Education Curriculum 1650-1680 - Essay Example

5 February Education curriculum In the 1650s, most s required their residents to know how to read and write in order to understand the scriptures. Therefore some states like Massachusetts required their towns to provide one teacher for every 50 homes. All towns were to comply with this requirement or else they had to pay $25 to the colonists. Most times, education was imparted through different means depending on the part of the country from which one came. For instance, those who stayed in New York, New Jersey and Delaware often utilized the services of different church groups. Conversely, a handful of public schools were present in New England. Most Southerners preferred to teach their children through apprenticeships. However, wealthy planters would hire tutors from England (Herbst 109). Some states sought to legislate education. In some colonies like Massachusetts, it was decided that all people need to have proper education. Therefore, school attendance was meant to be compulsory for males. This law was passed but not all individuals could access formal institutions. Therefore, even though illiteracy rates were moderate, most people did not utilize the latter route as they could not afford it. The Atlantic seaboard had most of the secondary schools in the country. Places like Philadelphia and Boston were highly populated thus providing the impetus to build secondary and grammar schools. Most times, townspeople would control their existence. However, the colonial government would still control or even support them. College education was even less common than lower level schools. At the time, people who went to college were those who wanted to pursue religious education. Nine colleges were available between 1650 and 1680 throughout the country. Harvard was one of the prominent colleges at the time. It relied on contributions and support from volunteers. Many donations were given towards this institution. In New Jersey, Princeton and Rutgers grew out of a need to meet the social and economic needs of the population. Schools were run by colonial schoolmasters who needed only minimal qualifications in order to carry out this role. A number of them only needed to know how to read and write. They also had to possess strong Christian values, and demonstrate loyalty to England. These individuals were paid in kind through food items like apples, corn and others. Schoolmasters also multitasked as choir masters, grave diggers among other things (Weeks 18). Religious groups also played a large role in the dissemination of formal education. The Jesuits, for instance, opened a number of schools in Maryland. Local Catholic Parishes in Virginia had rudimentary education for the poor. These individuals would cover basic literacy classes in the same location as their parishes. Religious education thus played a critical role in the manifestation of teaching. The curriculum essentially consisted of familiarizing oneself with the alphabet and subsequently reading the Bible. Those who could read essentially had completed their part and were now considered functional members of society. However, boys often went on to learn how to write. Focus was on the aesthetics of their writing rather than their content. Therefore, some students would misspell words but still pass because their writing was neat and crisp. Religions, mathematics and language were the key components of the curriculum at this time. Children from wealthy backgrounds often had the opportunity to further their education by learning foreign languages like Greek and Latin. They were also the same people who learnt advanced mathematics. Other regions of the country tended to focus on practical knowledge. For instance, Southerners had plantation management as one of the skills learnt in school. This was especially relevant to them because of their livelihood as farmers. Additionally, they also learnt about astronomy. The latter assisted them in navigation within different parts of the country. Poetry was sometimes taught in some schools in this period. They were especially applicable to girls who also focused on different aspects of literature. It was easier for persons in this era to access books than to use them practically, so most of them focused on reading them. Girls’ curriculum also entailed some practical lessons like sewing and weaving. The school system was to prepare them for the care giving role in which they got involve. The curriculum was often taught through a limited ranged of tools. One such tool was the hornbook. Since paper was scarce, most people tended to use innovative ways of writing down material. The hornbook was a tool consisting of leather and horn. It would contain lessons that would be carried around by the concerned individuals. Sometimes they would be placed around the waist or the neck. Schools often placed a range of things on the hornbook. The alphabets as well as vowels and syllables were the first things to be included. One would find the Lord’s Prayer as well as other spiritual matters such as the trinity. This information indicates that the colonial society revered spiritual teachings. These materials began in the 1650s and continued to be used throughout the US as well as Europe (Linda 567). A few schools also taught other languages apart from English like Dutch and German. Elementary schools were still present in some parts of the American colonies until 1664. Public schools for Dutch speakers existed at this time and taught religious teachings as well as language skills. German schools were also present in some parts of New York, Maryland and Pennsylvania. Several denominations and sects from Germany each had their own elementary schools. Outside the formal school environment, most parents taught their children how to read and write in their own homes. Several individuals between 1650 and 1680 simply felt that it was not necessary to take children though formal schooling. Therefore, they taught the literacy skills and amalgamated this with readings from the Bible was well as certain books like “Poor Richards”. Parents were innovative when teaching their young ones because they often used dust and sticks to make impressions of the alphabet. By the time some of their children could join formal schools, they had already learnt how to read and write. Discrimination was rife in the colonies during this period of time. Men often held public and professional positions in the country, so it was critical to educate boys. Most schools were exclusively male. However, a few facilities were also created for women as well. New France and New Spain were some of the only colonies to have schools for girls. It has been noted that education for native Indians was sometimes permissible for persons in these locations. It was virtually unheard of for black persons to take part in the education system. Most were slaves and were only useful for their manual labor (O’Neil 652). The element of fear played a critical role in education disparities between men and women. Because most women were confined to the domestic setting, they had minimal opportunities to apply their literacy skills. They usually, learnt to read for religious purposes. However, few schools would bother about the writing element because they assumed that these skills were simply not necessary. Signatures for persons from this gender would often be represented as X. Feminist movements were few and far between as most women accepted their inferior position without question. Social divisions also played a role in the unequal dissemination of education in the country. It was a known fact that an elite class of people existed in the colony. This was especially true in the south where economic and social differences were obvious. Therefore, high-quality education was accessible to the wealthy because they could afford such tutors. Furthermore, most of them wanted to take their children to England for tertiary education. Therefore, it was necessary to take them through rigorous programs from the onset. Tutors from the crown were quite expensive and a preserve for the select few. Members of the lower classes were mostly interested in practical knowledge. They found satisfaction in the work of their hands. Therefore, a number of them would us apprenticeships as their main source of knowledge. It was rare for one to find an upward climb because of this. Rigid social divisions continued to thrive. Additionally, because formal educational qualifications were not a prerequisite to entrance into any job, then the masses saw no need for high-level education. The basics were simply enough for them. Works Cited Herbst, Jurgen. The once and future school: Three hundred and fifty years of American secondary education. New York: McMillan, 1996. Print. Linda, Arthur. “A new look at schooling and literacy: The colony of Georgia.” Georgia Historical Quarterly 84.4(2000): 563-588. Print. O’Neil, James. “To vie with one against another: Race and demand for non-elite white education in an eighteenth century colonial studies.” Early American Studies 3(2011): 649-676. Print. Weeks, Jim. “A new race of farmers: The labor rule, the farmer’s high school and the origins of the Pennsylvania State University.” Pennsylvania History 62.1(1995): 5-30. Print. Read More