THE MAIN PRINCIPLES OF MODERN PEDAGOGY IN ‘DIDACTICA MAGNA’ OF JOHN AMOS COMENIUS

The pedagogical thought of John Amos Comenius is framed in the historical context of seventeenth-century Europe and it highlights the characteristics typical of ‘modernity’, which in turn defines its new borders compared to traditional education: universal education and thus the necessity of making schools more popular; the creation of a wider epistemological structure of pedagogy and therefore the identification of specific teaching methods and a new concept of culture. The Didactica Magna represents the work in which the Moravian thinker discusses his powerful pedagogical concept: the close relation between the problems of education and the general issues of mankind; the central role played by education in the framework of social development; the existence of a universal teaching method based on the harmonic processes of nature; the concept of open learning; the concept of the unity of knowledge; and the commitment to an education for peace and for understanding among peoples.