Trivium & Quadtrivium

"Numbers were identified with the various gods. He considered odd numbers to be male and the even ones to be female."

I found this to be very interesting and it made me wonder what the thought process was here. This is obviously me stereotyping, but generally, speaking girls are better behaved in grade school. Once both genders are grown up I think it evens out a bit but during school, it is almost always the boys that give teachers a hard time. This is why this analogy makes sense to me, with boys being slightly more "odd" and less put together and females being more "even" and polished. 

"To qualify for a degree, he was required to participate in public disputations, either defending a proposition or opposing one defended by another student"

There was a couple of things that I found interesting. Firstly the use of the word "he" because back then university was only provided to men and not women, that is certainly one aspect that the modern university has changed for the better. Secondly, I find it interesting that the university used to require students to argue their opinions. I feel that this is something lacking from the modern university, where at times it feels like students are just being graded on their ability to memorize facts and figures. 

"education as the sole occupation of the first thirty-five years of a man's life. He would have the first twenty years spent on gymnastics, music, and grammar, the next ten on arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and harmony, and the next five on philosophy. "

This was an opinion of Plato's. The first thing that sticks out to me is the subjects that he chose, particularly gymnastics and music. It is clear that Plato believed that a man should focus the majority of his education on the arts, which I found interesting. Additionally, this is a very long time! I have been in school for sixteen years and that is already a long time. On paper, it would appear that Plato's theory would result in a well-educated, more successful society, but I am not sure that is the case. My opinion is that the economy would suffer because people aren't entering the workforce until a later age and because there is no diversity of knowledge. Yes, a university education is important, but we also need trades workers and I don't think philosophy and astronomy are very important for those roles.