COMENIUS

Comenius' original name was Johann Amos Komenský. He was born in Czech Kingdom in 1592 and died in 1670. He was a theologian, philosopher and pedagogue.  He believed that education is the way to reach ones full potential and lead a truly harmonious life. He worked on a new school system that he called Schola ludus - school through play.

The influence of Comenius on educational thought is comparable with that of his contemporaries, Bacon and Descartes, on science and philosophy. In fact, he was largely influenced by the thought of these two; and his importance is largely due to the fact that he first applied or attempted to apply in a systematic manner the principles of thought and of investigation, newly formulated by those philosophers, to the organization of education in all its aspects

Fundamental ideas: 

(1) learning foreign languages through the vernacular; 

(2) obtaining ideas through objects rather than words; 

(3) starting with objects most familiar to the child to introduce him to both the new language and the more remote world of objects: 

(4) giving the child a comprehensive knowledge of his environment, physical and social, as well as instruction in religious, moral, and classical subjects; 

(5) making this acquisition of a compendium of knowledge a pleasure rather than a task; and 
(6) making instruction universal. While the formulation of many of these ideas is open to criticism from more recent points of view, and while the naturalistic conception of education is one based on crude analogies, the importance of the Comenian influence in education has now been recognized for half a century.

Children in Comenius day were trained to repeat memorized Latin vocabulary and conjugations, but they were not taught to think well.

Education for Comenius stretches beyond the boundaries of the classroom and encompasses all of life.

Slovakia and the Czech Republic celebrate 28 March, the birthday of Comenius, as Teacher´s Day.