Blog Post   Due Dec.01

Trivium & Quadrivium- Liberal Arts, the Study of “Free Men”

“[Plato] would have the first twenty years spent on gymnastics, music, and grammar, and next ten on arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and harmony, and the next five on philosophy” (Schrader, 1967, p.264).

I have studied a philosophy course at SFU during my undergraduate study and the course fouced on continental philosophers and their related study.  It was a course I considered more difficult to understand than mathematics.  The terms and their behind meaning are complex and requires abstract thinking. When I read the name Plato and Aristotle, it reminds me of this course. Although their life stories were interesting, it was difficult to really understand their philosophy.  Long time ago when I studied in China, I learned that Plato’s philosophy was extremely abstract and he was the primary Greek philosopher.  However, his works was very popular and used as required reading for many centuries.  Aristotle was influenced by Plato and his works were the basis for both religion and science through the middle ages. One thing that surprised me about Plato was that he also studied gymnastics and music.

“Later, when Christianity gained the ascendency over paganism and the pagan schools no longer a danger, the pagan educational methods were re-examined and were eventually adopted by the Christians” (Schrader, 1967, p.265).

My second surprise was when the article talks about the influence of pagan educational system to Christianity.  I have bible studies for several months with two Christian friends. My understanding was that they were really against pagan religion (that’s the word they used to teach me) and they told me paganism was evil and originated from devil.  It was a shock to me that the close relationship between Christianity and pagan world. From the article, it seems like the study of the seven liberal arts was the prerequisite to the study of theology and pagan educational methods were adopted by Christianity.

“Throughout the Middle Ages, university instruction was based on a lecture-disputation method. …..[t]here were no examinations in the modern sense of the term.  The student had simply to swear that he had read the books prescribed and attended the lecture” (Schrader, 1967, p.272).

In my opinion, this lecture-disputation is very advanced. It sounds more like our modern day “inquiry” learning style. It was really nice that they didn’t use exam to evaluate students’ learning outcomes. That really surprised me!  In the Middle Ages, students also had “after-class discussions, reviews and recapitulations of the lecture by the young bachelors” (Schrader, 1967, p.272).  Does that sound similar to our tutorial sessions run after the lecture in universities?

 

Reference

Schrader, D. V. (1967). The arithmetic of the medieval universities. The Mathematics Teacher, 60(3), 264-278.