Four Revolutions That Changed Education
The Story of John Amos Comenius
To learn about the universe we turn first to what others have said and done. This gives us a tremendous head start. Instead of starting from scratch this allows us, as Isaac Newton said, to stand on the shoulders of those Giants who have already discovered so much. This sharing and discussing of over two and half millennia of thought across generations is at the heart of our education. We rediscover the ideas that others have unearthed and then build further towards answers to key questions of life.
There have been three “hardware” based revolutions that have facilitated and made education possible:
- The Invention of writing (circa 3,400 BCE)
- Development of the printing press (1440 CE)
- The Internet (2000 CE)
John Amos Comenius (1592 –1670), the Czech philosopher and educator began the fourth revolution in education over four hundred years ago. Comenius provided us with the vital educational “software” that is now of even greater importance as we face tremendous challenges in our modern world.
