What Did Children Learn?
In this lesson, you learned how our modern educational system evolved over time. During each historical stage, the material that students were taught reflected the values and ideas that were important to society at that time. During the permissive era, children were taught religious lessons alongside the alphabet and basic mathematics. They learned by memorizing lessons written on a hornbook. During the encouraging era, educational reformers called for centralized schools available to all children. More schooling options became available, and the first mass-produced textbook, the McGuffey Reader, was published. When public school became mandatory during the compulsory era, daily school lessons became completely secular. Currently, students have a number of alternative educational options available. What they learn depends on which option they choose.
AssignmentIn this assignment, you will choose one of the four educational eras discussed in this lesson. You will then design a lesson that might be used by the children of that time period. You might choose to design a page to attach to a hornbook used in colonial times or a project that modern school children would be asked to do today. The lesson can be at the grammar school, middle-school, or high-school level, but should be appropriate to your chosen historical time period. You may use online resources to further investigate different types of historical lessons. You may also use online resources to research historical events around which you may base your lesson. You will also write a 500-word essay describing why your lesson exemplifies the educational system of the era.
