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sychology

Eight Hundred Years of Educational Progress

The beginning of classes in 1167 or 1168 at Oxford, England is a useful place to start this historical overview (Curtis, 1971; Lawson, & Silver, 1973).  Some subjects offered during Oxford's first years have lost their position in the college curriculum.  Other courses, like Greek philosophy, still challenge and confuse each new generation of students.  Written descriptions and drawings furnish a record of the instructional paradigm practiced by the earliest Oxford professors.  They imparted knowledge from behind a pulpit and spoke to a group of students sitting on benches below them (Courtenay, 1987).

A comparison of twelfth century Oxford to modern universities reveals the extent of eight centuries of educational progress.  Extraordinary changes have taken place in many disciplines, but the way teachers communicate facts and principles has hardly changed.  If a twelfth century Oxford master could arrange transportation to the twentieth century, he could give a credible lecture on Plato's "Republic."  He would only need to dust off his eight hundred year old notes.

Chemistry, novels, military practices, psychology, sculpture and most other disciplines have diverged greatly from their twelfth century antecedents.  To medieval eyes, the world has turned upside down many times.  Yet training and education has been remarkably resistant to change.
 
 

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