The second in a series of articles about a remarkable medieval curriculum which took freedom as its start point and had truth as its end. In the previous post I traced the evolution of the Seven Liberal Arts from their roots in ancient Greece to their maturity in the medieval Christian era. This time I will take a closer look […]
Category: Articles
The Seven Liberal Arts part 1: tools for learning
The first in a series of articles about a remarkable medieval curriculum which took human freedom as its starting point and truth as its end. Its tempting to assume that the education of the past consisted of little more than rote learning and the 3Rs, served with a dollop of handed-down religious morality. Critical thinking is widely assumed in education […]
Learning Through the Ages comes to Substack
The Learning Through the Ages newsletter has moved to Substack, the popular platform for independent writing, and is now available on email, online at learningthroughtheages.substack.com or in the Substack app. For new readers, I’ve been posting some highlights from this blog, including articles on: Look out for an all-new essay coming soon on the remarkable role that early Sunday schools […]
How we learned to teach ‘small children’
I have contributed two chapters to Routledge‘s History of Education, a primer for undergraduates which is due to be published in 2022. My chapters describe the development of liberal education from Ancient Greece to the Industrial Revolution and the arrival of mass education in England during the 18th and 19th centuries. With so much to cover and only so many […]
Education can save your life – the story of the Neck Verse
One testament to the power of education is that many people credit it with having ‘saved their life’. But whether that’s because knowledge and learning opened up a path to a rewarding career or because it helped someone escape difficult personal circumstances, ‘education saved my life’ is usually meant metaphorically. In medieval England, however, it was literal. Having an education […]
What makes a ‘public school’ public?
During 2020 I’ve been researching and writing a couple of chapters for a forthcoming Routledge book on the history of education. My contributions look at the development of liberal education from Ancient Greece to the Industrial Revolution. I’m now in the final stages of editing, cutting the chapters down to fit the allotted word count. Here’s one section that got […]
Alcuin of York
In my view, this little known media scholar is one of the most important figures in the history of education in England, and actually in Europe. To find out why, read my tribute in Teach Secondary magazine. If that piques your curiosity, you can find out more in an edition of Radio 4’s In Our Time dedicated to the man. […]
Why is the history of education worth knowing?
Understanding how schools developed in the past can help us make good decisions about how they should look now and in the future. Are you curious about the past? Are you a keen reader? If the answer to both these questions is yes, you’re in luck. There are history books available about pretty much every aspect of human life over […]