, including Sweden, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Transylvania, the Holy Roman Empire, England, the Netherlands, and Royal Hungary. Comenius took refuge in Leszno in Poland, where he led the gymnasium, then moved to Sweden to work with Queen Christina and the chancellor Axel Oxenstierna. From 1642-1648 he went to Elbing (Elbląg) in Polish Royal Prussia, then to England with the aid of Samuel Hartlib, who came originally from Elbing. In 1650 Zsuzsanna Lorántffy, widow of George I Rákóczi prince of Transylvania invited him to Sárospatak. Comenius remained there until 1654 as professor in the first Hungarian Protestant college; he wrote some of his most important works there. Comenius returned to Leszno. During the Northern Wars in 1655, he declared his support for the Protestant Swedish side, for which his house, his manuscripts, and the school's printing press were burned down by Polish partisans in 1656. From there he took refuge in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, where he died in 1670. For unclear reasons he was buried in Naarden, where his grave can be visited in the mausoleum devoted to him. |
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Comenius: Europe in the classroom http://ec.europa.eu/education/lifelong-learning-programme/doc84_en.htm |
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The
Comenius programme focuses on the first phase of education,
from pre-school and primary to secondary schools. It is
relevant for all members of the education community: pupils,
teachers, local authorities, parents’ associations,
non-government organisations, teacher training institutes,
universities and all other educational staff.
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The
Comenius programme focuses on the following priority areas:
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