How, where and when did structured schooling start?
I was reading about SAT, ACT etc testing of grade school students in the US, which reminded me of my own tests/exams in India. This led me to think, how, where and when exactly did man figure out the need to impart a structured education? By structured, I don't mean the brick and mortar schools of today, but also any way of imparting knowledge/learning to another human being. An age-old Indian practice comes to mind - Guru-Shishya parampara.
I would love to have replies to this, and maybe do a blog post about this later, if I may quote you on this?
Thanks
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Michael L
consultant, project manager, inventor, programmer at Lyubomirskiy Consulting, lyubomirskiy@gmail
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structured schooling in the West began immediately with the invention of writing. Thing is, the original writing systems of the West (Egyptian hieroglyphics, Sumerian cuneiform and syllabic writing of Crete) was so insanely hard that you could not learn it any other way. So to train the scribes to run the government/temples you had to teach boys in classrooms with liberal application of the whip.
Later on, the first literate society was achieved in Ancient Greece, especially in Athens. So pretty much all boys of the free citizens class would go to primary school to learn to reading, writing and basic history. Just like us. Of course, back then they wasted a lot less time on empty hoop jumping in school and generally became adults much earlier, so there was no modern notion of the teenager then. A 14 year old Athenian citizen would probably be already a decently productive employee at an artisan shop. He might even end up conscripted for military service, though I am not certain on this point. Oh, and sure enough, Athenian politics bears quite a bit of resemblance to American politics today - including the fact that they democratized, wealth-redistributed and foreign-expanded themselves all the way to the point of Spartan conquest and the abolition of the republic.
In East Asia I cannot give you any specific dates but again, without systematic schooling you cannot learn Chinese characters. So in China, Japan and Korea they would certainly have these classrooms for boys to teach them writing as far back as we can see traces of writing in this region. Incidentally, Japan (especially its urban areas) happens to share with Western areas like Holland and the Jesuit Reductions in Paraguay for Guarani Indians the honor of being one of the earliest mass literate societies of modern times, thanks to the kana script. Well, Japan rocks in all sorts of ways, it was a very advanced society long before MacArthur showed up there, contrary to some myths popular this side of the Pacific :)
In the Arab world schooling was approached quite seriously because they required the clerics to read Koran out loud. In fact, many of the clerics learned Koran by heart over the centuries. However, they never got anywhere near mass literacy, which didn't prevent them from having periods of both prosperous urban economy and not-so-prosperous urban economy for various reasons. Likewise in China literacy amongst urban dwellers was never very high, even though it increased markedly around the time of the fall of the Ming in 17th century. That didn't keep the artisans from doing a great job though :)
Prof Bhushan Lal H
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Dear Tanseem,
This is a very interesting question.
We know that at the advent of human civilisation, the task of educating the younger generation was that of the family and especially of the parents. When we advanced to the agricultural stage, all education was imparted orally and it was experiential. Boys and girls helped their parents in their daily work and acquired the necessary skills through observation, apprenticeship and hands on learning. The family continued to be the source of folk -lore; tradition, myths, fables, legends and all this had an oral tradition; both in the east and the west.
Gradually, the parents felt that the task of educating the younger generation needed specialised skills and they were pressed for want of time. Hence the village priest- shaman was assigned this task. Eric Ashby regards this as the First Great Revolution in Social evolution. The responsibility of educating the young was hence passed on from the family to a so-called specialist within the community.
Soon we had the invention of the written word and that brought a major shift in the process. In ancient Vedic times, education in the ‘Patshalas’ and ‘Gurukuls’ was imparted orally. Even Buddhist education in ‘Mats’ and ‘Viharas’, and in the ‘Madrasas’ of the Muslims; continued to be given orally even after the written word was available. The Society took upon itself the task of educating the younger generation and donated land, funds and resources to Gurus who dedicated themselves to the task of imparting education. These small centres soon grew and their fame spread far and wide.
Lords, Kings and Landlords in the Feudal Society provided support. Soon the system became more and more organised and had controls, regulations and so on. Hence it got loosely structured. Entry age was decided. Curriculum was formed. Assessment procedure was laid down. But all this had a variety of models as it varied from one tribe to another, one community to another and from one society to another. With the passage of time, the need for uniformity in certain basic practices and regulations was felt and ordered for by Kings or democratically elected Councils.
It was just before the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and the invention of the Printing Press that we had a somewhat loosely structured form of Schooling existing throughout the world and each civilisation was at some stage of development.
The present day structure is one that has proved to be boring, monotonous and only helpful in establishing routine and curbing creativity. That is why, we have been trying with various models like: Non Formal Education, Open School, Home Schooling etc and even major changes are being initiated in the way the schools ought to function and the purposes for which they exist.
I think this helps.
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Bill T
Sr. Mechanical Designer at BreconRidge
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The modern, structured, compulsory school system where most of us send our children has a strange history indeed - and you won’t read about it in any schoolbooks. If your really want to understand the school system, where it came from, who it serves, and why it is the way it is, I would highly recommend The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto.
