Educational Concepts are Nothing New!

It is amazing that the idea of what we like to think of as ‘modern education’ was already being espoused by John Amos Comenius in his book Didactica Magna in 1633. Comenius introduced a number of educational concepts and innovations including pictorial textbooks written in native languages instead of Latin, teaching based on gradual development from simple to more comprehensive concepts, lifelong learning with a focus on logical thinking over dull memorization, equal opportunity for impoverished children, education for women, and universal and practical instruction.

In his Didactica Magna (Great Didactic), he outlined a system of schools that is the exact counterpart of the existing system of kindergarten, elementary school, secondary school, college, and university

His texts were all based on the same fundamental ideas: (1) learning foreign languages through the vernacular; (2) obtaining ideas through objects rather than words; (3) starting with objects most familiar to the child to introduce him to both the new language and the more remote world of objects; (4) giving the child a comprehensive knowledge of his environment, physical and social, as well as instruction in religious, moral, and classical subjects; (5) making this acquisition of a compendium of knowledge a pleasure rather than a task; and (6) making instruction universal. Many of these ideas are still with us today in the activities undertaken by Begawan Foundation both in schools and in the Learning Center.