Publish at October 06 2014 Updated September 14 2023
Why do we call the first years of school "primary" and the following ones "secondary" and "higher"? Like most people, we logically understand that primary comes before secondary, and that superior is above what comes before. But the reality behind the choice of these words is much richer.
This nomenclature dates back to the Middle Ages, to the time of Charlemagne, and refers to ancient Greece and its classical period, when "paedeia" (education), the source of pedagogyand the encyclopedia, was defined as the ideal in "the moral apprenticeship of freedom and nobility (or beauty)", as opposed to the simple apprenticeship of technical know-how and commerce. This opposition is surprisingly alive and well in our education system today, leading us to believe that we are still in the era of classical pedagogy.
What is classical pedagogy?
That this pedagogy has withstood civilizations, revolutions, universalization and multiple transformations of society and teaching methods is due to some of its fundamental qualities of logic and flexibility.
Classical primary education is not about learning to read, but about learning the rules of communication and thought. Learning how to learn: grammar and vocabulary, logic (dialectics, reasoning) and rhetoric (persuasion). A whole "primary" program that needs to be refocused! Of course, we learn to read, write and count, but these are only skills to be applied to "primary" education. What's the point of training in the subtleties of science and art if the individual can't recognize the qualities of the reasoning that underpins them? Primary education can extend well beyond the age of 6... but secondary education can also begin earlier.
Secondary education includes knowledge of the Sciences and the Arts. Initially, this included astronomy, arithmetic, music and geometry (the four-way "quadrivium"), and was based on the great Greek and Roman classics. Today, it's the principles of the sciences and the arts that are taught, according to the priorities of the moment and based on the most solid references. Hence the visceral rejection of creationist and related theories (superstitions) by the classical education system. We train to the truth, not to arguments of authority or fatality. Sophisms are systematically rejected in dialectics.
Higher education involved apprenticeship in the intended profession, in the best state of the art. Often this meant gradually taking the place of the master. In a context where knowledge develops faster than it can be taught, it would be the "spirit of the master" that should be transmitted in the classical tradition. Who are the real masters today? The bonzes of finance, the media or politics? The heads of prestigious companies or organizations? Pioneering researchers and artists? We prefer to bet on the classics, but who knows, many of our contemporaries would provide excellent stories.
History as the glue
In a classical education, history was the common thread that provided meaning and context to everything that was discussed. Grammar was learned through stories, logic was learned from the same or another story, to discover its meaning or the relationships between its elements, and the same story could be put through the rhetorical mill and discussed.
Even in "secondary" education, the history of the discipline is inscribed in its continuity and development; most of the great theories bear the name of their author; in mathematics, for example, there are of course Pythagoras and Eratosthenes, but also Lagrangians and Hamiltonians. To advance with these concepts without knowing their history or context seems at the very least a handicap in classical education. Given the vigour and interest ofstorytellingin education, it clearly fills a need for coherence in the teaching system.
In principle, classical pedagogy has everything going for it: a coherent approach, an open, participatory method and contextualized integration...
In opposition
Classical pedagogy is opposed by dozens of different approaches: constructivism, cognitivism, differentiation, explicitness, Freinet, Montessori, etc., each with its own qualities and limitations. But faced with them, the "School", established on classical foundations right down to its administrative and real-estate structure, seems hopelessly static. And yet it adapts, without abandoning its principles.
Other approaches to learning are certainly possible, but trying to integrate them into pedagogy, a concept born of classicism, is doomed to failure, almost by definition. Learning spaces that are different from school and socially acceptable in which they can flourish, free from the tutelage of the authorities of the classic school, are practically their only alternatives for success, and this is indeed what we observe.
We are regularly confronted with criticisms of the "classic" school as boring, competitive, unequal, authoritarian and so on. They're all based on observation, but none of them stem from the very principles of classical education. Rather, they stem from a closed conception of classical pedagogy, divorced from the real world and ultimately very un-Socratic.
Wanting to teach fundamentals before details, privileging understanding over reproduction, integrating a sense of continuity, aiming for moral learning before material accumulation... we more often than not witness the fundamental opposition between materialism and idealism, between pragmatists and utopians. We need everyone, and we are thinking beings who influence the material world, not just conditioned beings. Beyond this point, the criticism focuses on the current organization and operation of schools, which are often far removed from the classical spirit. By promoting communication and exchange, ICTs bring us closer to classical pedagogy than they take us away from it.
The spirit of classicism, "the moral apprenticeship of freedom and nobility (or beauty)", seems to be just as well suited to the Internet as it is to socio-constructivism. Plato and Socrates would be right at home here, if only school were indeed "classical".
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The two main currents of educational thought guiding the school institution - Dominique Grootaers - 2007
Online learners: conquering their freedom - Christine Vaufrey - 2014
ICTE: the teacher's competitor or ally? - Christine Vaufrey - 2010
Image : Statue of PLaton at the Academy of Athens - yoeml - ShutterStock
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