There can be much to learn from our cultural and philosophical forefathers in ancient Greece, even when it comes to how to raise our own sons.
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In the spring of 2011 (my senior year in college), I had the immense pleasure and privilege to travel throughout Greece during my Spring Break and earn college credit for it. I had done this the previous two years in Turkey and Israel respectively, so this unique opportunity was not exactly new for me. These three academic travels into the eastern Mediterranean were part of a joint senior-level class between the History and Biblical Studies departments to offer students of all years an immersive experience with ancient cultures, history, and biblical sites. Considering I was majoring in History/Political Science with a minor in Cross-Cultural Studies for my bachelor’s degree, how could I not participate in these amazing opportunities!?
Each of these joint courses would focus on a particular theme—often split between a historical theme and a biblical one—so as to help the students better focus on the wealth of information to be found in the country we would visit that year. The historical theme for the 2011 trip to Greece was on War and Society in Ancient Greece. To prepare for the ten day trip, each student had to research and write on a subject specific to our corresponding theme and then present on the subject during the trip, and often on-site, to the rest of the class as the “resident expert” on the subject.
I was already somewhat familiar with differing aspects of ancient Greece once I learned of our theme this year. I wracked my brain for a couple of weeks trying to figure out what aspect of ancient Greek society I did not know much about yet was excited to learn about as well.
“Did the ancient Greeks have an educational system of any kind, let alone one similar to our own?”
In time, I had my eureka moment: ancient Greek education. “Did the ancient Greeks have an educational system of any kind, let alone one similar to our own?” I wondered.
Now that I had my answer (ironically another question), I set out to discover what my research on the subject would find. By the time I wrote my presentation a week before we were to fly out to Athens, I was fully astounded by what I had learned. The research I conducted on how the ancient Greeks, specifically the Athenians, raised their sons has since changed how I view education at every level. It has even influenced how I may raise my own future children.
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In the following paragraphs below, I have taken excerpts from my final research paper on the subject written at the end of my senior year. Perhaps in reading my research findings, you will also learn something from the Athenians’ example, as I have.
One cannot understand the methods and theories of Greek education without first understanding ancient Greek paideia. The word itself is translated as “childrearing,” but that is to oversimplify what the word had come to mean for the Greeks. To put it simply, “it meant the process of educating man into his true form, the real and genuine human nature”. This referred to the concept of equipping a child with the knowledge of the Greek culture, as well as referring to the environment in which the child was raised.
For the Greeks, the education of a child was not restricted to a father’s instruction or to educational institutions, but included the entire city in which the child was born and raised. This was different from learning a trade or vocation, for the Greeks looked down upon such practices as unworthy of free men; but, rather, it served as the goal for the training of the city’s future citizens. Although this ideal concept may seem to be individualistic, it is in fact more humanistic than anything else in history. As the famous classicist Werner Jaeger explains:
There was a special reason for the fact that the Greeks felt the task of education to be so great and so difficult, and were drawn to it by an impulse of unparalleled strength. That was due neither to their aesthetic vision nor to their ‘theoretic’ mentality. From our first glimpse of them, we find that Man is the centre of their thought.
Other nations made gods, kings, spirits: the Greeks alone made men.
Their anthropomorphic gods; their concentration on the problem of depicting the human form in sculpture and even in painting; the logical sequence by which their philosophy moved from the problem of the cosmos to the problem of man, in which it culminated with Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; their poetry, whose inexhaustible theme from Homer throughout all the succeeding centuries is man, his destiny, and his gods; and finally their state, which cannot be understood unless viewed as the force which shaped man and man’s life—all these are separate rays from one great light. They are the expressions of an anthropocentric attitude to life, which cannot be explained by or derived from anything else, and which pervades everything felt, made, or thought by the Greeks. Other nations made gods, kings, spirits: the Greeks alone made men.
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Although education was widespread throughout the Greek world and varied between each city-state before the Hellenistic period, most scholars use Athens as the example of ancient Greek education. With the adoption of direct democracy in 508 BC and the final victory over the Persians in 479 BC, Athens welcomed the dawn of its Golden Age. It was during the beginning of this age when scholars notice that the education in Athens takes on a more recognizable form.
Unlike the complete state-controlled education of Spartan children, the education of Athenian children was the sole responsibility of the child’s father. All schools and educational institutions other than the gymnasia were private schools that charged tuition. Nevertheless, Athens, as well as other Greek cities, were able to achieve universal literacy for all male citizens, even among its poorest citizens (it is important to note that not all males living in Athens were considered citizens, even if they were free). Furthermore, elementary and secondary educations outside of the family home were available only to boys and young men.
Athenian-styled education was divided into three elements: letters (grammata), music (mousiké), and physical training (gymnastiké).
Letters involved the learning of reading, writing, and rudimentary study of literature by a grammatist.
…literacy was considered the most important to master first out of the three educational fields.
Most children during this period would be taught by only the grammatist at first because literacy was considered the most important to master first out of the three educational fields. Athenian boys would begin their education at the age of seven and would be escorted to school every day by the family’s paidagogos, a very trusted and usually old slave that served as a positive role model during the boy’s education. The grammatist would teach children how to read through a series of memorizations that began with the individual letters of the Greek alphabet and ended with reciting large excerpts from Greek literature from memory, especially Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. The grammatist would work with the school boy usually until around the age of fourteen.
Music involved receiving instruction onto how to play an instrument, usually either a lyre or a cithara, and the proper reciting of lyrical poetry by a citharist. Students were taught to play by imitation from observing the citharist, and sometimes by observing their father if he also had an instrument at home.
According to the Greeks, music “cultivates spiritual harmony with nature… promoting self-control and harmony with body and mind.”
Students were not taught music in order to make them into musicians, for such vocational work was perceived as being beneath the dignity of a free citizen. The purpose for including music into education was for the building of character. According to the Greeks, music “cultivates spiritual harmony with nature; it shapes the soul to recognize and appreciate the relationship of man to his environment. Music touches the soul, elevating moral character by promoting self-control and harmony with body and mind”. Although music was an important element of ancient Greek education, its value slowly declined during the fifth century BC until the Hellenistic era when it had virtually lost its crucial role in the educational system.
Physical training or gymnastics was the most valued element of education for the Greeks, including the scholarly Athenians. Many fathers took special care to pick the best paidotribe (the gymnastics teacher) to train their sons. Physical training took place at a palaistra, a smaller version of the gymnasia. Unlike the gymnasia, which were publicly built and maintained buildings, the palaistra were privately operated, used solely by the paidotribe and his young students, and were off-limits to all other adult males—as dictated in the legendary Solon’s school laws. The paidotribe would drill the students into developing the whole body because symmetrical development of the muscles and body were very crucial. Examples of the various physical activities students would do, according to their age, included running, jumping, throwing, wrestling, discus-throwing, javelin-throwing, ritual dancing, and sometimes boxing. Unlike the grammatist or the citharist, the student would spend most of his education with the paidotribe, even staying with him until the age of fifteen or sixteen.
Around the age of fourteen, the average youth would drop out of all education in order to take up an apprenticeship, especially if the teenager came from a relatively poor family. However, if the student came from a wealthy family, he could wait until he was sixteen to drop out of school. Afterwards, the fortunate adolescent would enjoy a couple of years of pleasure-seeking excitement and various leisure activities. At the age of eighteen, the youth would take the oath of citizenship and begin taking on responsibilities of a citizen, including military service for at least two years.
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As you may have noticed already, there are some striking similarities between us Americans and the ancient Athenians. On the other hand, there are some marked differences between the two of us as well. In some ways we have made remarkable advances since their time; in others, we haven’t changed much at all over the millennia. For the specific comparisons and contradictions between us and them, I’ll leave that to you, the reader, as you so wish to do so. (I have also included a sampling from my research paper’s bibliography if you would like to dig deeper into this topic yourself.)
As for me, the biggest impact I came away with from researching on this very subject was the ancient Greek’s appreciation for the whole man. The Athenians saw to it that their sons would become productive and meaningful citizens of their city by educating their minds (letters and literature), their hearts (music and poetry), and their bodies (physical training and mentorship).
Sure, they were not perfect and ended up making their own mistakes; but they at least made an effort to address the whole man…
Sure, they were not perfect and ended up making their own mistakes; but they at least made an effort to address the whole man in the child at the beginning of this ancient system. That’s more than what can be said of our own educational system, which is more intent on producing factory workers and CEOs rather than fostering in our children the tools, resources, and guidance to become critically-thinking citizens as well as wholehearted adults.
Although there are those who will argue that the second coming of Jesus will happen before any meaningful education reform becomes a reality here in America, addressing the whole man/woman in our children is something we can do ourselves in our own families. Sure, we won’t be perfect and we will make more mistakes than we care to count. But if we at least try in addressing, learning, and developing our whole selves and that of our spouse and children, then we can create a space—a foundation—from which true societal reform can be ever more possible.
By Jonathan N. Delavan
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Photo: Flickr/SpirosK
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Bibliography
Camp, John, and Elizabeth Fisher. The World of the Ancient Greeks. New York, New York: Thames & Hudson Inc., 2002.
Dobson, J. F. Ancient Education and its Meaning to us. New York, New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1963.
Hibler, Richard W. Life and Learning in Ancient Athens. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1988.
Jaeger, Werner. Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture. 2nd Edition. Translated by Gilbert Highet. Vol. I. III vols. New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 1945.
Joyal, Mark, Iain McDougall, and J. C. Yardley. Greek and Roman Education: A Sourcebook. New York, New York: Routledge, 2009.
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