In this post, we will look at ancient Egyptian and Jewish education. Through many stories, such as those found in the Christian Bible, Egyptian and Jewish civilizations are connected.

Egypt

The Egyptians employed a caste system. This system consisted primarily of three levels but this varies based on interpretation. These three levels are the priest, military, and unprivileged. The priests made up the highest caste. This caste did not only consist of religious functions but also included surveyors, engineers, teachers, etc. In many ways, the equivalent today would be highly skilled white-collar jobs.

It was the priestly caste that educated the others. They were generally the only ones who were literate. Also, the priests owned 1/3 of the land and were not required to pay taxes. As such, priests were generally wealthy due to these economic concessions.

The military was the second caste. These were the soldiers who defended the country and also found ways to expand it. `The pharaoh was a part of this caste be he was also often put in a caste by himself at the top of the system. It was also possible for people to move between the priestly and military classes. For example, a soldier could have a brother who was a priest and vice versa.

The lowest class was called the unprivileged. This included everyone who was not in the other two classes mentioned already. This group was further subdivided into craftsmen, farmers, merchants, and slaves.

The education of youth was practical. A boy was expected to follow the trade of his father. However, there was flexibility in this depending on the interest and skill of the child. The education was physically demanding but also include many of the subjects expected in a school (reading, writing, math, etc.)

Jews

Jewish education was highly unique when compared to other forms of education. There was no caste system among the Israelites as found in other civilizations. Also, there was no government-controlled education until the Assyrian and Babylonian captivity period. This implies that Jewish youth were primarily homeschooled, which was almost unheard of in any advanced civilization during ancient times.

Even though Jewish education was primarily controlled by the family for several thousand years there were exceptions to this. One example is the School of the Prophets during the monarchy period of the Jews. At this school, students studied philosophy, medicine, poetry, history, law, etc. These schools were erected to provide spiritual leaders for Israel.

Another school founded mostly after the captivity was the School od the Rabbis. There were several of these and they were run independently by famous rabbinical teachers. They were similar to the School of the Prophets in terms of curriculum and students studied such subjects as theology, politics, law, history, math, etc.

By the first century AD, and after the Babylonian captivity, Rabbis began to require that every community have a school and that attendance to such a school was mandatory. This eliminated to a large degree the tradition of homeschooling among Jews.

The teachers at these schools had to be married men with experience. What is implied here is that people who had reached full maturity through being married and perhaps with children were considered ready to deal with children.

Conclusion

How people choose to prepare children for the world will always be different. Egypt was focused on raising people to support a caste system. Israel was focused on the development of the individual and not only the state. The superiority of one system over the other depends on the individual. However. both of these systems have a rich history that is still impactful to this day.

In this post, we will look at the Prussian education system during the 19th century. This system has been praised by many and influenced the development of the American educational system. In particular, we will look at the schools and the requirements for becoming a teacher in this historical system.

The Schools

Prussian education begins for many with the Common Schools. These schools were designed for the masses and cover what we would consider to be K-8 today. These schools lasted six days a week for 42 weeks a year. Generally, students would be in class anywhere from 16-28 hours per week. Teachers of course work 28 hours a week.

Attendance was compulsory for children age 6-14. Parents could face disciplinary action if they did not send their children to schools. Generally, there were few problems or resistance to compliance

Completion of Common School studies did not automatically lead to going to high schools. Often, if a student wanted to continue to study he would study at continuation schools. These schools were offered on Sundays and during the evenings. For most lower-class individuals this was the only way to continue studying.

Secondary school had three types of schools these are the gymnasium, reallgymnasium, and the oberrealschule. All three of these schools prepared for university. The difference between these three types of schools is the amount of focus each school had on classical studies. The gymnasium was the most heavily focused on the classics, followed by the realgymnasium, and the oberealschule was the most practical.

If a student from the common schools had a goal of attending university, he had to enroll at a secondary school before he was 10 years old. This indicates that it was difficult for late bloomers to have academic success at university.

For those who go to university, those who choose to become teachers typically do not teach at the common schools. Generally, they teach at secondary school, private school, or work as tutors. Usually, only former common school students would teach at common schools. Whether this is right or wrong is open to debate but this was the reality of the time.

Teacher Preparation

Becoming a teacher required that a student’s teacher and the local administrator notice academic talent in a child. If the administrator believes the child can be a teacher, he will next contact the parents and see if they agree to have the child become a teacher. If the parents agreed the child is then sent to a preparatory school for about 3 years (age 14 – 17).

Upon completing preparatory school, the student goes to a normal school (teacher college). This training lasted for 3 years. Two of the years are book work and the last year is what we would call a student internship today. After completing normal school, the student goes back to their childhood school and begin their first teaching position.

Once they get their first job, the student is now a probationary teacher for 3 years. When the 3 years are over, the student then has to pass a final examination that covers questions about pedagogy. Only after passing this exam does the student become a tenured teacher, which essentially means having a job for life. Not bad considering many would be less than 25 years old.

Conclusion

The Prussian system was a major component of the development and growth of Germany during the 19th century. There was criticism of how it perpetuated the class structure through the differences found in the common vs secondary schools. However, all systems have their inherent strengths and weaknesses and there is no exception in the case of the Prussian educational approach.

Johann Basedow (1723-1790) was an influential German educator of the 18th century. In this post, we will look at the life and work of this influential educator.

Life

He was born in Hamburg, Germany. As a child he was temporarily a runaway do to a strained relationship with his father. However, with time, he was reconciled with his father and return home

As a young man, Basedow studied theology at university. However, he was found to be too difficult in terms of personality to be fit for ministry. In fact, Basedow’s personality was a frequent cause of his failures. He was unorthodox by nature but what really cause him problems was poor people skills, a penchant for criticizing others, and being somewhat capricious in his decision making.

With his hopes of ministry being thwarted, Basedow turned to being a tutor. He developed a somewhat unorthodox approach to teaching Latin. In his approach, Basedow would point to different objects that he encountered with his students and tell them the name of the object in Latin. Through this focus on practical vocabulary the students quickly learned the language. At the time, this was a revolutionary way to teach language.

After working as a tutor for a time, Basedow next appointment was to work as a Professor of Morals at a university in Denmark. Given his raucous past, it is ironic that the rebellious runaway was now a guardian of morality. Unfortunately, Basedow’s unorthodox style and strong independence streak led to conflict with the university.

Basedow was heavily influenced by Rousseau and especially by Rousseau’s book “Emile”, which was a book on Rousseau’s views of education. This book which advocated avoiding educating a child for the first 12 years or so of life, providing minimum moral training, and the avoidance of discipline is seen by many to be a bizarre approach to education. However,, for Basedow, it led him to the next step in his life, which was the founding of his own school.

Philanthropin

Prince Leopold, fascinated by Basedow, decided to finance Basedow in the developing of a school were Basedow could implement Rousseau and his own educational theories. The name of this school was the Philanthropin.

Basedow’s school was popular in that everybody heard of it. Yet, few parents wanted to actual send their children to such an experimental school. In fact, when several school leaders came to the school they only found 13 students there. To make matters worst, two of the thirteen were Basedow’s own children.

The lack of success of the school can be based on several reasons. For starters, Basedow’s personality cause problems. He lacked the charisma needed for a leadership position along with the tact needed to maneuver difficult situations. Basedow was also a frequent critic of other educators and this did not win him friends and or support. In addition, Basedow, was unpredictable in decision making and suspicious of his subordinates.

Another problem was the strict secular nature of the school. Based on Rousseau’s “Emile” there was no religious instruction in the school as Rousseau believed it was too early in a child’s life to have religious training. This is considered normal today, however, during this time, the idea of separating church and state was still unheard of. This was a few years before the United States was born and it was still expected that schools provide religious education. Basedow’s decision to ignore this was revolutionary.

Eventually, Basedow resigned from his leadership position and the school would close several years after his death. With the closure of the school the teachers dispersed and took with them the ideas that they learned from Basedow.

Conclusion

Basedow’s failure are his primary gift to future educators. Some people show the next generation what works while others show the next generation what does not work. Basedow’s innovations were primarily unsuccessful but if he had never attempted to dream big and implement them the world would have never known. Even worst, Basedow himself would have never known.