The Amazing History of Sumerian Education

 

The Amazing History of Sumerian Education

 

Foreigner John and archaeological expert Aza talked with Lacuo and Agudengba about the Sumerian civilization and the mysterious Sumerian school education.

Mr John said:

The Sumerian civilization, which was 3,000 years earlier than the ancient Chinese civilization, also reached a highly developed stage of civilization in terms of education.

Schooling in Sumer can be traced back to the third millennium BC. The earliest extant clay tablet documents were unearthed in the ancient Sumerian city of Uruk. These clay tablet documents were written with pictorial characters in the early stages of writing. They are mainly economic and management documents, but they also contain some vocabulary lists. For students to study and practice. This shows that in the third millennium BC, scribes were already considering school education and teaching. In the following centuries, school education did not develop significantly.

But by the middle of the third millennium BC, a large number of schools had appeared in Sumer. In 1902-1903, a large number of "textbooks" were unearthed during archaeological excavations in the ancient city of Shurupark. In the late third millennium BC, school education began to truly mature and develop. During this period, thousands of clay tablets appeared. Most of these tablets were administrative documents in nature, covering all aspects of the Sumerian economic life. Based on this, we can infer that the number of scribes during this period has increased significantly compared with before. There are low-level and high-level scribes, royal and temple scribes, and scribes who specialize in certain management behaviors. Clerks became an important class in the government. Schools of important scribes flourished throughout the land.

"What was the purpose of education at that time?" Latso asked. Mr John said:

Archaeologists' inspection of school sites found that there were three main types of schools in Sumer: one was schools near the palace, which may have been established by the palace or government agencies; the other was schools located near temples, which may have been established by the palace. The temple was established; the third type is a school close to the scribes' residential area, which may be a private school. The purpose and purpose of Sumerian school education was first to train scribes for the royal family and temples to meet the needs of managing land and economy. It always runs through the entire history of Sumerian schools. With the development and growth of the school, especially the continuous expansion of the scope of the curriculum, the school has gradually become an academic center and the center of Sumerian culture and research.

A large number of scholars-scientists were produced in Sumerian schools, who mainly studied theology, botany, zoology, mineralogy, geography, arithmetic, linguistics, etc. The Sumerian school also had a significant feature and function that modern schools do not have, that is, it was also the center of literary creation. In Sumerian schools old literature was copied and studied, and new literature was created. It is certain that a large number of students will become scribes in the royal family or temple after graduating from school, but there are also many people who stay in school and devote their lives to teaching and research.

 "Where do the students come from?" Lacuo asked again. Mr John said:

Sumerian education was neither universal nor compulsory. In principle, students can come from all walks of life, but in practice they mostly come from wealthy families because poor children cannot afford tuition and lack the time required to receive an education. Due to the complexity of Sumerian, it took students a considerable amount of time to learn the language. There is a proverb to the effect that if you want to be a scribe, you must rise with the sun every day.

On thousands of tablets of economic and administrative texts from the 2000s BC, approximately 500 individuals described themselves as scribes and included their father's name and occupation.

In 1946, a German cuneiformist compiled a list based on these materials and found that most of the fathers of these scribes (school graduates) were: government officials, mayors, ambassadors, temple administrators, military officials, navy Captains, senior tax officials, various priests, administrators, supervisors, foremen, scribes, file keepers, accountants, etc. In short, the fathers of these scribes were wealthy people in the city. There is no mention of a female scribe in these documents, and it is likely that only boys were admitted in Sumerian schools.

Agudemba asked:

Where do the teaching staff come from?

Mr John said: The Sumerian school was called "Eduba", which originally meant "mud house". The principal of the school is called an "expert", a "professor", and is also called the "father of the school". Likewise, students are called "sons of the school." The assistant of the "professor" is called the "big brother". His duty is to write new clay tablets for students to copy and check the students' copying. According to a clay tablet recording students' school life, the school's teaching staff also included teachers who taught painting, teachers who taught Sumerian, people who recorded students' attendance, people who formulated student rules, and people who maintained order in the students' classrooms. personnel, personnel who manage students entering and leaving the school, etc. We don’t know the positions of these faculty members, nor do we know the source of their salaries. They probably come from the tuition fees collected by the “father of the school” from students. Mr. John also talked about the school’s curriculum: The curriculum of Sumerian school education can be roughly divided into basic courses (i.e. language courses), professional and technical courses and literary creation courses. Language class is the most basic course. It mainly teaches Sumerian and is divided into vocabulary class and grammar class. To make it easier for students to memorize and copy, teachers at the school classify related words and phrases linguistically.

In the third millennium BC, these "language textbooks" became more and more complete, formed a fixed pattern, and became common teaching materials in schools in Sumer. In these textbooks there are word lists for various plants and seeds, word lists for various animals (including insects and birds), word lists for countries, cities and towns, and word lists for various gemstones and minerals. In addition, many clay tablets are engraved with tables of compound nouns and verb conjugations, which shows that the grammar of Sumerian is becoming increasingly perfect.

In terms of professional skills, students have to learn both calculations (algebra) and land surveying (geometry), as well as subject knowledge such as biology, geography, astronomy, medicine, etc. In addition, students also learn skills such as how to organize a choir, how to forge silver and jewelry, how to distribute food rations, and how to use various musical instruments.

The literary creation course includes two aspects: one is copying, imitating and studying past literary works; the other is creating new literature. The works for students to copy and imitate are mainly literary works from the second half of the third millennium BC. There are hundreds of these ancient works, all written in the form of poetry and ranging in length from a few to hundreds of lines.

The ancient Sumerian literary works discovered so far mainly fall into the following categories: myths and epics used to celebrate the glorious achievements of gods and heroes, such as "The Epic of Gilgamesh" and "The Epic of Creation"; praising gods and kings Hymns, love poems, and prayers, such as "Hymn of Shamash"; elegy that laments the demise of the Sumerian city, such as "Elegy for the Death of Ur"; didactic literature, such as "Poems of the Suffering Upright Man"; Wisdom literature, including fables and aphorisms. Thousands of clay tablets and clay tablet fragments of literary works have been excavated from the Sumerian area. A large part of them are immature works of students in ancient Sumerian schools. This also hints to us about the ancient Sumerian school. Meyer School is a center for literary creation.

The school courses are boring and the study time is extremely long. From sunrise to sundown, students have to stay in school to study all day long. During a year of school life, students should have certain holidays, but there are no clay tablets recording this situation. Students spend many years learning cuneiform, beginning as teenagers and continuing into young adulthood. Faced with the boring school life, students often skip classes.

 Mr. John told a story:

A clay tablet recording students’ school life recorded a conversation between father and son:

——"Where did you go when you skipped school?"

——"I didn't go anywhere."

——"If you haven't gone anywhere, why are you wandering around? Go to school, stand in front of your teacher and memorize your homework. Open your schoolbag and let your 'big brother' teach you new knowledge. After you complete your homework and report it to the monitor, go back I'm here, don't wander around in the street. Hey, do you understand?"

After some nagging, the father began to scold his son, saying that he was "intentionally evil" and was tired of the young man's whiny nature. "Your whining is killing me, you're annoying me to death."

 Mr John said of the teaching methods at the time:

 Usually when students come to school, they first review the clay tablet materials they learned the day before. Then the "big brother" prepares a new clay tablet material, and the students copy and study accordingly. Finally, the "Big Brother" and the "Father of the School" check the clay tablets copied by the students for errors. At the same time, teachers and "big brothers" will also give some academic reports to increase students' knowledge. Sumerian teaching had none of the characteristics of progressive education. The school's teaching discipline is very strict. Although teachers will also use encouragement and praise to teach students to study hard, they mainly use corporal punishment to make students correct their mistakes. There are countless such examples.

A clay tablet chronicling a student's school life records the corporal punishment a student received throughout the day. "My principal read my clay tablet and said, 'There are a few characters missing here,' and whipped me with a cane. The cleaning officer said, 'You're wandering the streets, you haven't put your clothes in order,' and he whipped me with a cane. Whip me with a cane. The person in charge of class silence said, 'Why did you speak without permission? I. The person in charge of students entering and exiting the school said: 'Why did you walk out of the school without permission,' and whipped me with a cane. The teacher who taught Sumerian said, 'Why don't you speak Sumerian,' with a cane. Beat me. My teacher said, 'Your homework is not satisfactory,' and whipped me with a cane." The corporal punishment in school was very severe, but students also had ways to deflect the teacher's anger. One graduate recalled that in an effort to gain favor with one of his teachers, he asked his father to invite the teacher to his home so he could soften him with a good meal and "a little extra respect (money)." It seems the flattery tactic worked. When the teacher left that night, he praised the student for his diligent study and hoped that he would become a role model for other students.

Elder Aza talked about the limitations of ancient Sumerian school education:

The ancient Sumerian school played an important role in promoting the development of Sumerian writing and literature, and promoting and spreading Sumerian culture, but it also inevitably had limitations. This is mainly reflected in the following: First, Sumerian schools were basically aristocratic schools, and students generally came from wealthy aristocratic families. Children from poor families neither had long-term free time to study, nor money to pay their own teachers; second, Sumerian schools were basically boys' schools.

Mr. John said to Agudemba:

I don’t know much about ancient Chinese education. Can Mr. Agudengba tell us about this knowledge? For example, when did the first school appear in China?

Agudemba said:

Although Chinese education has a long tradition, it cannot be compared with Sumerian schools. The emergence of the Xia Dynasty in China was nearly three thousand years later than the Sumerian civilization. The Xia Dynasty was the first dynasty in Chinese history, from about 21st century BC to about 16th century BC. However, the Xia Dynasty had "preface", "school" and "itch". and other specialized official educational institutions. Later, the Shang Dynasty added "Xue" and "Gu Zong". Gu refers to the blind. The official schools in the Zhou Dynasty roughly followed the names of the schools in the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties and further improved the education system. The official schools in the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties were only designed for children of aristocrats.

In addition to official schools, during the Spring and Autumn Period, due to the weakening of the power of the ruling class, academics moved downwards, and private private schools represented by Confucius emerged. Although the place where Confucius preached cannot be regarded as a school in terms of teaching facilities and teaching systems, it can also be regarded as a school in terms of its educational philosophy and educational content.

At that time, whether it was official school or private school, the distinction between "primary school" and "university" in early education was not as strict as it is now, but it was still there. For example, as early as the Western Zhou Dynasty, aristocratic schools had differentiated teaching content for students of different ages. For young children who have just entered school, there is a primary school curriculum specially designed for them. The specific content is the "six arts", namely "ritual, music, archery, imperialism, calligraphy, and mathematics." The focus is on basic literacy education, moral cultivation, sentiment cultivation, and physical exercise; for older children, higher-level education begins.

Confucius also inherited this teaching system in his private school. He first taught the six arts in the elementary school, and then the "university" part with the six classics of "Poetry and Book of Changes, Rites of Spring and Autumn" as the learning content, in the hope that students can take on the " "Hear the Tao and save the world".

Later schools inherited this early division method and formed a two-stage system of education: "primary school" and "university". "Mongolian education" has different representatives, such as "four primary schools", "nei primary schools", "Mongolian schools" of private schools, etc., which are equivalent to today's primary education. After "elementary education", there is "university" education. Generally speaking, the primary school stage in ancient China refers to the period before the children are 13 years old. At this time, the teachers mainly teach them to read and recite. After the age of 13, they explain the meaning of articles and teach the students the method of composition.

Old man Aza sang a song "What History Tells Us":

 

a nation or country,

Each has its own history,

History needs physical witness,

History is always mysterious.

Because history makers,

 will always leave us,

The rest of history is like a novel,

The plot always has its ups and downs.

 

Beliefs come from myths and legends,

Civilization comes from the creation of the people,

The credit belongs to the emperors and generals;

Achievements are due to God’s guidance.

What does history tell us?

They should be walking forward side by side,

Stand the test of time,

Autocratic dictatorships will not last long.

 

Human life is actually very short,

There may be many storms in the future.

There is no need to dwell on the past history;

History is written by the winners.

Learn to find yourself slowly,

It's actually quite interesting.

Don't put too much pressure on yourself,

Studying history is like watching a play.