Why Did I Choose to research the globalization of schools?
Schools is an institution for educating children. The reason why I chose to research the globalization of schools is that I as a future educator, would like to know where schools started and how they spread to different parts of the world.
Where Did Schools Originate & a Background?
One would think that schools emerged in The United States, like I did but education actually emerged in Egypt and goes all the way back to the year 1300.In the Year 1300 BC , the need to write and draw emerged. To do this people needed space, and that is where the need for the first school came about. The “teachers” at the time were adults, and the adults were assigned to teach a group of students. The way students learned back in the day was by pure memorization, and if they didn’t memorize what was thought they would get punished physically. After, school developed In Egypt it spread to Israel, and the way Israel did education was that only boys from the ages of 6 – 13 were allowed to go to school. The creation of schools also spread to Greece. And the goal of students going to school in Greece was to create students that we’re ideal citizens. In Rome, boys went to school and sometimes girls went to school. With the exception that girls went to school up until elementary school. And boys went on to grammar school if they wanted to. In Italy , the way education worked was that they followed Greeks curriculum adding physical education to their education system. And schools taught history, philosophy, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. While in Europe Education was basically memorizing material and only people of the upper class got the opportunity to go to school. The turn point for education was John Amos , who compared the education system to "the slaughterhouse of minds" and stated that education should be made through observation rather then memorization. Which led to his creation of the first textbook , the introduction of pictures into schools, models, field trips so students can get first hand observation.
The first school to open in the united states was the Boston Latin school in the year 1635. The way students were taught was borrowed from Europe. Students who had money went to school, and if you didn't have money you basically had to teach yourself. What was thought in school during these times were subjects like humanities, literature , reading, religion and writing. At the time secondary schools had came to exist and were called "Latin Grammar schools" but you could only go if you had the money for it. The books used to teach were also borrowed from Europe, some of these books included bibles, Latin texts, Greek texts and hornbooks. The major concentration of schools was religion. It wasn't until the year 1647 , that a law was passed that required every town of 50 or more families to establish an elementary school. This same law required every town of 100 or more families to maintain a grammar school. The Major achievement happened in the year 1790 when the Pennsylvania state constitution called for free public education for poor families.
Similarly to the way that schools concentrated on religion in Europe. So did the schools in China. Schools in china have been traced all the way back to the year 16 B.C. What the schools in China concentrated on was something called Confucianism. Confucianism is described as tradition, a philosophy, a religion, a humanistic or rationalistic religion, a way of governing, or simply a way of life. That's what schools concentrated on teaching and schools were strictly for the wealthy. Schools taught using Four Books and Five Classic books which all were basically about the Confucian culture in the feudal society in ancient China. The Four Books refers to The Great Learning, The Doctrine of the Mean, Confucian Analects and The Works of Mencius. And The Five Classics includes The Book of Poetry, The Book of History, The Book of Rites, The Book of Changes, and The Spring and Autumn Annals. The goal for going to school back in the day was to work in civil service. In order to do that you needed to know these 9 books back and forth and to pass the exam regarding these 9 books. There were 3 different levels to these exams the low level which if you passed, you were then considered a "budding talent". The medium level which if you passed, you were considered "Recommended man" and the third level which if you passed; then you were considered a "presented Scholar". The different levels can be compared to the different levels of degrees that exist today, however because the exams were so hard only about a 2% rate of people were able to get these titles, because of the low percentage rate and because students were going overseas to study like to Europe ,Japan and the United States. China eventually vanished the civil service exam and adjusted their education system to include elementary school , secondary school and high education levels.
As we All know back in the day what existed in Africa was something called Apartheid. Apartheid was a policy of segregation on grounds of race. This time period basically forced white people to be separate from people of color. It wasn't only specific to blacks and whites. But it was also intended to separate the races into 4 different classes: white, black, Indian and colored people. Any who these laws forced blacks and whites to go to different schools, to be taught by different teachers and went to the extent that white and blacks couldn't have a relationship with someone of a different race. A law was passed called the Bantu act in 1953 that allowed blacks to have limited amount of education provided to them. There was a significant difference between the way students in white schools were taught , and the way students in black schools were taught. There was also a significant difference the money that was given to schools in which blacks attended and between the amount of money provided to schools where whites attend. Blacks barely attended school and weren't taught math or science. All this inequality in education did not end until there was protesting due to the inequality in education between the whites and blacks. which led to the ending of apartheid on April 27, 1994. The new constitution declared that everyone had the right to a basic and equal education.
Areas for future Research
One could further research how schools globalized in other parts of the world like in South America, Central America, Australia and etc. One could also do further research by maybe seeing how private schools, catholic schools and charter schools came to the United States, Africa and China.
Conclusion
My conclusion is that schools came from Europe. Though Schools came from Europe, they each adapted their education system to their own way.