The purpose of this study is to examine Comenius's philosophy of curriculum and to seek for the implications for modern education. Comenius insisted at all times that the primary objective of education is the moral and spiritual formation of the indiv...
The purpose of this study is to examine Comenius's philosophy of curriculum and to seek for the implications for modern education. Comenius insisted at all times that the primary objective of education is the moral and spiritual formation of the individual person. All his ideas were subordinated to this all-embracing principle. Given the radical character of his Christian beliefs-his emphasis on the primacy of conscience and individual responsibility, his pacifism, his advocacy of religious tolerance and ecumenicity, his impassioned commitment to social reform-his ideas in this whole field have a distinctly modern relevance and challenge many of the approaches to ethico-religious education currently advocated by the institutional churches. His application of the methods of his learner-centered pedagogy, and particularly of the doctrine of learning through experience, to the whole sphere of ethico-religious education has a deep relevance to contemporary concerns and provides some challenging, and eminently practical, ideas for the promotion of moral and spiritual education. A pansophic, as distinct from an encyclopaedic, curriculum should give access to what Comenius considered the there main sources of wisdom: knowledge of nature, intellectual knowledge and knowledge of God. There are the essential elements in the philosophy of curriculum. Comenius insists the curriculum must hav esubstantive content: that is, content sufficiently profound to guarantee depth and thoroughness in the pupil's comprehension of all truth. So he emphasizes the need for structural integration in the curriculum. What he insisted most vehemently, however, was that the unity of the curriculum is in essence a moral unity, deriving from the all-informing presence of the spiritual in the sphere of material and finite being. In short, order, unity, depth, range and coherence are the characteristic features of the Comenian curriculum.