Paideia is the way education was understood in Ancient Greece. The term “paideia” is derived from the Greek word paidos (child) and means something like “children’s education”.
Education is a way in which some societies seek to transmit from generation to generation, some values that are understood as essential for the maintenance of their culture.
What was education like in ancient Greece?
Education for the Greeks had a different conception from the current one. Greek education was a form of training that sought to educate the body and mind, based on activities related to Greek culture and its philosophy.
Mind and body united in a method that, despite the transformations over the centuries, influenced the whole way of understanding the role of education. Even today, education preserves the idea of social utility, as a tool for transmitting knowledge, capable of transforming individually and collectively.
In turn, the importance given to the training of young people and their manner were not the same throughout Greece. This distinction occurred due to issues related to the activities developed in each polis (city-states). Each location had its particularities and this was reflected in what was expected of its citizens and, consequently, of the education of young people.
Therefore, education assumed an important relationship with the specific objectives of each place.
The different areas of knowledge, understood as arts, varied in their degree of relevance from place to place.