英國文學報告來了＠Building 217｜PChome Online 個人新聞台

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英國文學報告來了

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好開心終於完成了(雖然只改了一次~但就這樣吧)

破涕為笑的是繼續前進的動力

久違的行事曆~從這周開始每周平均兩到三個大報告

或許...這就是大學生活吧: )

好想有點喘息的空間&機會

禮拜四未知的法令(話說是明天?!)禮拜五的行政法期中

下周二的多元、文導、英教概周三的社團評鑑

再下下周的(五月初)三個期中考...

至少張詠惠再也不要做傻是包含翹課了:))

英國文學期中報告(about Utopia)

Rachel Chang 張詠惠 498001280教育學系三年甲班

Topic: the Education in More’s Utopia, comparing with Plato’s Republic

Introduction

Since Thomas More's Utopia is regarded the blueprint for Utopian Literature, a very well-developed and huge genre, every aspects of this masterpiece may be influential; and therefore, worth our further research.

I believe the importance of education in the design of the government and the society like Utopia as a mean to start and maintain. Besides, trained to take “education” as a magnifying glass to view everything in the department of education for three years, I can’t even distract myself from this issue. In other words, I regard education as an important issue when wanting to know more about the Utopia.

Another consideration made beforehand is to put the Utopia in comparison with Plato’s Republic. Though Plato’s Republic was written 1,200 years earlier than Utopia, it is worth comparing the two. For not only our teacher in the class of English Literature, but the narrator Hythloday mentioned Plato several times in Book I while elaborating. Moreover, there are many researchers mention Plato’s Republic in their essays considering Thomas More’s Utopia (White, 1976; Mumford, 1965; Copleston, 1953; Windelband, 1901). For example, some think they are many parallel between the two, like Colin suggest Utopia as the “Christianized” Republic (1990).

As a result, in this essay I would like to elaborate the education issue in both the Republic and the Utopia, comparing them, and relating further to our education system today in Taiwan.

Education in Plato’s Republic

According to his assumption, Plato divides the process of education into four parts. The first is “preschool education”, where children ranging from three to six are taken care by the qualified nannies together. They play games and listen to the stories, which are designed to achieve certain educational goals, including developing the virtue of courage, justice, and dignity. The second is “primarily education” designed for every citizen. Everyone, regardless of their gender or class should to go to school from the age of seven. Multiple subjects are taught in this period, including reading, writing, and horse-riding, etc. Besides, Plato put emphasize on music and physical training. The goal in this phase is to develop the virtue of self-control, which is necessary for every citizen in their pursuit of good life. The third stage is secondary education for the guardians; most of them decided since birth and are formally chosen at the age of seventeen. The guardians receive military training and are taught to be courageous. And at the age of twenty, some outstanding students may have the chance to accept higher education, learning mathematics, astronomy, and dialectics for ten more years. Comparing with the guardian practical assignment, these philosophers should do the abstract thinking, which may enable them to achieve the ultimate goal—“reason”. From age thirty to forty-five, these philosophers-king-to-be, possessing the virtue of justice, should “lead the people out of the cave”; and by the age of fifty, these intellectually superior may have a chance to be the philosopher king.

To sum up, there are at least four concepts standing out under the aspect of education in the Republic by Plato. First, Education is developed step by step—each step serves certain the purpose of a selection: the guardian by birth, and the philosopher by their intellectual performance. Second, the concept of preschool education is first purposed by Plato, antenatal training is one of the examples. Third, everyone, including women, can receive primarily education. Moreover, women are trained to be guardian, meaning receiving higher education, and to be the guardians’ wives. Finally, since the class is also a political division, education is used as a way to control the country political order.

Education in More’s Utopia

I conclude three education concepts that stands out in More’s Utopia. First, the education is served for general purpose—education in Utopia is the education for citizenship growth. Therefore, women should also accept primarily education, which as scholar point out, “education available to all” is still a new concept in England at that time. Second, the subjects involve astronomy, math, and music, labor, and vocational training. Besides the included liberal arts, Utopian seems to put more emphasize on agriculture. Since every citizen is required to live in the countryside to farm and plant for a set period of time, children can learn to do the farming not only not only through theories taught in school but the hands-on experience when living in the countryside. Last but not least, the education in Utopia is a lifelong pursuit of intellectually and morally growth. Four examples are taken to elaborate further how they regard the realization of truth as the highest level of happiness. The first example is the public lecture for citizenship education. The Utopian limit their time of work to six hours in order to have not only enough sleep but allow everyone to anticipate the public lecture every morning. The second example is the “table manner” for moral training and the continuing of wisdom. While they are eating together (they usually do so in the more crowded city), the young will sit next to the elderly people, serving them and listening to their wisdom. The third is the generally accepted ways of what they do in their leisure time. Since the Utopian people are natural and simple (they wear the same kind of clothes, work hard, despise upon gem and unnecessary wars), they have plenty of leisure time. However, they always learn something new according to their own interest; lest they should make trouble out of nothing. Moreover, their favorite hobby is reading. The following narration is a clear evidence taken from Book II: “Yet their children, and a great part of the nation, both men and women, are taught to spend those hours in which they are not obliged to work in reading: and this they do through the whole progress of life.” Those who have outstanding intellectual performance may have a chance to take a break from work and become a full-time scholar by the secret election of mayor and the recommendation of priest. But if their aren’t success in their “intellectual work”, they may be put back to their original occupation.

The comparison of the Utopia and the Republic

By comparing and contrasting the Republic’ and the Utopia’s interesting concept of education and further relating to Taiwan’s education policy and issues nowadays, three issues are concluded, which are general education, gender issue, and higher education.

The first is the importance of general/primarily education for all. Only through education can the society maintain their people from going forward and therefore make the better society happan. Both books mention primarily education for all people; while More extend it further to the concept of life-long learning.

In Taiwan, high quality mandatory education is given by government as the result of lots of people efforts along the two thousand years later Plato’s suggestion. However, as time goes on, we begin to take the policy for granted. But I think we should never stop progressing and dreaming a better future for education before the completion. And there are at least two points worth our attention. The first is about the reflection of true meaning and goal for general education. General education it not a justified way to define people a “loser” if they perform badly in elementary school. On a contrary, it should be used as a way to give the inferior group hope to become better regardless of their social background. Second, a thousand year later Thomas More, life-long learning is now a new concept widely accepted around the world. Wish Taiwan can catch this trend and achieve through various approaches like plantation of community college and life-long learning attitude sooner or later.

Second, both conclude women for primarily education. Though this was a new idea thousand year ago, female going to school may seem natural nowadays. However, in today setting, despite the policy of equality between sexes we stated, injustice in the expectation of parents and teachers still exists. For example, our society expects that instead of getting a phD, girls should care more about their marriage; or women are not good at math, etc. And according to Pygmalion theory, this unseen prejudice and discrimination may cause the injustice outcome in female’s education performance; and therefore, strengthen the stereotype and the inequality of gender in education system.

Finally, the higher education seems to be designed for the cultivation and maintenance of ruling group in both books. In Utopia, the people in power like priest and mayor are the one elected from the well-educated “Ademus”. In Republic, the one succeed in the process of education selection turn out to be the philosopher king. In other words, as a way to develop the dominant people group, higher education can be seen as the way to contribute political power. Besides, it is worth noticing, the portion of people receiving higher education, who are the lucky chosen people, appears to be few. Interestingly, in comparison, though both the books have education selection, More’s choosing of scholars are open for inter-class mobility; while Plato preserve this privilege to the guardian family.

Today, education is still used as a way to identify the social status in Taiwan. The better school one goes to may have a strong relation with a better job and future. However, it is worth thinking whether we should value a person’s value and ability from academic performance—whether he or she is good at calculus or Chinese—especially in the generation yield for EQ rather than IQ. Moreover, we use test as the main mean to select, instead of their birth or philosophical thinking in the Republic. While our tests of entrance higher education association emphasize on justice and subjective, some may argue that the type of question asked in high school and college entrance example is very low level. According to Bloom’s theory, what we used as a way to assess students intellectual development includes only the knowledge and comprehension question, which involved only the low level of intelligent thinking process, but lack higher thinking like analysis and evaluation.

Reference

1. Utopia(google books) http://books.google.com.tw/books?id=1sNLAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Utopia&hl=zh-TW&cd=1&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Utopia&f=false

2. Lewis Mumford(1965). Utopia, the City and the Machine. Daedalus, 94(2), 271-292

3. Thomas I. White(1976). Aristotle and Utopia. Renaissance Quarterly, 29(4), 635-675.

4. David Happin(2001).Utopianism and Education: the Legacy of Thomas More. British Journal of Educational Studies, 49(3), 299-315

5. Colin Starnes(1990). The new republic: a commentary on book I of More's Utopia showing its relation to Plato's Republic. Wilfrid Laurier University Press

6. A.B.FINLAY. Plato’s Theory of Education in The Republic (An Introduction). http://www.tonyfinlay.co.uk/essayplato.htm.

7. Craig Hutchison(2010). Education is the Key in Sir Thomas More's Utopia. http://craig-hutchison.suite101.com/education-is-the-key-in-sir-thomas-mores-utopia-a269782

8. E-notes. Plato. http://www.enotes.com/platos-republic/q-and-a/how-does-plato-describe-education-his-republic-his-5625

9. Thomas More's Utopia – education. http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/21cc/utopia/more1/education1/education.html

10. The Significance of Thomas More. http://www.angelfire.com/tv2/flawedperfection/stories/more.htm

11. 郭湘章譯，《烏托邦》，台北，國立編譯館出版，台灣中華書局印行，1993 年。( 第八版)

12. 劉若韶，柏拉圖<理想國>導讀，台北，台灣書店，1998年。

13. 宋美璍。中譯《烏托邦》：臥遊虛訪摩爾的理想國。人文與社會科學簡訊，110-119。

14. 柏拉圖公民教育思想述評(中英文摘要) http://www.hongxiao.com/dy/Article/musiceducation/shuobolunwen/200802/4058.html

15. 莫爾(中文百科在線)

http://www.zwbk.org/MyLemmaShow.aspx?zh=zh-tw&lid=87931

16. 柏拉圖(哲學家)