First, early education.
Plato is the first person in the history of western education to put forward the idea of preschool education. He believes that the earlier the education for children begins, the better. "It is the most important thing that everything is difficult before it is easy, especially biology, which is most susceptible to edification at a young and immature stage. You can shape it into any shape you want. " He even advocated prenatal education. "At the same time, we should start this work even before the baby is born: pregnant women must receive training that is beneficial to the unborn baby." He thinks that after a child is born, even before he can walk, he must ensure that the nurse gives him beneficial exercise and air, especially not to hurt himself by walking too early (Law 789D). A baby should live as close as possible, just like at sea; We should make him swing up and down and sing to him so that he won't be afraid (Law 790C-E). This is the first step to cultivate a brave and firm character. When the child is over 3 years old, we can start to correct him carefully, let him start playing games, and it is best for the child to invent games himself; At the age of six, we should start teaching seriously, and then separate girls from boys. We should teach them to ride horses, shoot, throw and throw, and we should pay attention to training children to be both right-handed and left-handed (Chapter 793D—794D of the law). Modern brain science shows that children's brains have great plasticity. Plato realized that children's bodies and minds are highly plastic more than two thousand years ago, so he put forward the idea of early education, and we have to be impressed by Plato's wisdom.
Second, music and sports.
Plato paid special attention to children's music, literature and art education and physical education. He believes that "education is to train the body with gymnastics and cultivate the mind with music. Education should teach music before gymnastics, and music should contain stories. " (State Chapter 376E) The important cultural life in ancient Greece was to listen to the epic stories transmitted by folk artists playing the harp, so the word "music" contains the meanings of music, literature and so on, which is equivalent to the word "culture" now.
He thinks that literature and art education in children's stage is very important. "A child has received a good education since childhood, and rhythm and harmony have been immersed in his heart. When he is firmly rooted there, he will become gentle and polite; If your education is not good, the result will be the opposite. " (National Seal 40 1) He believes that the purpose of all kinds of music, poetry and art education is to cultivate people's moral sentiments and cultivate people's moral quality, and the ultimate goal of music education is to realize the love of beauty. (National Seal 403c) Because of its subtle influence, music poetry will inject the difference between truth, goodness and beauty and falsehood, ugliness and ugliness into people's hearts from an early age, so that children can "integrate beauty and reason from an early age." (National Seal 40 1D) Plato attached great importance to children's music, literature and art education, so he advocated strict examination and approval of the content of music, literature and art education. "The prejudices and opinions accepted in the early years are always deeply rooted and not easy to change. Therefore, we must pay special attention to the fact that in order to cultivate virtue, we must first let children hear the most beautiful and noble stories. " (State Seal 378E) Therefore, "first of all, we should review the editors of stories, accept their well-made stories, and refuse to make poor stories." (Chapter 377C of the National Law) He proposed that a law should be made to restrict music and poetry, stipulating which contents of music and poetry can be promoted and which contents must be banned, so as to "encourage mothers and nannies to tell their children the approved stories and use them to mold their souls." ("National Seal" 379C)
Plato believes that after music education, young people should receive physical exercise. "In sports, our guardians must also receive strict training from childhood." He believes that the purpose of physical training is to adapt the physical condition of the guardian to his work. "They need to be like police dogs that stay up all night; In their fighting life, they can swallow all kinds of drinking water and food; The scorching sun, the scorching sun, and the wind and rain can all be harmonious. " (National Seal 404B) Therefore, he asked the guards to give up drinking and eat simply and not be sleepy.
Plato believes that music education should be organically combined with physical exercise, because "people who specialize in physical exercise tend to become too rude, while those who specialize in music, literature and art are inevitably too weak" (national seal 4 10D), so music and sports should be well coordinated, so that "music and sports serve two parts of people-intellectual part and passionate part." (National Chapter 4 12)
Third, women's education
Plato not only attached great importance to the education of men, but also advocated the same education for women. He was the first thinker in the west who advocated "equality between men and women". He used animals as an example to prove that men and women should receive equal education. "We should do all the work together, except treating female police dogs as weak and males as strong." (national seal 45 1E) "then, if we use women regardless of each other, just as we use men, we must first give women the same education." He suggested that women should receive music, gymnastics and military education. He thinks that the only difference between the two sexes is only the physiological difference. In some aspects, such as weaving, cooking and making cakes, women are superior to men, and men are superior to women in marching and fighting. Therefore, no job of managing the country belongs entirely to women, because women are doing this job; There is no job of running a country that belongs entirely to men, because men are doing it. Women and men can have the same talents and endowments suitable for the position of national defender, but women are weaker and men are stronger.
Fourthly, the education of the guardians of the polis.
Plato's educational thought directly serves the ideal country he constructed. In his view, there is only one important thing that a ruler needs to do well, and that is education, that is, to cultivate excellent citizens through music and sports. Good education and training lead to good physical fitness, and good physical fitness, after receiving good education, leads to better physical fitness than the previous generation, which is conducive to other purposes and human progress. Here, Plato fully realized the great significance and role of education in enriching the country and strengthening the people. In his view, the ultimate goal of education is to cultivate the truly kind guardians of the polis with the highest knowledge, which further embodies his thought that education serves the national politics.
Regarding the learning content of the guardian, Plato thinks that five preparatory subjects should be studied first: mathematics, plane geometry, solid geometry, astronomy and music theory. In his view, politicians should learn this knowledge because it is not only useful in military operations, but more importantly, it can train people's minds and develop their abstract thinking ability. The object of this knowledge is beyond the reach of emotion. "We can only grasp it with reason, and no other method can." (National Seal 526A) By learning this knowledge, the soul of a ruler turns from a changing world to' truth and reality' and finally reaches the highest knowledge-'goodness'. He believes that all these preparatory subjects should be taught to guardians when they are young, not by coercion.
Plato believes that after studying the preparatory subject, if you want to reach the realm of "goodness", you must also accept the training of "dialectics". He used the famous "cave metaphor" to explain why he should learn "dialectics". He called the world inside the cave "the visible world" and the world outside the cave "the knowable world". Seeing the puppet image on the cave wall in the cave is equivalent to the "guessing" stage of cognition, and turning around to see the real puppet is equivalent to the "believing" stage of cognition. When it comes out of the cave in broad daylight, cognition enters the "conceptual world" ("knowledge") stage. The sun outside the cave is considered as the highest "good" concept in the concept world. He pointed out that just as the whole body can't turn from darkness to light without changing its direction, we must "have a skill of soul turning" in order to make the learning organ-the whole soul (similar to the eyes that see things) turn away from the individual things in the changing world and actively watch the concept of the real world. The skill or knowledge of this "soul" turn is what he calls "dialectics".
Regarding the object of the above-mentioned study course, Plato thinks that one must choose the most determined, courageous and elegant person in the possible range. In addition, they should not only be noble and earnest, but also have talents suitable for this kind of education, such as studying hard rather than remembering well.
Plato not only clearly defined the educational purpose and content of guardians, but also discussed in detail the educational time arrangement and talent selection. He divided the time arrangement of guardian education into six stages: (1) childhood-adolescence. Guardians receive music and physical education since childhood, with the aim of caring for their hearts and cultivating their noble moral sentiments. Their study and philosophy classes should be suitable for children to accept. (2) seventeen or eighteen-twenty years old. This stage is mainly to carry out necessary physical training to prepare physical conditions for philosophical research. (3) twenty years old-thirty years old. In the first selection, those children who are always the most capable in "hard physical exercise, study and terror of war" (national seal 537A) are selected and educated in the preparatory disciplines of "dialectics" such as mathematics, geometry, astronomy and music. (4) 30 -35 years old. Conduct a second selection, "select the young people who have these natural conditions best, and give them higher honors when they are 30 years old, and test them with dialectics." (national seal 537D) allows those who pass the examination to "study dialectics wholeheartedly" in June 4th (later "five years") (national seal 539DE). (5) thirty-five years old-fifty years old. Exercising in practical work for fifteen years, "forcing them to take charge of directing wars or other official duties suitable for young people" aims at "making them not inferior to others in practical experience" (national seal 539E), and at the same time continuing to test their quality in official duties. (6) After the age of 50-death. They must accept the final test, so that they can finally realize the "goodness" itself, manage the country well, manage the individual citizens well and manage themselves well. After spending most of the remaining time studying philosophy and cultivating the country's heirs, you can resign, enter the promised land and settle down.
Verb (abbreviation for verb) Plato Institute
In order to put his educational ideal into practice, Plato established his own college in Akkadam, Athens. There is no way to find out the exact date of the establishment of the college. "From the plan to build the garden and Plato's obvious connection that he visited Italy and Sicily at the age of 40, we should naturally assume that the garden was built during this period (388-387 BC)." 〔 1〕
The activities of the academy are mainly "giving lectures", and learning and studying geometry occupies a very important position in the academy. The famous saying "Scholars who don't know geometry, please don't enter our door" hanging at the entrance of the college fully shows Plato's emphasis on geometry. In addition to geometry, Plato Academy has conducted extensive study and research on biology, geography, astronomy, cosmology and other disciplines. Besides attaching importance to the study of arts and sciences, Plato's philosophy is the most important course in the college. He called the specific discipline before philosophy "preparatory discipline" and regarded learning philosophy as the only way to the highest knowledge of "goodness".
Akkadmu College, as an educational science center, is not an isolated ivory tower, although it focuses on teaching and scientific research. The purpose of Plato's establishment of academy is to realize the new combination of philosophy and politics, to cultivate a group of political talents who are proficient in philosophy and natural sciences and good at governing the country, and to serve his utopia.
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Plato was the first person to put forward the theory of systematic education in the history of western education. His educational thought covers all stages from preschool education to higher education, and many of his ideas and thoughts on education are still shining today. But his educational thought, like other thoughts, is more or less limited and conservative.
Plato attaches great importance to the political significance and function of education, and his educational thought serves his utopian state power. The purpose of his education is to cultivate practical talents to govern the country-the guardians of the city-state. Therefore, his educational activities have obvious social utility, paying too much attention to the political function of education, and the education of cultivating guardians can only be enjoyed by very few people. Plato attached importance to early education, advocated public preschool education, attached importance to women's education, advocated equality between men and women, and advocated the harmonious development of morality, intelligence, physique and beauty. However, he believes that the content of children's game stories and singing must be carefully selected and strictly examined, and the principles must conform to the interests of the ruling class, ignoring the development of children's personality and independent personality. His thought about women and children's social public ownership is even more contrary to social ethics and should be criticized.
Plato's educational thought is closely combined with his theory of human nature. He believes that God created man in three grades, namely, gold, silver and iron. He believes that "the children born to one person belong to the same kind." [2] The essence of his view of genetic determinism is to demonstrate the rationality of class rule in slave society.
Plato's education aims to resist the centrifugal force caused by the education of the wise on the polis. For Plato, education is not to cultivate children's musical agility and physical dexterity in the traditional sense, nor to cultivate political and practical wisdom through human life reflected in myths and poems. Really speaking, it is to shape the inner harmony of a person's soul, that is, to coordinate the disharmonious factors in people. Education is the unity of irreconcilable things in people-beasts and angels. The purpose of education is to form this unity, so that people will neither become tame sheep (slaves) nor greedy wolves (tyrants). [3] The potential of a person to become a political existence depends on the unity of philosophy and militancy in him. Therefore, education is not the cultivation of a certain skill, but the unity of power and love of knowledge.