reflection paper#7

The threefold approach to education in the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia were home schooling, apprenticeship and temple education. Just as in the 21st century, children in ancient Egypt emulated adult behavior. Most children who are homeschooled by their Parents by a 25% rating actually want to take up their parents Trade or profession. The only difference is the fact that in Egypt, more often than not, the children were learning their ultimate trade or professions by the very simulation of their parents and in the modern time most children imitate their parents but don’t actually take up their parents professions in the future. As Egyptian children grew older they took on more of the responsibilities on farms, workshops, vineyards, and gained expedient skills and understanding from the elderly. Along with the skills also came moral attitudes and views of life. Parents instilled their ideas about the world, folk rituals, their religious standpoint, and their viewpoints on correct behavior toward others, and toward the deities (the gods). Home schooling wasn’t the same for all children in Egypt. For example, they had formal vocational training along with scribal at-home teaching. Young men and women were not taught the same things. Because young men did not choose their own careers and pursued the family trade or profession, they were often taken on as assistants if their fathers were officials so that they were able to experience on-the-job training. In doing this they were becoming more equipped to take up their father’s profession in the future. Young women from less superior families would typically stay indoors and handle the household, sing, dance and play musical instruments. The children of poorer families such as fishermen and farmers had even less formal education. They learned how to sow, garner and harvest, make nets catching and preparing fish. You would mainly find them out in the field milking cows or sowing seeds rather than in school where they should be. Basically their education was made up of manual labor. As for apprentices, they were people who were legally bound through bond of a master craftsman in order to learn a trade. The early Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans all had systems of apprenticeship. Most superb pyramids and temples that are still here today are evidence that the system of apprenticeship clearly did make a difference. Temple education was just like every other school during the ancient time. Cuneiform was used for everything from letters and prayers to incantations, dictionaries, and even mathematical and astronomical treatises.