Education in Medieval Europe

The first quote that stopped me was, "The very word "liberal" implies that these arts belonged to the education of free men, not to the technological training of slaves. " (Schrader, p. 264) After the short practicum, the biggest question in my head is that how can I implement inquiry based learning in a math classroom. This quote made me rethink of what education is and what is the purpose of education. The traditional teaching method in a math classroom is efficient, and I noticed during the short practicum that time constraints is a big obstruction when delivering a lesson to students. However, traditional teaching method is far from education of "free men". 

The quote that surprised me was, "Plato[...] conceived of such education as the sole occupation of the first thirty-five years of a man's life. "(Schrader, p. 264) thirty-five years of education is almost the triple amount of school years of current K-12 education system we use. I am assuming people back in Ancient Greece had shorter lifespan than current population, and imagining they spent triple amount of time for educating people made me think about what is really essential in education. Also, I personally feel like it would have been nice if our education system is designed to be more flexible. Many students find it challenging to figure out what to do after high school, and I feel like many of them are not ready to be graduating and not be students anymore. 

Another quote that stopped me was, "The third period, [...] one might almost say of intellectual revolution, in Europe. The Hindu-Arabic number system was introduced" (Schrader, p. 267). This quote made me think again about the importance of collaborative aspect of education. I found the quote to be funny even that the system that has been used in a different part of world is almost called as "intellectual revolution" in another part of the world. I am excited to be learning the perspectives that I have not yet explored through teaching.


Schrader, D. V. (1967). THE ARITHMETIC OF THE MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITIES. The Mathematics                    Teacher, 60(3), 264–278. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27957550






Comments

  1. Amanda Fritzlan19 December 2022 at 17:08

    I hope that you continue to explore histories of mathematics with your teaching, and to learn along with them. Our education system is not 35 years, but life-long learning is definitely part of being an educator.

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