Czech Teachers’ Day
Celebrating the Life and Work of John Amos Comenius
All around the world, people express their gratitude to educators by celebrating World Teachers’ Day, which falls on October 5. This celebration is in recognition of the 1966 ILO/UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers.
But in many places, regional or national Teachers’ Day celebrations take place on other days, often in recognition of the efforts and achievements of local educators and those who strive to improve or promote learning. And one such day is March 28. On March 28, the people of Czechia celebrate their national Teachers’ Day — to celebrate John Amos Comenius, a scholar, theologian, education reformer and teacher whose ideas, first written down and published in the 17th century, still live on in many countries’ school systems today.
Comenius believed in universal education. Everyone was to know how to read and write. In his time, this idea was not as self-evident as it is becoming now. What he also believed in was that understanding leads to learning, not memorisation. This principle led him to write the Janua Linguarum Reserata — “The Gate of Languages Unlocked” — a textbook of Latin which relied on familiar topics and concepts put into sensible sentences instead of context-lacking memorisation of isolated words and abstract works of respected authors that were too difficult to grasp for the beginner. In creating this little book of only about 8000 words, Comenius inadvertently became the father of the modern textbook, which is divided into chapters by topic and in which the complexity of the words and grammar starts low and only later increases, so that the student can keep up. The textbook became so popular that it was translated into many languages both in Europe and in Asia and it saw many, many editions published even during Comenius’ lifetime.
Another influential work by Comenius is the Didactica Magna — “The Great Didactic”. Among other ideas, it contained the blueprint for a modern school system. In his opinion, everybody — and as mentioned earlier, that would really mean everybody, rich and poor, boys and girls — should study. First the simple things, then the more complex ones: in kindergarten, then in elementary school in their native tongue, later in Latin school, and finally in university. Of course, the need for Latin has diminished since, but you can clearly see that this pattern has only changed slightly in the past ~370 years.
As language teachers and life-long learning enthusiasts ourselves, we at Engramo English, standing on the shoulders of giants, try to put to good use everything the giants have seen and passed unto us, and hope that maybe from their shoulders we would be able to see a bit farther.
