EDUC Outline

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http://www.e ?

fu.calugradprogs/outlines/Educ250egan.html

(D01.00)

Kieran Egan

Office: EDB 8668

Phone: 291-4671

email: egan@sfu.ca

Thursday 11:30-2:20 in AQ 4150

PREREQUISITE

None.

DESCRIPTION

To introduce the variety of ideas people have held about education in the Western world, and the

practices that these ideas have been used to justify. We will look at what has been done to children in the

name of "education" in oral cultures long ago, to the time of Plato in ancient Greece, and up to the

present day in North America. Our main focus will be on how our current conception of education has

been built over the centuries out of sometimes conflicting ideas, and the kinds of problems for current

practice that this strange history has generated. We will also be looking at the forms of educational

practice that have been common in different times and places.

OBJECTIVES

Education in the Western world has had two quite distinct phases. In the first, education was largely

about how to prepare males to run society; in the second, beginning roughly during the mid/late

nineteenth century and continuing today, education is largely about preparing everyone to become

democratic citizens who will be useful to the state and be able to live fulfilling lives. Our objective for

the course is to understand how these ideas have grown and changed, and see the challenges to their

achievement. To aid this understanding, we will study:

Education in oral cultures: making the harmonious person;

Education in Plato's view: how to perceive the truth about reality;

Medieval education: the mirror of moral perfection;

Renaissance and Enlightenment: bourgeois ideals;

Revolution and Romanticism: Education in Rousseau's view;

The scientific revolution: evolution, biology, and recapitulation;

Education for all: psychology and method;

The resulting chaos in modern conflicts about education.

READINGS

Some articles and readings will be made available in class.

1 of ?

11/14/06 12:21 PM

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EDUC Outline

?

http://www.ed ?

fu.ca/ugradprogs/outlines/Educ250egan.html

[To be announced soon]

ASSIGNMENTS

Presentation on one of the readings [20%]

Small paper (6

pp.

Max.)

[35%]

Final paper: (10 pp. Mm.)

[45%]

Attendance [Compulsory.]

2of2 ?

11/14/06 12:21 PM