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.