Reflection Paper 7

In ancient Egypt the young children growing up would be taught by their elders. Their parents were the ones who gave them their basic idea of the world, how it works and how to act in society. A father would take his son and teach him about his job so that he would be able to take over in the future and carry on his own work. If a man were unfortunate enough to not bear any son, he would adopt one to inherit all that he owned. The girls were basically trained as housewives with being able to dance, sing, and play musical instruments. In the temple they had to behave accordingly and offer words for the departed. The temple was seen as an elite school which one could only be fortunate enough to get into. In Mesopotamia, their education system was mostly aimed towards producing priests and scribes. It involved oral reiteration, memorizing, and copying. They were also taught things such as medicine, religion, higher law, etc. for their apprenticeship they were seen as sons to their mentors and taught them his ways. With only a clay tablet to write on, students would copy thousands of groups of wedges. Eventually they had to copy a book word for word, perhaps as a final project to “graduate” from their class. In ancient China, students were taught verbally. Schools were separated from high class to lower class and the girls were also separated and taught to how to be feminine and take care of the household. The virtue they honored most was respecting their elders. The Chinese did not have any temples as the ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians had. In ancient India, their education was based on religion. An odd thing was that the young boys would do, as the other cultures call, women’s work. They would leave home and learn how to do housework, protect the home, and keep the fire going. Girls were able to learn but they had to be taught at home. They were taught correct elocution, rituals, law, etc. As the ancient Indians were deeply into their religion their temples were decorated with sculptures, architectural elements, etc that were unique to the rest of the world.