What kind of curriculum Aristotle supported to be taught to children? Discuss its features | Introduction to Philosophy | Course code 8609 | B.Ed Solved Assignment |

QUESTION 

What kind of curriculum does Aristotle support to be taught to children? Discuss its features.

Course: Introduction to Philosophy

Course code 8609

Level: B.Ed Solved Assignment 

ANSWER  

The Curriculum of Child Education 

According to Aristotle, "What education is, and how children ought to be instructed, is what should be well-known; for there are doubts concerning the business of it, as all people  do not agree in those things they would have a child taught, both concerning their improvement in virtue and a happy life: nor is it clear whether the object of it should be to improve the reason or rectify the morals."

From the present mode of education continues Aristotle "We cannot determine with certainty to which men incline, whether to instruct a child in what will be useful to him in life; or what tends to virtue, and what is excellent: for all these things have their separate defenders." As to virtue, there is no particular in which they all agree: for as all do not equally esteem all virtues, it reasonably follows that they will not cultivate the same. What is necessary ought to be taught to all: but that which is necessary for one is not necessary for all; for there ought to be a distinction between the employment of a freeman and a slave. The first of these should be taught everything useful which will not make those who know it mean.

 According to Aristotle, "Every work  is to be esteemed mean, and every art and every discipline which renders the body, the mind, or the understanding of freemen unfit for the habit and practice of virtue: for which reason all those arts which tend to deform the body are called mean, and all those employments which are exercised for gain; for they take off from the freedom of the mind and render it sordid."

Some liberal arts are not improper for freemen to apply to a certain degree, but to endeavor to acquire a perfect skill in them is exposed to faults. Aristotle points out that there are four things that it is usual to teach children; reading, gymnastic exercise, and music, to which (in the fourth place) some add painting. Reading and painting are both of them of singular use in life, and gymnastic exercise is productive of courage. As to music, some people may doubt it, as most people now use it for the sake of pleasure: but those who originally made it part of education did it because nature requires that we should not only be properly employed but be able to enjoy leisure honorably.

According to Aristotle "But, though both labor and rest are necessary, yet the latter is preferable to the first; and by all means, man ought to learn what he should do when at rest: for he ought not to employ that time at play; for then play would be the necessary business of his lives. Play is more necessary for those who labor than those who are at rest: for he who labors requires relaxation; which play will supply: for as labor is attended with pain and continued exertion, that play must be introduced, under proper regulations, as a medicine: for such an employment of the mind is a relaxation to it, and eases with pleasure. Now rest itself seems to partake of pleasure, of happiness, and an agreeable life: but this cannot be theirs who labor, but theirs who are at rest; for he who labors, labors for the sake of some end which he has not.

 According to Aristotle, "Happiness is an end which all persons think is attended with pleasure and not with pain: but all persons do not agree in making this pleasure consist in the same thing; for each one has his particular standard, correspondent to his own habits; but the best man proposes the best pleasure and that which arises from the noblest actions." To live a life of rest there are some things which a man must learn and be instructed in. The object of this learning and this instruction centers on their acquisition.

The learning and instruction which is given for labor have for its object other things. The ancients made music a part of education; not as a thing necessary, for it is neither of that nature, nor as a thing useful, as reading, in the common course of life, or for managing a family, or for learning anything as useful in public life. The painting also seems useful to enable a man to judge more accurately the productions of the finer arts: nor is it like the gymnastic exercise, which contributes to health and strength; for neither of these things do we see produced by music. The employment of our rest, they had in view who introduced it. It is a proper employment for freemen.

It is evident, then, that there is a certain education in which a child may be instructed, not as useful nor as necessary, but as noble and liberal. We have the testimony of the ancients in our favor, by what they have delivered down upon education—for music makes this plain. Moreover, it is necessary to instruct children in what is useful, not only on account of its being useful in itself, as, for instance, to learn to read but also as the means of acquiring other different sorts of instruction. Thus they should be instructed in painting, not only to prevent their being mistake in purchasing pictures, or in buying or selling vases, but rather as it makes them judges of the beauty of the human form. According to Aristotle, "To be always hunting after the profitable ill agrees with great and freedom souls." Whether a boy should be first taught morals or reasoning, and whether his body or his understanding should be first cultivated, it is plain that boys should be first put under the care of the different masters of the gymnastic arts, both to form their bodies and teach them their exercises.

Physical Education

Aristotle criticizes those states that took the greatest care of their children's education by bestowing their chief attention on wrestling because it both prevents the growth of the body and hurts its form of it. The Lacedaemonians made their children fierce by painful labor, as chiefly useful to inspire them with courage: though, this is neither the only thing nor the principle thing necessary to attend to; and even for this they may not thus attain their end.

 Aristotle points out that "we do not find either in other animals, or other nations, that courage necessarily attends the cruelest, but rather the milder, and those who have the dispositions of lions: for there are many people who are eager both kill men and to devour human flesh, as the Achaeans and Heniochi in Pontus, and many others in Asia, some of whom are as bad, others worse than these who indeed live by tyranny, but are men of no courage." The Lacedaemonians did not acquire their superiority by training their youth to this exercise, but because those who were disciplined opposed those who were not disciplined at all. What is fair and honorable ought then to take place in the education of what is fierce and cruel: for it is not a wolf, nor any other wild beast, which will brave any noble danger, but rather a good man.

According to Aristotle, "Those who permit boys to engage too earnestly in this exercise, while they do not take care to instruct them in what is necessary to do, to speak the real truth, render them mean and vile, accomplished only in one duty of a citizen, and in every other respect, as reason evinces, good for nothing. Gymnastic exercise is useful during youth. It is very proper to go through a course of those which are most gentle, omitting violent diet and painful exercise as they may prevent the growth of the body. In support of his argument, Aristotle points out that amongst the Olympic candidates, one can scarcely find two or three who have gained a victory both boys and men: because the necessary exercise they went through when young deprived them of their strength. When they have been allotted three years from the time of puberty to other parts of education, they are then of a proper age to submit to labor and a regulated diet. According to Aristotle, "It is impossible for the mind and body both to labor at the same time, as they are productive of contrary evils to each other; the labor of the body preventing the progress of the mind, and the mind of the body".

Education in Music

About the purpose of education in music Aristotle points out, "It is no easy matter to distinctly point out what power it has, nor on what accounts one should apply it, whether as amusement and refreshment, as sleep or wine; as these are nothing serious, but pleasing, and the killers of care, as  Euripides says; for which reason they class in the same order and use for the same purpose all these, namely, sleep, wine and music, to which some add dancing; or shall we rather suppose that music tends to be productive or virtue, having power, as the gymnastic exercises have, to form the body in a certain way, to influence the manners to accustom its professors to rejoice rightly? Or shall we say that it is of any service in the conduct of life and an assistant to prudence? For this also a third property which has been attributed to it."

The difference between Learning and Playing

According to Aristotle boys should be instructed in music as play because those who learn don't play, for to learn is rather troublesome." Neither is it proper to permit boys at their age to enjoy perfect leisure; for to cease to improve is by no means fit for what is yet imperfect: It may be thought that the earnest attention of boys in music is for the sake of that amusement they will enjoy when they come to be men and completely formed: but, if this is the case, why are they to learn it, and not follow the practice of the kings of the Medes and Persians, who enjoy the pleasure of music by hearing others play, and being shown its beauties by them; for of necessity those must be better skilled therein who make this science their particular study and business, than those who have only spent so much time at it as was sufficient just to learn the principles of it. But if this is a reason for a child's being taught music they ought also to learn the art of cookery, which is absurd. The same doubt occurs if music has the power to improve manners; for why should they on this account themselves learn it, and not reap every advantage of regulating the passions or forming a judgment on the merits of the performance by hearing others. The same reasoning may be applied if music is supposed to be the amusement of those who live an elegant and easy life, why should they learn themselves, and not rather enjoy the benefit of others' skills.

Music for Harmony

According to Aristotle, the first question is, whether music is or is not to make a part of education? And of those three things which have been assigned as its proper employment, which is the right? Is it to instruct, to amuse, or to employ the vacant hours of those who live at rest? Or may not all three be properly allotted to it? For it appears to partake of them all; for play is necessary for relaxation, and relaxation pleasant, as it is a medicine for that uneasiness which arises from labor. It is admitted also that a happy life must be an honorable one, and a pleasant one too since happiness consists of both these; and music is one of the most pleasing things, whether alone or accompanied by a voice: for which reason it is justly admitted into every company and every happy life, as having the power of inspiring joy.

From this one may suppose that it is necessary to instruct young persons in music; for all those pleasures which are harmless are not only conducive to the final end of life, but serve also as relaxations; and, as men are but rarely in the attainment of that final end, they often cease from their labor and apply to amusement, with no further view than to acquire the pleasure attending it. It is therefore useful to enjoy such pleasures as these. Some persons make play and amusement their end, and probably that end has some pleasure annexed to it, but while men seek the one they accept the other for it; because there is some likeness in human actions to the end; for the end is pursued the sake of nothing else that attends it; but for itself only; and pleasures like these are sought for, not on account of what follows them, but on account of what has gone before them, as labor and grief; for which reason they seek for happiness in these sort of pleasures; and that this is the reason anyone may easily perceive.

That music should be pursued, not on this account only, but also as it is very serviceable during the hours of relaxation from labor, probably no one doubt. Music naturally gives pleasure; therefore the use of it is agreeable to all ages and all dispositions. It fills the soul with enthusiasm; which is an affection of the soul and strongly agitates the disposition. Music is one of those things that are pleasant. In poetry and music, there are imitations of manners: Different harmonies differ from each other so much by nature, that those who hear them are differently affected, and are not in the same disposition of mind when one is performed as when another is; the one, for instance, occasions grief and contracts the soul, others soften the mind, and as it dissolved the heart: others fix it in a firm and settled state, while the others fill the soul with enthusiasm, as has been well described by those who have written philosophically upon this part of education; for they bring examples of what they advance from the things themselves. The same holds true for rhythm; some fix the disposition, others occasion a change in it; some act more violently, others more liberally. Thus, it is evident that music has an influence over the disposition of the mind, and it can fascinate it variously and if it can do this, most certainly it is what youth ought to be instructed in. 

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