Dr. Ali Rabia Hussein Al Hashemi

Department of General Sciences

College of Basic Education Haditha - Anbar University

Teaching aids are as old as man himself, and his modernity is the newness of the hour. God has set parables for people to clarify for them the ways of good and the ways of evil and bring them closer to the picture with tangible examples from their lives. The Holy Qur’an is full of examples that bring distant meanings closer to the minds of the recipient in a tangible way that the recipient sees or touches. God Almighty mentioned the story of Abel and Cain and how God Almighty sent a crow to kill another crow and bury it to teach Abel how to hide the misdeed of his brother. In the oldest human civilizations, we find that this man recorded those wonderful drawings of some of the animals that lived in his time, on the walls of the caves in which he lived in various regions of the world.

And when the Christian religion came, the churchmen mocked the rule of art, whether plastic art, drawing and sculpture, or theatrical or musical art, etc., as means to spread the teachings of the Christian religion and what was mentioned in the Bible.

And if we went back to history, we would find that man thought of a way to express what he wanted, and to express his thoughts, so he tried to abstract the manuscripts, so he was guided to the drawings and symbols, and he began to simplify these symbols and drawings until the letters and words that we deal with in our present time became symbols of dealing and expression.

And the true Islamic religion came, and the Messenger (peace be upon him) used to say to the Muslims (pray as you saw me praying), (take your rituals from me) and follow appropriate means to spread the teachings of the religion, including persuasion and encouragement...etc.

And the development of man’s use of means to serve his purposes, and since man is born as a helpless child, he must go through many experiences, whether through direct personal experience with or without a goal, or external experiences.

That this child begins to acquire personal choices from his own experiences, while the external ones he acquires by watching others such as his parents, brothers, friends and relatives, or by explaining the experience to him, whether those who went through the experience or those who witnessed it.

During the process of acquiring experiences, the man must have used several methods to simplify the experience for his son, and even passed him a practical experience to learn that skill. It has his father, mother, older brother, and so on.

From all of the above, we conclude that the teaching aids have existed since ancient times, but the human being used them without programming, and in their simplicity, left to individual differences from one person to another.

There are many Arab scholars who emphasized the role and importance of the medium in education, including Al-Hassan Ibn Al-Haytham, the famous Arab optics scholar.

Al-Idrisi engraved a silver ball on it and draws on it the map of the world known to him in those days to Duke Roger II, King of Sicily, and draws seventy maps in his book (The Mushtaq), which is one of the most important illustrated geographical books.

Al-Wasiti, who used the pictures drawn in the book (Maqamat Al-Hariri - Kalila and Dimna).

Ibn Khaldun, who emphasized in his introduction the use of live examples in the teaching process, and even considered them the best educational means to facilitate awareness and gain experiences.

Ibn Sina used pictures and models in teaching students.

Al-Razi invented devices and methods based on the scientific method in education.

European scientists and educators also used concepts indicating the need to use educational means

Such as:

Bishop (Comnius) designed a textbook with illustrations to teach children Latin under the name (The World of Pictures). Most of what we find repeating what Ibn Khaldun said, the teacher asks to bring live models to the classroom. And to draw illustrations on the chalk board, so that the children know the sensible in the abstract, and they know the abstract through the sensible.

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who emphasized the impact of the environment and nature on education and learning through his books (Emile) (and raising children).

Pestalozzi left the space for learning in the process of acquiring skills for the senses, personal experiences and practical experiences, so he used stones, beads and nuts to teach arithmetic and school trips to archaeological and natural places, where he asked them to draw the places they visited, or make clay models for them, leaving them the freedom of expression and discovery of the relationships between things. .

• Erasmus emphasized the use of illustrations in education for children, in particular, and pointed out that teachers made letters of sweets to entice children.

• Montini urged the use of field visits in education.

• Comenos and is considered the true father of educational aids, who emphasized the use of the senses in learning with real things and pictures, and called for a school equipped with realistic materials and pictures used by teachers and a thousand books (The World in Pictures), which specialized in presenting different concepts and topics reinforced with pictures. It is the first course based on the use of media educational.