Reflection 7

In Egypt, royalty, farmers, men, and women all received some form of education. Elementary aged boys usually started their first year in school around four. Their fathers would choose a future occupation for them and they would only take up the necessary subjects for that occupation. An example of this is only people who were going to be tax collectors would learn math. Everyone however had to learn to read and write. The Egyptians viewed the ability to read and write as a way of commanding respect.

When Egyptians were home schooled, everyone was taught a trade. Officials would teach their sons their trade and succession would be immediate, the son would take over the fathers business in the future. If however, a man did not have a son to be his successor, he would "adopt" an apprentice as his own and allow him to be his successor. Families were usually the teachers or their child's homeschooling although, the king did not teach his children by himself. The king's children would learn from royal tutors.

Girls from families that were not so well off would learn how to keep a well maintained house, sing, dance, and play musical instruments. The children of farmers would learn how to harvest a good crop, sow, tend to the poultry and cattle, make nets, and how to catch and prepare fish.

Egyptians would worship in temples. Their place of worship was fairly private and although there were many temples, none was seen as more superior or inferior to the other. During the New Kingdom, temple schools developed and it was very hard to get into one. There were two in Thebes, one in Mut Temple and another one at the Ramesseum.

In Mesopotamia, formal education was mainly to train scribes and priests. It included reading, writing, religion, mathematics, medicine, and astrology. They generally used memorization, oral repetition, copying, and individual instruction as a method of learning. They were very big on apprenticeship, they believed that if you took someone as your apprentice, you were to treat them as your own child by teaching them everything about your trade and if you did not they could leave. In Mesopotamian temple schools, they learned cuneiform, arithmetic, and units of measurement.