Education In The Old World

17. - EDUCATION IN THE OLD WORLD. Alonso Montiel Palacios

The study of ancient world is very important for linguistics and culture, because, in the first place the cultures in the ancient world made a rupture between prehistory and history, mainly caused because of the origins of writing.
The cultures of the ancient world were basically the Babylonians (Jews) , Egyptians, Phoenicians,Greeks, Hindus, romans, and even Chinese people, all this people had their own methods and techniques of teaching, I’m going to explain them now;
Egyptian education: the standard children of society in ancient Egypt, art workers, farmers etc., were educated in their houses by their parents, the boy’s whit the father about profession and work and the girl’s whit the mother about housekeeping takingcare of the child’s etc.
The higher social status ,the greater the responsibilities , for example the middle class girls were indoctrinated for taking care of the house ,selling and farming, etc., but the royal or noble family girls were educated according to the family status ,allowing them to learn some politics and bureaucracy issues ,but were excluded from the most elite temples , and thewoman were not eligible as scribes, the scribes schools were attended just by males , the average age in which a student entered a school , if they went to one were between 8 9 years , daily , and the teachers were government related men with experience on bureaucracy, there were also the “princes school” ,in which the pharaoh sons ,members of the royal family , and future nobles and high officialsand remarkable recommended students learn their ways ,in ancient Egypt the young ones studied hieroglyphs ,books of instruction, morality , obedience, humanity, etc., they were –Egyptians- free to think of whatever they wanted to, achieving things such as the length of the curvature of the earth , approximate distance on other planets and stars , etc., also they knew about history , arithmetic’s ,geometry, astronomy, music, science and medicine , etc.
Education in ancient Mesopotamia: the education in Mesopotamia were very similar to the one in Egypt, the children learned from their parents the work and responsibilities to survive in a very similar way than the ones in Egypt, however the Sumerians created the first known formal education system and they taught how to became a scribe(good writing and reading) and then if they succeeded and wanted more they became priests whit more knowledge about the planets ,satellites, stars and also bureaucracy , because they often became government workers, having knowledge about taxes -yes, taxes indeed existed that time ago-projects, politics , and keeping the records of the ziggurat (a Mesopotamian temple) their writing was on bas-relieveand slightly cuneiform.

Phoenicians:
was very similar to the ones that I already mention, however the most important Phoenician contribution to us was that they made the twenty-two alphabet, diffused among themselves on their schools and families and between foreign people through the merchant Phoenician people .
Greek education:
The goal of education in ancient Greek city states was toprepare the child for activities as a citizen –civil duties- however there was also different kinds of education among cities ,as an example there are two different places , Sparta and Athens ;
Athens:
in ancient Athens, boys started education at the age of six or seven, they had to go to three different schools till the age of thirteen of fourteen , the schools were private -second schools- , butcheap enough to let even the poorest citizens afford their child education at least a few years, the schools were the children were sent were divided in sports (gymnastics, wrestling, disc , etc.) arts (music, poetry, etc.) , and reading and writing , if the students had enough money to afford it , they also could pay a paidagogo, slave acquired exclusively to teach the boys. (origin of...