COVE

Jürgen Ovens, Portret van Jan Amos Comenius, ca. 1650-70, Wikipedia.  

John Amos Comenius was born in 1592 in present day Czech Republic. His parents were members of the Protestant group Unitas Fratrum, but they died when he was ten as did two of his sisters. From a young age and throughout adulthood Comenius’s life was disrupted by religious conflicts, but pushed further into his faith.  The church took him ina s a young, but passionate orphan and funded a rigorous education. When he had finished his studies, he returned home and was ordained as a minister. Entertaining both the influence of Protestant Millennialism and science pioneered by those such as Francis Bacon, Comenius formed progressive views on religion, women, children, and overall education. He believed that science could help religion unfold. Comenius also believed that girls should be taught just as boys are. Further, unlike many of the time he believed that children should be taught with consideration to their individual needs and desires, with a focus on more material things than grammar. After the thirty years war began, he had to repeatedly leave his home and family to go into hiding, as he was a cleric of the Protestant church. During this time, his first wife and their children died, and then his second wife died as well, his house and library were also burned down. In 1628, Comemius and his third wife, his family, along with Unitas Fratrum fled to Lezno, Poland. From then until 1652, he poured himself into developing his theories on education. Following the Northern Wars in 1655, he was forced to abandon his work and life once more to go into hiding, where he died in exile in 1670 in Amsterdam. He developed a complex educational theory that influenced all of his works, notably Orbis Pictus which is regarded as the first picture book for teaching children. He believed that everyone, man or woman, should be holistically taught at all stages of life with the ultimate goal of creating a universal education. His phrase “theoria – praxis –chrésis” illuminates his overarching belief that without virtue and piety, or the protestant ideals of goodness he grew up with, knowledge is useless. The religious concept of praxis, the Greek work for practice, reflects Comenius’s values as he shows that he desires an education where knowledge is not idle, but in practice.