Why Return to the First Schools?
In an era where schools, teachers, and the educational system are under intense scrutiny and criticism, it is always enlightening to look back at what our ancestors did to pass on their knowledge.
One of the best examples is the Sumerians, who had the brilliant idea of developing a way to transcribe their ideas, words, and stories onto durable materials. They created a straightforward educational system, led by professionals who taught the magic of words through long and arduous exercises.
The ultimate goal was to train a class of literate individuals who were socially elevated and assured of employment. The central question is: what was school like in ancient Sumer?
Writing and School: Inseparable Entities
The two cannot be separated. The great expert on Mesopotamian texts, S. N. Kramer, emphasized this point in History Begins at Sumer: school came directly from writing.
The oldest traces of writing come from the city of Uruk in southern Iraq, ancient Sumer, dating back to the late 4th millennium BCE. Sumerian scribes wrote on clay tablets using pictograms or ideograms, a simple form of writing based on distinct signs representing specific objects or products.
Writing was supported by clay tablets. Although humble at its inception, writing evolved over the centuries, as did the educational system. Among the oldest human tablets discovered, some contain lists of pictographic words to be memorized.
These lists reveal that the scribes who developed writing simultaneously created a method to transmit their knowledge through training and exercises. In other words, the school, an institution dedicated to teaching writing, was born.
The House of Tablets
The school was called the edubba, the "House of Tablets." It was only in the second half of the 3rd millennium BCE, when Mesopotamian writing was being modernized and moving from pictograms toward cuneiform, that we can clearly identify buildings dedicated to education in most Sumerian cities.
In Nippur, a religious capital, an entire neighborhood where scribes and students lived and worked was unearthed. Classrooms consisted of several rows of brick benches where one to four students could sit.
The absence of tables is explained by the fact that students worked on their laps. Inside these rooms, there were likely shelves holding blank clay tablets ready for use, as well as texts to study.
Teachers, Assistants, and Discipline
The teachers of that time were not to be envied by our university professors. Many lived off their teaching salaries and dedicated their entire lives to passing on their knowledge and studying in their free time.
The head of the institution was the ummia, the "father of the school," who was also a teacher. He was assisted by an assistant teacher, the "big brother," likely a former student of the school, whose role was to check the calligraphy of the signs and make students recite them.
Among the teachers, there were also specialists like the drawing instructor, perhaps for calligraphy or visual training, and the Sumerian instructor, probably concerned with grammar and language. Supervisors and a very stern whip master oversaw student behavior and maintained school discipline.
The Students
Students appear to have come mainly from the highest social ranks. They were the sons of governors, diplomats, stewards, or wealthy merchants.
Lists of student names found in excavations make no mention of women, neither among students nor teachers, indicating that women probably had little or no access to this formal scribal education in the documented institutions.
The students' lives during training were harsh and demanding. From dawn until dusk, they attended classes all day.
Copying, Reciting, Memorizing
We know too little to clearly understand the full extent of the curriculum in Sumerian schools, except that teachers likely accompanied their exercises with oral comments and explanations.
Archaeologists have unearthed thousands of school tablets, indicating that learning was conducted through daily practice of copying signs on clay. After a few lessons where they learned the grammatical structure of sentences, students copied tablets with endless administrative lists, which helped them memorize the signs.
This practice shows the ideological foundation of writing. Before producing magnificent poetic and literary works like the Epic of Gilgamesh, writing was a practical tool for compiling and preserving administrative and economic data.
A typical school day might go as follows: in the morning, the student studied the tablet prepared the night before until the "big brother" had him recite it. Once finished, the student prepared a new tablet to copy and study immediately, continuing this process daily, with the tablets containing more signs and increasing in difficulty.
Training took several years, but once graduated, the new scribes served institutions or became teachers themselves.
Curriculum and Intellectual Ambition
More intriguing than these thousands of copying notebooks, we also have references and mentions of scribes and teachers in the content of several tablets, informing us about the oldest school curriculums and their goals.
Initially, the Sumerian school aimed to train a professional elite of scribes to work in business offices, management, and administration of temples and palaces.
Around the mid-3rd millennium BCE, the Sumerian language was perfected, and the Akkadian language, influenced by it, emerged with the great empire of Sargon of Akkad. Later, at the end of the 3rd millennium BCE, coinciding with the end of Sumerian political dominance, Akkadian would split into major dialects, including Babylonian in the south and Assyrian in the north.
These changes were accompanied by an overhaul of the educational system. Gradually, writing became a formidable cultural tool. Ancient myths and stories, once transmitted orally, were written down.
The school then became an institution where great works were first written on tablets, then copied to be distributed and studied, allowing us to read them today.
Science, Literature, and Social Promotion
The Sumerians were also great scientists who studied the stars, the earth, mathematics, and geometry. Writing enabled the treatment of theories and the creation of architectural plans for grand constructions.
The scribe profession was transformed. No longer just accountants or, at best, diplomats or palace secretaries, scribes could now be literary or scientific specialists in a particular field.
Thus, the school broadened its range of subjects to teach, contributing to Sumer's intellectual and scientific prominence during the 3rd millennium BCE.
The Sumerian school seems surprisingly modern in its organization and staff. What differs from today's schools is the teaching method and the goals of the education students received.
Although the lessons were difficult and the discipline extremely harsh, students graduated with training that allowed them to aspire to the highest positions. Finally, the Sumerian school underwent profound ideological and pedagogical changes. From a school training bureaucrats for the major economic centers of the cities, it evolved into an institution dedicated to the study of sciences and literature.
Sources
- S. N. Kramer, History Begins at Sumer.
- World History Encyclopedia, “Mesopotamian Education”.
- World History Encyclopedia, “The Sumerian Poem Schooldays”.
