- Schools were relative small with ALL students in the same room. Students sat by row according to grade level. Youngest kids sat in the front and the older the students were the further back in the room they sat. of course the drop out rate was quite high so the room probably looked like a triangle with the most students on the front couple rows and the number of kids tapering off as the rows progressed towards the back of the room.
2. The subject was quite simple--reading, writing, and arithmetic. Not much critical thinking and NO free thought or free expression. You learned things by rote--meaning you memorized everything and quoted it back. The teacher may have you stand up and recite your times tables from 1x1 up to 12x12. Grammatical sayings were also memorized to help students learn how to write correctly. "I before E except after C and sometimes Y"; "When two vowels go a walking, the first one always does the talking."
3. Religion was also a big part of education in Puritan times. The Bible was THE source for virtually all of their in-class readings. Bible stories, along with their morals, were drilled into the student's heads.
4. The majority of the teachers were men--very few women went into teaching at this early stage of our nation's history. Later--by about 1800--we will start to see more and more women enter the teaching profession.
5. Often the teachers knew little more than the students and were often only a page ahead of the student in the textbook. Books themselves were VERY scarce, but virtually ALL families had a copy of the Bible in the home.
6. A thump on the back of the wrist or a slap with a ruler on the palm of the hand was not uncommon.
7. Teachers would rotate their eating schedule among their student's parents and would even stay (lodge) with the families of their pupils for a week or longer at a time. Of course today if a teacher spends the night at a student's home he wakes up the next morning in jail.
8. Classes were hela year-round with no noticable summer break and very few days off for holidays.
9. There were no school districts like we have today--it was just one school after another with no real organization.
- In 1692, children were expected to behave under the same strict code as the adults---doing chores, attending church services, and repressing individual differences. Any show of emotion, such as excitement, fear, or anger, was discouraged, and disobedience was severely punished. Children rarely played, as toys and games were scarce. Puritans saw these activities as sinful distractions.
But unlike young girls, boys had a few outlets for their imagination. They often worked as apprentices outside the home, practicing such skills as carpentry or crafts. Boys were also allowed to explore the outdoors, hunting and fishing. On the other hand, girls were expected to tend to the house, helping their mothers cook, wash, clean, and sew.
Many children learned to read, but most households owned only the Bible and other religious works---including a few that described evil spirits and witchcraft in great detail. There were a few books written for children, but these often warned against bad behavior and described the punishment that children would suffer for sinful acts.
In America's early colonial days in the 1600s, schoolmasters frequently spent more time keeping the kids in line than teaching the students to read or write. Some towns had a lot of trouble trying to find schoolmasters who were willing to try to teach. Bigger boys had fun thrashing or kicking the teacher out of town. Only the toughest and strongest could handle such boys. The whipping post and the pillory, which was a wooden frame in which the boy or girl had to put in their hands and head, were the more severe forms of punishment. If you were caught talking in class, your knuckles might be rapped with a ruler. If you fell asleep in class, you might be picked up from your seat by your left ear or even have your ankles burned in the sun with a magnifying glass! Tardy students had to clean the blackboards or pick up trash around the school. If the teacher happened to be a clergyman, he could also scare students with threats of eternal damnation if they didn't behave.
Great pains were taken to warn their members and especially their children of the dangers of the world. Religiously motivated, they were exceptional in their time for their interest in the education of their children. Reading of the Bible was necessary to living a pious life. The education of the next generation was important to further "purify" the church and perfect social living.
Three English diversions were banned in their New England colonies; drama, religious music and erotic poetry. The first and last of these led to immorality. Music in worship created a "dreamy" state which was not conducive in listening to God. Since the people were not spending their time idly indulged in trivialities, they were left with two godly diversions.
The Bible stimulated their corporate intellect by promoting discussions of literature. Greek classics of Cicero, Virgil, Terence and Ovid were taught, as well as poetry and Latin verse. They were encouraged to create their own poetry, always religious in content.
For the first time in history, free schooling was offered for all children. Puritans formed the first formal school in 1635, called the Roxbury Latin School. Four years later, the first American College was established; Harvard in Cambridge. Children aged 6-8 attended a "Dame school" where the teacher, who was usually a widow, taught reading. "Ciphering" (math) and writing were low on the academic agenda.
