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The history of compulsory schooling
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SoulRiser Offline
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The history of compulsory schooling

I got inspired to do some research. I actually started looking for stuff on the history of discrimination, but got sidetracked and ended up finding some interesting stuff on the history of forced schooling... (most of this from wikipedia)

Quote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_education

Sparta in classical Greece had a system of general public education. After that, basic education was generally by private tutors to the wealthy. In Medieval Europe, this was done by religious organisations such as monasteries or cathedral choir "song schools" which educated the priesthood rather than the general populace. At this time, grammar schools were founded in many towns, and universities were founded by the church to train the clergy.

Scotland led the way in implementing a system of general public education with free provision for the poor, starting in 1561 during the Protestant Reformation, with support from taxation being introduced in 1633. Reformation concepts such as the priesthood serving laypeople and the importance of the individual conscience and the supremacy of Scripture made widespread literacy important. In the late 18th century provision of public education emerged in other countries, as political philosophers argued that an educated citizenry was an essential component of a democratic society.

While in colonial America, as in Europe, schooling was often regarded as a prerequisite for religion on the basis of the same Protestant Reformation concepts, the Northwest Ordinance provided that "Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."

In the 19th century, industrialization and the rise of democratic nation-states led to the more widespread systematization of public schools. In France, for example, the state used public schools to foster national identity and linguistic conformity at the expense of separatist movements and regional dialects. The public school system in the United States has also been credited with being an important instrument in the assimilation of large numbers of immigrants. Education, at least at a primary school level, was made compulsory in some American states in the mid 19th century, in Scotland in 1872 and in England and Wales shortly afterwards.


AZTEC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec#Education

Until the age of fourteen, the education of children was in the hands of their parents, but supervised by the authorities of their calpulli. Part of this education involved learning a collection of sayings, called huehuetlatolli ("sayings of the old"), that embodied the Aztecs' ideals. Judged by their language, most of the huehuetlatolli seemed to have evolved over several centuries, predating the Aztecs and most likely adopted from other Nahua cultures.

At 15, all boys and girls went to school. The Mexica, one of the Aztec groups, were one of the first people in the world to have mandatory education for nearly all children, regardless of gender, rank, or station. There were two types of schools: the telpochcalli, for practical and military studies, and the calmecac, for advanced learning in writing, astronomy, statesmanship, theology, and other areas. The two institutions seem to be common to the Nahua people, leading some experts to suggest that they are older than the Aztec culture.

Aztec teachers (tlatimine) propounded a spartan regime of education with the purpose of forming a stoical people.

Girls were educated in the crafts of home and child raising. They were not taught to read or write. All women were taught to be involved in religion; there are paintings of women presiding over religious ceremonies, but there are no references to female priests.


SPARTA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparta#Education

Until the age of seven, boys were educated at home and were taught to fight their fears as well as general superstition by their nurses, who were prized in Greece. Their training was then undertaken by the state in the agoge system and supervised by the paidonomos, an official appointed for that purpose. This training consisted for the most part in physical exercises, such as dancing, gymnastics, and ball-games.

Training in music and literature occupied a subordinate position. The tireless emphasis on physical training gave Spartans the reputation for being "laconic," economical with words, a word derived from the name of their homeland of Laconia. Education was also extended to girls. Both sexes exercised nude. Women, however, could not compete according to the Olympic rules. There were also contests to see who could take the most severe flogging, an ordeal known as diamastigosis.

At the age of thirteen, young men were arranged into groups, and were sent off into the countryside with nothing, and were expected to survive on wits and cunning. It was assumed that they would steal their food, yet anyone caught stealing was severely punished. This was called the Crypteia, secret (ritual). This was very probably, in origin, an old initiation rite, a preparation for their later career as elite soldiers.

Other sources claim that the Crypteia (or Krypteia) was an "adolescant death squad" made up of the most promising young Spartans. Their job was to roam the countryside killing Helots at night in order to instill fear in the slave population and prevent rebellion.


AGOGE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agoge

The Agoge was a rigorous education and training regime undergone by most Spartan males who were selected by elders as children according to physical appearance and ability. Supposedly introduced by the semi-mythical Spartan law-giver Lycurgus it trained boys from the age of 7 to 18. It involved education, military training, hunting, dance and social preparation. Boys were taken from the family home and from then on lived in groups under an older boy leader and were encouraged to owe their loyalty to their communal mess hall rather than their families. Eventually the selection process for who could enter the training process became so strict and so many were being kicked out of the program the agoge died out.


Girls also apparently had a form of state education involving dance and sport amongst other subjects.


SCOTLAND
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_education

In 1872 education for all children aged 5 to 13 was made compulsory with "public schools" (in the Scots meaning of schools for the general public) under local school boards. The leaving age was raised to 14 in 1883, and a Leaving Certificate Examination was introduced in 1888 to set national standards for secondary education. School fees were ended in 1890. The Scottish Education Department ran the system centrally, with local authorities running the schools with considerable autonomy. In 1999, following devolution from the Parliament of the United Kingdom to the new Scottish Parliament, central organisation of education was taken over by departments of the Scottish Executive, with running the schools coming under unitary authority districts.

ENGLAND
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_ ... in_England

From mediæval times, the Church (or chapel) provided education to all classes of society, in monasteries, at public schools, orphanages, charity schools, grammar schools, church foundations, or by the chaplains to private households. Until as late as the nineteenth century, all university fellows and many schoolmasters were expected or required to be in holy orders. Schoolmistresses typically taught "the three Rs" (reading, writing and 'rithmatic) in dame schools, charity schools, or informal village schools. The Church of England resisted early attempts for the state to provide secular education, and church schools still remained embedded in the state school system.

In August 1833, the UK voted sums of money each year for the construction of schools for poor children, the first time the state had become involved with education in England and Wales, whereas the programme of universal education in Scotland began in 1561.

A meeting in Manchester in 1837, chaired by Mark Philips, led to the creation of the Lancashire Public Schools' Association. The association proposed that non-sectarian schools should be funded from local taxes.

In 1839 government grants for the construction and maintenance of schools were switched to voluntary bodies, and became conditional on a satisfactory inspection.

In 1840 the Grammar Schools Act expanded the Grammar School curriculum from classical studies to include science and literature.

Before 1870, education was largely a private affair, with wealthy parents sending their children to fee-paying schools, and others using whatever local teaching was made available.

The Forster Elementary Education Act 1870 required partially state funded board schools to be set up to provide primary (elementary) education in areas where existing provision was inadequate. Board schools were managed by elected school boards. The schools remained fee-paying. The previous government grant scheme established in 1833 ended on December 31, 1870.

Under the Elementary Education Act 1880, education became free from the ages of 5 to 10, and was also made compulsory for that age group.

The Elementary Education (School Attendance) Act 1893 raised the school leaving age to 11 and later to 13. The Elementary Education (Blind and Deaf Children) Act of the same year extended compulsory education to blind and deaf children, and made provision for the creation of special schools.

The Fisher Education Act 1918 made secondary education compulsory up to age 14 and gave responsibility for secondary schools to the state. Under the Act, many higher elementary schools and endowed grammar school sought to become state funded central schools or secondary schools. However, most children attended primary (elementary) school up until age 14, rather than going to a separate school for secondary education.

Education was made compulsory up to age 15 in 1947.

In 1972, education was made compulsory up to age 16. A generation of "ROSLA" (Raising Of the School Leaving Age) children caused significant problems for teachers.


The Education Reform Act of 1988

The 1988 Education Reform Act made considerable changes to the education system. These changes were aimed at creating a 'market' in education with schools competing with each other for 'customers' (pupils). The theory was that bad schools would lose pupils to the good schools and either have to improve, reduce in capacity or close.

* The National Curriculum was introduced, which made it compulsory for schools to teach certain subjects and syllabuses. Previously the choice of subjects had been up to the school.
* National curriculum assessments were introduced at the Key Stages 1 to 4 (ages 7, 11, 14 and 16 respectively) through what were formerly called SATS (Standard Assessment Tests). At Key Stage 4 (age 16), the assessments were made from the GCSE exam.
* League tables began showing performance statistics for each school. These are regularly published in newspapers and are available over the web, so parents can see how schools are doing in each area of the country.
* Formula funding was introduced, which meant that the more children a school could attract to it, the more money it got.
* Open Enrolment and choice for parents were brought back, so that parents could choose or influence which school their children went to.
* Schools could, if enough of their pupils' parents agreed, opt out of local government control, becoming grant maintained schools and receiving funding direct from central government. The government offered more money than the school would get usually from the local authority as an enticement. This was seen as a political move given that often local authorities were not run by the governing Conservative party whereas central government was.

AMERICA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_ ... es#History

The first American schools opened during the colonial era. As the colonies began to develop, many began to institute mandatory education schemes. In 1642 the Massachusetts Bay Colony made "proper" education compulsory.[39] Similar statutes were adopted in other colonies in the 1640s and 1650s. Virtually all of the schools opened as a result were private. The nation's first institution of higher learning, Harvard University, opened in 1636. Churches established most early universities in order to train ministers. Most of the universities which opened between 1640 and 1750 form the contemporary Ivy League, including Harvard, Yale, Brown, the University of Pennsylvania, and several others.[40] After the American Revolution, the new national government passed the Land Ordinance of 1785, which set aside a portion of every township in the unincorporated territories of the United States for use in education. The provisions of the law remained unchanged until the Homestead Act of 1862. After the Revolution, a heavy emphasis was put on education which made the US have one of the highest literacy rates at the time.

The school system remained largely private and unorganized until the 1840s. Education reformers such as Horace Mann of Massachusetts began calling for public education systems for all. Upon becoming the secretary of education in Massachusetts in 1837, Mann helped to create a statewide system of "common-schools", which referred to the belief that everyone was entitled to the same content in education. These early efforts focuses primarily on elementary education.

The common-school movement began to catch on. Connecticut adopted a similar system in 1849, and Massachusetts passed a compulsory attendance law in 1852. By 1900, however, 31 states required 8- to 14-year-olds to attend school. As a result, by 1910 72 percent of American children attended school and half of the nation's children attended one-room schools. In 1918, every state required students to at least complete elementary school. Lessons consisted of students reading aloud from their texts such as the McGuffey Readers, and emphasis was placed on rote memorization. Teachers often used physical punishments, such as hitting students on the knuckles with birch switches, for incorrect answers. Because the public schools focused on assimilation, many immigrants, who resisted Americanization, sent their children to private religious schools. Many of these were Roman Catholics. Though the new private schools met opposition, in 1925 the Supreme Court ruled in Pierce v. Society of Sisters that students could attend private schools to comply with compulsory education laws.

Secondary education progressed much more slowly, remaining the province of the affluent and domain of private tutors. In 1870 only 2 percent of 14 to 17-year-olds graduated from high school. The number rose to 10 percent by 1900, but most were from wealthy families. The introduction of strict child labor laws and growing acceptance of higher education in general in the early 20th century caused the number of high schools and graduates to skyrocket. Most states passed laws which increased the age for compulsory attendance to 16.




Absolutism and the Eighteenth-Century Origins of Compulsory Schooling in Prussia and Austria
James van Horn Melton
http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/c ... 0521346681

Compulsory schooling is widely held to be a creation of modern industrial society. Yet already in the eighteenth century, Prussian and Austrian rulers attempted to introduce universal education in societies that were overwhelmingly rural and ‘premodern’. Focusing on the reigns of Frederick the Great of Prussia (1740 86) and Maria Theresa of Austria (1740 80), this book examines the origins, aims, and achievements of the compulsory school movements in those states. It draws on a broad range of sources in showing how school reform was part of a broader campaign to strengthen relationships of authority and dependence. Local resistance as well as the contradictory aims of absolutist rule severely limited the success of school reform. But in their effort to promote literate culture on an unprecedented scale, reformers established pedagogical institutions and practices that would decisively shape public education not only in Central Europe, but throughout the West.


... who'd have guessed about the aztecs? Wtf and those sparta people sound pretty demented... Cuckoo

once i find some more info (like, actually tracking down some of Gatto's sources), then i'll distill this into an article or something. could be handy Smile

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Mom Offline
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You can go to The Odysseus Group web site (Gatto site) On it is The Underground History of American Education. Posted are the chapters of the book (a wealth of info) to read without purchasing the book. You'll get lots of info for your research. Good for you, Soul Riser! See, you don't need compulsory school to learn.
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In one of the most ironic things to happen to me in months, I read in my school textbook that basicallally the country needed an educated workforce, so compulsary school laws were passed.

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06-20-2006 10:38 PM
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DOUBLEYOO TEE EFF?!

"If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees through narrow chinks of his cavern."
06-20-2006 11:13 PM
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SoulRiser Offline
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Mom Wrote:You can go to The Odysseus Group web site (Gatto site) On it is The Underground History of American Education. Posted are the chapters of the book (a wealth of info) to read without purchasing the book. You'll get lots of info for your research. Good for you, Soul Riser! See, you don't need compulsory school to learn.

Ah yes, I have yet to finish reading the whole thing... (it wasn't all up last time I checked... which was indeed quite a long time ago) Razz

for everyone else who isn't familiar with it:
http://johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm

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