Recently I've been rather curious as to the origins of what we in the western world refer to as school and hold synonymously with education.
During this inquiry I stumbled across some fascinating historical events that shaped society as we know it. I couldn't help but notice how these developments underscore the importance for religious education in our contemporary schools. The following is by no means academically rigorous; however is simply a summary of a bit of googling and the occasional Wikipedia page. If you're curious then I recommend undertaking you're own investigation.
The concept of schools as places of learning has been present for a very long time, at least as long as the art of writing; the two seem to go hand in hand. However reading and writing were primarily the domain of scribes and officials with the addition of philosophers in some countries, which lead to schools being autonomous private institutions. In most cases this left the literate population to be around an estimated 5% at best in most countries.
Religion and education
Public education seldom appeared until religious institutions appeared, for Europe this was Christianity and initially the Catholic Church. This was a natural step as priests were all highly educated by the days standards, they could read and write. These efforts though where still vastly different to what we know today. For instance it was a purely voluntary system and there was no concept of a progression of grades let alone a syllabus. Most of the education of this form was offered as part of the community, a subtle but significant difference to some more radical developments that have influenced our education system.
So where do some of these ideas, which we assume to go part and parcel with school, develop from?
The concept of compulsory education first appears in the Hebrew culture where parents were required to teach their children the Torah. This was informal and it is claimed that compulsory state operated education was first used by the Aztec Triple Alliance starting in the 15th century A.D. This did not have any notable effect on the western world.
In the west it wasn't until a century later during the reformation that Martin Luther called for the establishment of schools for all boys and girls. This is assumable related on the reformations push towards the people reading God's word for themselves; hence literacy was required to achieve this goal. This radical shift in a focus towards educating everyday people to read and write brought about a massive change in Europe and saw particularly strongly Lutheran parts of Germany becoming centres of great learning.
In the west though compulsory education itself is said to have been first attempted in Scotland in 1616 where parishes were to establish schools supported by a tax, this attempt didn't last out the century and a less compulsory version of public education replaced it.
Compulsory education
It took till the reign of Frederick the Great in Prussia before compulsory education would truly take hold starting from around 1760. This was not the end of Prussia's influence on the education system we know today, their most notable contributions were still to come.
Leading up to this point a majority of the major developments in education have been pioneered in a relatively altruistic motive. However with the industrial revolution there developed a focus on systematising tasks, particularly of production. During the late 18th century Pietism replaced Lutheranism as the state religion of the Prussian empire. The Pietists, feeling that they had been persecuted by the Lutheran state schools desired to displace the current education system.
Following the creation of Lutheran schools across Germany and wider Europe literacy was at an all-time high. But the value of controlling education became increasingly apparent. Education has always served an important role in indoctrinating its pupils into the society they are a part of. For centuries this was only really apparent in elite classes but now that education was becoming widely available, and compulsory, to all classes, it became apparent that this could be leveraged.
Education used to influence
Following the rise in power of Pietism, Prussian officials saw the need to unify their people, so harnessing the fervour of the Pietists, they instituted a state controlled education system as opposed to the locally, community controlled systems that preceded it. Following this they instituted state run teachers colleges to accredit their teachers. They created a state wide final exam known as the 'Arbitur' to assess student eligibility to enter higher education.
It is sad to say that much of the intentions of this system were to create willing subjects of the state, one of its influential theoristswas quoted saying that, "if you want to influence [the student] at all, you must do more than merely talk to him; you must fashion him, and fashion him in such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than what you wish him to will."
"The Prussian System" as it came to be known rapidly spread across large swathes of Europe and was one of the key influences of the education reforms of the United States during the early 19th century.
Fortunately Australia at this time was adhering to the British education system which although being rather behind in terms of educating a large amount of the population it acted as a barrier and allowed some of the more extreme elements of these ideas to be filtered out of our education.
Community or Cohesion
However we still have national testing and other apparatus that focus on creating a cohesive nation as opposed to integrating individuals in a community. Therefore Churches and Christianity are quite remarkable in our contemporary society in that they are communities.
Throughout the New Testament, meeting together is encouraged many times. Let us work hard to keep this happening even when environments don't always make it easy. This is valuable to us as Christians and to the people around us.
Looking back at some of the history that has shaped the education system we know today, I think it is clear to see that there is unfortunately a game of influence that is part and parcel of our education. Let us not give up striving for students to hear more than one side of an argument.
Let us keep scripture in schools.
Sam Gillespie is a graduate Composition student and a computer programmer doing his Honours year based in Sydney. Sam has composed a number of works.
Sam Gillespie's previous articles may be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/sam-gillespie.html