Education in a primitive community is devoid of the character of premeditation, preparation for future activity, and does not yet have signs of command - subordination and training; This is the most direct adaptation of the child to the environment.
His full participation in the actual working life of the community is carried out through the child’s unconscious imitation of the rest of the community members.
Having outlined the main features of primitive upbringing, we will try, based on observations of modern savages by numerous researchers, to draw a concrete picture of this upbringing.
Immediately after the birth of a child, the community decides whether he can live or whether he must be killed. The custom of infanticide of newborns is very common among savages who are still experiencing the stage of the primitive system.
<...>The danger of overpopulation, the extreme lack of food for an overly expanded community, and finally, the burdensomeness of a large number of small children in a wandering lifestyle, when women carry them as the horde moves on their backs - all this creates the need, even with a very great love for children, to limit the number of newborns, the need many times greater than in “cultured” countries.
<...>All researchers note that mostly girls are killed at birth, since they were less useful in fishing and war.
<...>Surviving mothers breastfeed for a very long time - 2, 3 and even 4 years. This long breastfeeding also finds an explanation in the economy of the primitive community: milk constitutes the necessary food of the child long after he is weaned after 8-12 months of breastfeeding. We satisfy this child's need for milk by giving him cow's milk, but among peoples who do not yet have domestic animals, this cannot be done, and therefore the mother feeds him for several years until he grows up enough to eat ordinary food.
<...>When the horde moves, when collecting plant food, until the children are old enough to move well enough on their own, the mother carries the children on her back, arranging some devices for this.
<...>As soon as children grow up enough that they no longer need milk and can run freely, the mother’s and the older generation’s worries about them stop; they are left to their own devices and, imitating their elders, take part in the activities of the community in obtaining food.
<...>In the primitive period, before the features of the clan system that later replaced it had time to develop, the community apparently limited itself to these concerns in its relations with children. At the very least, the comments about education by researchers of the life of savages living through different stages of the primitive system are extremely scarce.
Characteristics of education in the tribal community
The tribal system differs from the primitive one in a number of economic features that give rise to a special ideology. It is natural to expect, therefore, that upbringing in clan society has a completely special character in comparison with primitive upbringing.
Primitive education was not yet separated from the process of economic activity; education was participation in the working life of the community without any training.
Here, in the clan community, the entire economic life is built on taking into account future needs, and from here arises consciousness about the future in general, which is extremely important for changing the nature of education. Education sets itself the goal of preparing and training the younger generation for future activities as full members of the community, which was absolutely not the case before, when the entire process of education was reduced to direct participation in working life.
This preparation and training is dictated not only by taking into account the future needs of society, but also by the increasingly complex nature of productive activity and the ever-increasing division of labor.
This preparation-training, when children are considered as beings with incomplete rights and are also obliged to obey, is dictated by new production relations of dominance-subordination (authoritarian relations), which cover the entire patriarchal society: secondary organizers (and, of course, all subordinates), who in in turn, the remaining members of the community are subordinated, the head of each family is subordinate to its members, adults are subordinate to children, and full members of the community are subordinate to slaves.
Finally, this preparation and training is made possible under the clan system, because there is already a surplus product that goes to support the children; there is no such need, as before, to use their weak forces for present working life, thereby weakening the community in the future. If children participate in the process of working life of the community, then this participation to a large extent has the character of the same training.<...>
In a patriarchal (society - auto) there is already a family. And education largely takes on the character of family education; but the family has not yet closed itself in its own interests, it is only an integral economic unit of the tribe. Hence the verification of the results of the family education of young men through tests at meetings of elders.
The nature of education in a patriarchal society can be defined as authoritarian pedagogy. Disobedience to elders in this patriarchal period is already considered a major offense. Reverence is considered one of the main virtues.
The guardians of all the experience accumulated by the community are the patriarchs. The families of the patriarchs, thanks to the development of private property and the accumulation of significant wealth over time, differ sharply in their influence among other families in the community. Over time, patriarchs naturally develop a desire to make their power hereditary. This developing class stratification of the clan community has the most significant influence on education: education, which was previously equal for the entire younger generation, towards the end of the clan system, becomes different for the masses and for a very small group of people preparing to carry out organizational functions in the future: in the rise
In nutrition, there is already a class character, little noticeable at the beginning and quite strongly reflected at the end of the clan society.
<...>Mass education is practical in nature and has one goal: to prepare the younger generation for working life as members of the community. The training consists of teaching the techniques of hunting, fishing, caring for livestock, tanning leather, arranging houses, fighting hostile communities, and these techniques, as a necessary condition for success, include the rules of honoring the gods. The teaching material consists of minute, strictly regulated techniques, the observance of which is sanctified by the example of ancestors and the requirements of religion.
The education of those preparing for organizational functions is almost entirely theoretical in nature and aims to transfer the entire amount of accumulated experience, the rudiments of science, methods of close communication with the gods, strictly protected from the masses.
Medynsky E. N. History of pedagogy. - M., 1930.-T. 1.-S. 26-36.
E.d "ERVILLY
Adventures of a Prehistoric Boy
"Krek" meant "bird catcher." It was not for nothing that the boy received such a nickname: from childhood he was distinguished by his extraordinary dexterity in catching birds at night; he captured them sleepy in their nests and brought them to the cave in triumph. It happened that for such successes he was rewarded at dinner with a hefty piece of raw bone marrow - an honorable dish usually reserved for elders and fathers of the family.
Krek was proud of his nickname: it reminded him of his nightly exploits.
The boy turned around at the scream. He instantly jumped up from the ground and, grabbing a bunch of reeds, ran up to the old man.
At the stone staircase he laid down his burden, raised his hand to his forehead as a sign of respect and said:
I'm here, Elder! What do you want from me?
Child,” the old man answered, “all of our people left before dawn in the forests to hunt for deer and mountain bulls.” They will return only in the evening, because - remember this - the rain washes away the traces of animals, destroys their smell and carries away the tufts of fur that they leave on the branches and gnarled tree trunks. Hunters will have to work hard before they meet their prey. This means we can go about our business until the evening. Leave your reed. We have enough shafts for arrows, but few stone points, good chisels and knives: they are all sharpened, jagged and broken off.
What will you command me to do, Elder?
Together with your brothers and me you will walk along the White Hills. We will stock up on large flints; they are often found at the foot of coastal cliffs. Today I will tell you the secret of how to trim them. It's time, Krek. You have grown and are strong, beautiful and worthy to contribute weapons made with my own hands. Wait for me, I'll go get the other children.
“I listen and obey,” answered Krek, bowing before the old man and with difficulty containing his joy.
The old man called Krek big, handsome and strong. He must have wanted to cheer up the boy: after all, in fact, Krek was small, even very small and very thin.
The crack's wide face was covered with a red tan; thin red hair stuck out above his forehead, greasy, tangled, covered with ash and all sorts of rubbish. He was not very handsome, this pathetic primitive child. But his eyes shone with a lively mind: his movements were deft and quick.
Finally, the old man came out of the cave and began to descend the high stone steps with an agility surprising for his advanced years, followed by a whole horde of savage boys. Krek, were barely covered from the cold by miserable cloaks made of animal skins.
The oldest of them is Gel. He is already fifteen years old. In anticipation of that great day when hunters would finally take him hunting with them, he managed to become famous as an incomparable fisherman.
The elder taught him to cut deadly hooks from shells with the tip of a flint fragment. With a homemade harpoon with a jagged bone tip, Gel hit even huge salmon.
Behind him was Ryug the big-eared. If at the time when Ryug lived, a person had already tamed a dog, they would certainly have said about Ryug: “He has a dog’s hearing and scent.” Ryug recognized by smell where fruits ripened in the thick bushes, where young mushrooms appeared from under the ground; With his eyes closed, he recognized trees by the rustling of their leaves.
The elder gave a sign. And everyone set off on their way. Gel and Ryug stood proudly in front, and everyone else followed them seriously and silently.
All the old man's little companions carried baskets roughly woven from narrow strips of tree bark; some held in their hands a short club with a heavy head, others a spear with a stone tip, and still others something like a stone hammer.
They walked quietly, stepped lightly and silently. It was not for nothing that the old people constantly told the children that they needed to get used to moving silently but also carefully so that when hunting in the forest they would not spook the game, not fall into the claws of wild animals, and not fall into an ambush by evil and treacherous people.
The mothers approached the exit of the cave and looked after those leaving with a smile.
There stood two girls, slender and tall - Mab and On. They looked after the boys with envy.
Only one, the smallest, representative of primitive society remained in the smoky cave; He was kneeling near the hearth, among a huge pile of ashes and extinct coals, a light crackled weakly.
It was the youngest boy - Ojo.
He was sad; From time to time he sighed quietly: he really wanted to go with the Elder. But he fought back his tears and courageously performed his duty.
Today it is his turn to keep the fire burning from dawn to night.
Ojo was proud of it. He knew that the fire was the greatest treasure in the cave; if the fire went out, he would face a terrible punishment. Therefore, as soon as the boy noticed that the flame was decreasing and was threatening to go out, HE began to quickly throw branches of a resinous tree into the fire, to revive the fire again.
E. d "Ervilly. Adventures of a prehistoric boy. - Sverdlovsk, 1987. - pp. 14-17.
Education appeared in primitive society about 40 - 35 thousand years ago. The purpose of education was to prepare the child to meet practical needs, that is, to master the simplest labor skills (hunting, fishing, making weapons and clothing, cultivating the land) and to include the younger generation in collective work.
Education in primitive society is conventionally divided into three independent periods: education in prenatal society; education in the tribal community; education during the period of decay of primitive society.
Raising in prenatal society was extremely limited and primitive. The children were common, belonged to the entire clan, and from childhood they actively participated in the life of the community. At this time, there were still no special forms of education, and it was not separated from life together children and adults. In joint activities with adults, children and adolescents observed the behavior of their elders and, constantly imitating them, acquired the corresponding skills. Developing among the younger generation the norms of behavior necessary for that time was a matter of concern for the entire community. Missing physical punishment children. There was a division of labor between men and women (a woman was a mother and guardian family hearth, a man is a breadwinner and a warrior). Therefore, boys, together with adult men, went hunting and fishing, made tools and weapons, and defended the tribe from enemies. The girls, in turn, worked with experienced women to gather, prepare food, sew clothes, protect the hearth, etc.
Tribal community instructed the elders to acquaint the younger generation with the rituals, traditions and history of the clan, with religious beliefs, and to instill in the younger generation reverence for the elders and the dead. At this stage, the volume and content of transferred knowledge expands. Along with introducing children to work activities, they are introduced to the rudiments of military and moral education, with the rules of religious worship, they taught the simplest writing. Oral folk art: legends, songs, etc. occupied a large place in the education of children’s morals and behavior. The transition of boys and girls to full members of the clan was preceded by special training under the guidance of the most authoritative and wise people. It ended with initiation, which consisted of public tests that tested the readiness of young people to fulfill the duties of an adult member of the clan society.
IN postnatal community the emergence of pair marriage changed the entire organization of clan society, becoming the embryo of the home-family form of education. From that time on, the foundations of physical and spiritual development children. Initiations - rites of passage of boys and girls into the category of adults - became historically the first social institution aimed at the deliberate organization of upbringing and training.
N.A. Konstantinov, E.N. Medynsky, M.F. Shabaeva
The question of the origin of education.
The question of the origin of education is of great fundamental importance. Bourgeois scientists and scientists who take Marxist-Leninist methodological positions approach it differently. Despite the fact that among bourgeois sociologists there are different opinions on this issue, they all tend to ignore the close connection that existed between the economic life and work activity of primitive people and the education of children at the earliest stage of social development. A number of concepts of bourgeois scientists about the origin of education were created under the influence of vulgar evolutionary ideas about human development, which leads to ignoring the social essence of education and to the biologization of the educational process.
Using carefully collected factual material about the presence in the animal world of “concern” of older generations about passing on the skills of adaptation to the environment to younger ones, supporters of such concepts (for example, C. Letourneau, A. Espinas) identify the instinctive actions of animals with the educational practice of primitive people and come to the incorrect conclusion that the only basis for education is the instinctive desire of people to procreate and the law of natural selection.
Among bourgeois scientists, there is also a widespread opinion, formed at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, that the basis of education is the instinctive desire of children to actively imitate their elders (this theory was developed, for example, by the American author P. Monroe). Thus, the biological interpretation of the reasons for the emergence of education was opposed to the psychological one. This theory, like any attempt to explain the emergence social phenomenon exclusively by factors of a psychological nature, is clearly idealistic in nature, although, of course, elements of imitation take place in the process of upbringing and communication of children with peers and adults.
The Soviet history of pedagogy, explaining the origin of education, is based on the teachings of the classics of Marxism-Leninism about the development of society and man as a natural and social being.
The main condition for the emergence of education was the labor activity of primitive people and the resulting public relations. F. Engels in his classic work “The Role of Labor in the Process of Transformation of Ape into Man” wrote: “labor created man himself.” The biological prerequisites for the formation of man could serve as the basis for the transition from the animal state to the human state through labor. Human society arose from the time when man began making tools.
The labor activity of primitive people, aimed at satisfying their natural needs of survival and reproduction, transformed animals into humans and created a human society in which the formation of man began to be determined by social laws. The use of primitive tools and the ever-expanding and increasingly complex conscious production of them entailed the need to transfer labor knowledge, skills and experience to younger generations.
At first it happened in the process labor activity, all household and public life. In the future, education becomes a special sphere of human activity and consciousness.
Education in a primitive society.
At the first stage of development of primitive society - in prenatal society - people appropriated finished products of nature and engaged in hunting. The process of obtaining a means of subsistence was in its own way simple and at the same time labor-intensive. Hunting for large animals, a difficult struggle with nature, could only be carried out in conditions collective forms life, work and consumption. Everything was common; there were no social differences between members of the team.
Social relations in primitive society coincide with those of consanguinity. Division of labor and social functions it was based on natural biological principles, as a result of which there was a division of labor between men and women, as well as an age division of the social collective.
Prenatal society was divided into three age groups: children and adolescents; full-fledged and full participants in life and work; elderly people and old people who no longer have physical strength for full participation in common life(at further stages of development of the primitive communal system, the number of age groups increases).
The born person first fell into general group growing up and aging, where he grew up in communication with peers and old people, wise with experience. Interestingly, the Latin word educare literally means “to draw out”, in a broader sense figurative meaning“to grow”, respectively, the Russian “upbringing” has as its root “to nourish”, its synonym is “to feed”, whence “feeding”; in Old Russian writing, the words “upbringing” and “feeding” are synonyms.
Having entered the appropriate biological age and gained some experience of communication, work skills, knowledge of the rules of life, customs and rituals, the person moved to the next age group. Over time, this transition began to be accompanied by so-called initiations, “initiations,” i.e., tests during which the youth’s preparation for life was tested: the ability to endure hardships, pain, show courage, and endurance.
Relations between members of one age group and relations with members of another group were regulated by unwritten, loosely followed customs and traditions that reinforced the emerging social norms.
In prenatal society, one of the driving forces of human development remains the biological mechanisms of natural selection and adaptation to the environment. But as society develops, the social patterns that emerge in it begin to play an increasingly greater role, gradually occupying a dominant place.
In primitive society, a child was brought up and learned in the process of his life, participation in the affairs of adults, and in everyday communication with them. He was not so much preparing for life, as it became later, but rather directly involved in the activities available to him, together with his elders and under their leadership, he became accustomed to collective work and life. Everything in this society was collective. Children also belonged to the entire clan, first the mother’s, then the father’s. In work and everyday communication with adults, children and adolescents acquired the necessary life skills and work skills, became acquainted with customs, learned to perform the rituals that accompanied the life of primitive people, and all their responsibilities, and completely subordinate themselves to the interests of the clan and the demands of their elders.
Boys participated with adult men in hunting and fishing, and in making weapons; girls, under the guidance of women, collected and grew crops, prepared food, and made dishes and clothes.
At the last stages of the development of matriarchy, the first institutions for the life and education of growing people appeared - youth houses, separate for boys and girls, where, under the guidance of the elders of the clan, they prepared for life, work, and “initiations.”
At the stage of the patriarchal clan community, cattle breeding, agriculture, and crafts appeared. In connection with the development of productive forces and the expansion of people's working experience, education also became more complex, which acquired a more multifaceted and systematic character. Children learned to care for animals, agriculture, and crafts. When the need for more organized education arose, the clan community entrusted the education of the younger generation to the most experienced people. Along with equipping children with labor skills and abilities, they introduced them to the rules of the emerging religious cult, legends, and taught them writing. Stories, games and dances, music and songs, all folk oral creativity played a huge role in the education of morals, behavior, and certain character traits.
As a result of further development, the clan community became a “self-governing, armed organization” (F. Engels). The beginnings of military education appeared: boys learned to shoot a bow, use a spear, ride a horse, etc. A clear internal organization appeared in age groups, leaders emerged, and the program of “initiations” became more complex, for which specially designated clan elders prepared young people. More attention began to be paid to mastering the rudiments of knowledge, and with the advent of writing, writing.
The implementation of education by special people allocated by the clan community, the expansion and complexity of its content and the test program with which it ended - all this indicated that under the conditions of the clan system, education began to stand out as a special form of social activity.
Education during the period of decay of primitive society.
With the advent of private property, slavery and the monogamous family, primitive society began to decompose. An individual marriage arose. The family has become one of the most important social phenomena, the main economic unit of society; the functions of raising children have been transferred to it from the clan community. Family education has become a mass form of education. But “youth houses” continued to exist, and schools began to appear.
The dominant groups of the population that emerged (priests, leaders, elders) sought to separate mental education from training in occupations requiring physical labor. The dominant groups concentrated the rudiments of knowledge (measuring fields, predicting river floods, methods of treating people, etc.) in their hands and made them their privilege. To teach this knowledge, special institutions were created - schools, which were used to strengthen the power of leaders, priests, and elders. Thus, in Ancient Mexico, children of noble people were freed from physical labor, studied in a special room and studied sciences that were not known to children ordinary people(e.g. pictographic writing, stargazing, area calculations). This elevated them above the rest.
The question of the origin of education. The question of the origin of education is of great fundamental importance. Bourgeois scientists and scientists who take Marxist-Leninist methodological positions approach it differently. Despite the fact that among bourgeois sociologists there are different opinions on this issue, they all tend to ignore the close connection that existed between the economic life and work activity of primitive people and the education of children at the earliest stage of social development. A number of concepts of bourgeois scientists about the origin of education were created under the influence of vulgar evolutionary ideas about human development, which leads to ignoring the social essence of education and to the biologization of the educational process.
Using carefully collected factual material about the presence in the animal world of “concern” of older generations about passing on the skills of adaptation to the environment to younger ones, supporters of such concepts (for example, C. Letourneau, A. Espinas) identify the instinctive actions of animals with the educational practice of primitive people and come to the incorrect conclusion that the only basis for education is the instinctive desire of people to procreate and the law of natural selection.
Among bourgeois scientists, there is also a widespread opinion, formed at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, that the basis of education is the instinctive desire of children to actively imitate their elders (this theory was developed, for example, by the American author P. Monroe). Thus, the biological interpretation of the reasons for the emergence of education was opposed to the psychological one. This theory, like any attempt to explain the emergence of a social phenomenon solely by factors of a psychological nature, is clearly idealistic in nature, although, of course, elements of imitation take place in the process of upbringing and communication of children with peers and adults.
The Soviet history of pedagogy, explaining the origin of education, is based on the teachings of the classics of Marxism-Leninism about the development of society and man as a natural and social being.
The main condition for the emergence of education was the labor activity of primitive people and the social relations that formed at the same time. F. Engels in his classic work “The Role of Labor in the Process of Transformation of Ape into Man” wrote: “labor created man himself.” The biological prerequisites for the formation of man could serve as the basis for the transition from the animal state to the human state through labor. Human society arose from the time when man began making tools.
The labor activity of primitive people, aimed at satisfying their natural needs of survival and reproduction, transformed animals into humans and created a human society in which the formation of man began to be determined by social laws. The use of primitive tools and the ever-expanding and increasingly complex conscious production of them entailed the need to transfer labor knowledge, skills and experience to younger generations.
At first this happened in the process of work, throughout everyday and social life. In the future, education becomes a special sphere of human activity and consciousness.
Education in a primitive society. At the first stage of development of primitive society - in prenatal society - people appropriated finished products of nature and engaged in hunting. The process of obtaining a means of subsistence was in its own way simple and at the same time labor-intensive. Hunting for large animals and a difficult struggle with nature could only be carried out in conditions of collective forms of life, labor and consumption. Everything was common; there were no social differences between members of the team.
Social relations in primitive society coincide with those of consanguinity. The division of labor and social functions in it was based on natural biological principles, as a result of which there was a division of labor between men and women, as well as an age division of the social collective.
Prenatal society was divided into three age groups: children and adolescents; full-fledged and full participants in life and work; elderly people and old people who no longer have the physical strength to fully participate in common life (at further stages of development of the primitive communal system, the number of age groups increases).
A born person first fell into a general group of growing and aging people, where he grew up in communication with peers and old people, wise from experience. It is interesting that the Latin word educare literally means “to pull out”, in a broader figurative meaning “to grow”, respectively, the Russian “education” has its root “to nourish”, its synonym is “to feed”, from where “feeding”; in Old Russian writing, the words “upbringing” and “feeding” are synonyms.
Having entered the appropriate biological age and gained some experience in communication, work skills, knowledge of the rules of life, customs and rituals, the person moved to the next age group. Over time, this transition began to be accompanied by so-called initiations, “initiations,” i.e., tests during which the youth’s preparation for life was tested: the ability to endure hardships, pain, show courage, and endurance.
Relations between members of one age group and relations with members of another group were regulated by unwritten, loosely followed customs and traditions that reinforced the emerging social norms.
In prenatal society, one of the driving forces of human development remains the biological mechanisms of natural selection and adaptation to the environment. But as society develops, the social patterns that emerge in it begin to play an increasingly greater role, gradually occupying a dominant place.
In primitive society, a child was brought up and learned in the process of his life, participation in the affairs of adults, and in everyday communication with them. He was not so much preparing for life, as it became later, but rather directly involved in the activities available to him, together with his elders and under their leadership, he became accustomed to collective work and life. Everything in this society was collective. Children also belonged to the entire clan, first the mother’s, then the father’s. In work and everyday communication with adults, children and adolescents acquired the necessary life skills and work skills, became acquainted with customs, learned to perform the rituals that accompanied the life of primitive people, and all their responsibilities, and completely subordinate themselves to the interests of the clan and the demands of their elders.
Boys participated with adult men in hunting and fishing, and in making weapons; girls, under the guidance of women, collected and grew crops, prepared food, and made dishes and clothes.
At the last stages of the development of matriarchy, the first institutions for the life and education of growing people appeared - youth houses, separate for boys and girls, where, under the guidance of the elders of the clan, they prepared for life, work, and “initiations.”
At the stage of the patriarchal clan community, cattle breeding, agriculture, and crafts appeared. In connection with the development of productive forces and the expansion of people's working experience, education also became more complex, which acquired a more multifaceted and systematic character. Children learned to care for animals, agriculture, and crafts. When the need for more organized education arose, the clan community entrusted the education of the younger generation to the most experienced people. Along with equipping children with labor skills and abilities, they introduced them to the rules of the emerging religious cult, legends, and taught them writing. Stories, games and dances, music and songs, all folk oral creativity played a huge role in the education of morals, behavior, and certain character traits.
As a result of further development, the clan community became a “self-governing, armed organization” (F. Engels). The beginnings of military education appeared: boys learned to shoot a bow, use a spear, ride a horse, etc. A clear internal organization appeared in age groups, leaders emerged, and the program of “initiations” became more complex, for which specially designated clan elders prepared young people. More attention began to be paid to mastering the rudiments of knowledge, and with the advent of writing, writing.
The implementation of education by special people allocated by the clan community, the expansion and complexity of its content and the test program with which it ended - all this indicated that under the conditions of the clan system, education began to stand out as a special form of social activity.
Education during the period of decay of primitive society. With the advent of private property, slavery and the monogamous family, primitive society began to decompose. An individual marriage arose. The family has become one of the most important social phenomena, the main economic unit of society; the functions of raising children have been transferred to it from the clan community. Family education has become a mass form of education. But “youth houses” continued to exist, and schools began to appear.
The dominant groups of the population that emerged (priests, leaders, elders) sought to separate mental education from training in occupations requiring physical labor. The dominant groups concentrated the rudiments of knowledge (measuring fields, predicting river floods, methods of treating people, etc.) in their hands and made them their privilege. To teach this knowledge, special institutions were created - schools, which were used to strengthen the power of leaders, priests, and elders. Thus, in Ancient Mexico, the children of noble people were freed from physical labor, studied in a special room and studied sciences that were not known to the children of ordinary people (for example, pictographic writing, observing the stars, calculating areas). This elevated them above the rest.
Physical labor became the lot of the exploited. In their families, children were accustomed to work early, and their parents passed on their experience to them. Organized education of children, carried out in schools, became increasingly the lot of the elite.
Popular site articles from the “Dreams and Magic” section
Why do you dream about people who have passed away?
There is a strong belief that dreams about dead people do not belong to the horror genre, but, on the contrary, are often prophetic dreams. So, for example, it is worth listening to the words of the dead, because all of them, as a rule, are direct and truthful, in contrast to the allegories uttered by other characters in our dreams...1.2.2. The nature of education in primitive society
All members of the primitive collective (clan, tribe) were divided into three age groups: 1) children and adolescents; 2) adult men and women, full participants in life and work; 3) elderly people and old people. Since in the primitive collective social relations coincided with blood relations (the clan is not only an economic unit, but primarily a collective of relatives), raising children was considered the work of the entire collective. Thus, education in primitive society did not imply the presence of teachers as a special professional group- every adult and old man could and should have acted as a teacher.
The transition of adolescents aged 11 to 15 years into the “adult” age group was accompanied by so-called initiations (“dedications”), which consisted of a series of various tests preceded by special training. Researchers consider initiations as the first social institution aimed at deliberately organizing the educational process. Those who passed initiation were considered prepared for work, religious and ritual, everyday life and marriage.
Initiation rites also showed sexual differentiation. In the process of testing, young men had to show dexterity, endurance, ingenuity, demonstrate the ability to endure pain and hardship, knowledge of ritual songs and dances that accompanied such “male” activities as hunting, and protecting clan members from numerous dangers. Girls, as a rule, were not subjected to difficult tests. They were only forced to observe certain food prohibitions, explained to them how they should behave when getting married, taught them songs and myths, and performed various religious ceremonies on them.
The spiritual and moral life of primitive society was determined by the mythological nature of people’s consciousness and the characteristics of the religion that existed at that time - animism (from lat. anima, animus - soul, spirit), which was characterized by the animation of nature and faith in the souls of ancestors. Thanks to the animation of the surrounding world, man felt himself a part of it and behaved in such a way as not to disrupt the natural order established by nature. Therefore, the most essential part of knowledge was knowledge about nature. Children were brought up in harmony with nature, they were instilled with a caring attitude towards everything that surrounds them.
Orientation to the area, signs associated with predicting the weather, knowledge of the habits of animals, the beneficial and harmful properties of plants, and the characteristics of various minerals were vitally necessary for any member of a primitive society. This is how the rudiments of physical (invention of the lever, bow) and chemical (processing of plants and various natural materials) knowledge, astronomy (orientation to the Sun and stars), medicine, pharmacology. Knowledge requiring generalized abstract ideas developed more slowly, which was reflected in language. Thus, there were collective designations for trees, shrubs, and grass, but there were no designations for plants at all.
Knowledge about the surrounding world was transmitted in the form of myths, where they were contained in an “encrypted” form and were based on religious ideas, empirical experience, and a system of recommendations and prohibitions. As a rule, older people acted as carriers and transmitters of myths.
From time immemorial, the Sami considered the Earth to be a living being: turf is its skin, tundra mosses and grasses are its hair. Hammering a peg into the ground and digging a hole was tantamount to causing her pain. “This cannot be done unless absolutely necessary,” the Sami said. “If you offend the earth, you won’t end up in trouble...” - “Primitive superstition!” - they waved it off modern people who studied higher mathematics at the institute. They drove into the tundra on all-terrain vehicles and tractors, tearing up the fragile earth cover with their caterpillars. And now we are clutching our heads: it turns out that the nature of the Far North is unusually vulnerable, and where an all-terrain vehicle once passed, a terrible ravine soon appears. Meanwhile, the Sami have always known this, and wisdom does not cease to be wisdom, no matter in what language it is expressed.
The low level of economic development determined the need to unite people in order to jointly confront the harsh living conditions. A person could survive only in a team. It is no coincidence that expulsion from the tribe was considered the most terrible punishment. The primitive communal system is characterized by the priority of the interests of the collective over the interests of the individual; a person has no value as an independent individual and is considered only as a member of the community.
In primitive society, man was formed only from the point of view of his public functions– labor, family, religious, and one of the most important areas of education was the cultivation of collectivism, the ability to subordinate one’s interests to the interests of the clan, to interact in Everyday life and in extreme situations.
The researchers note that the attitude of adults towards children was extremely friendly; from the early age children began to reproduce this attitude in their interactions with others. There were no violent, repressive methods of education. There was no need for punishment because children, like adults, were directly included in the life of society.
Thus, the main features of education in primitive society are: education in the process of life; universal, equal, collective, community-controlled education; the connection between upbringing and the immediate interests and needs of children; the main teaching method is example; absence corporal punishment; mysticism and magic.
History of education and pedagogical thought. Part 1. From the origins of education in primitive society to the middle of the 17th century. : textbook manual / ed. Academician of RAO A.I. Piskunov. – M, 1997. – P. 23.
