Starting the school year is always tough-both for the students and teacher. The ease of summer is gone and months of homework, lectures and questionable lunches lie on the horizon. Lessons in the beginning of the year usually involve introductions, listing expectations and explaining classroom procedures. An interesting twist on these old standbys is to address the idea school itself. A comparison to school systems of another time and culture get students to think about why they are forced into this drudgery and what the school system hopes they’ll gain from it.
Ancient Egypt is usually addressed in the middle school social studies curriculum early in the school year. For this reason, I chose the scribe school system available in ancient Egypt as the one to compare to our own. This lesson is intended for seventh or eighth graders and hopes to achieve the following: a familiarity with the structure of the school system, its purpose and curriculum. It is written for a public school setting but can easily be changed for any school environment. I recommend changing the Public School heading in the Power Point presentation to your school’s name.
Performance Objective: Students will learn the significance of hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt and the growth of schools to instruct some privileged boys in the writing of these figures. They will discuss the modern American school system relative to the scribe schools and consider the purpose of schools.
I. Introduce the play Shunat the Scribe Student and assign roles to students. (It may not be the best copy. I believe you can find this play and similar Ancient Egypt activities in this book.
II. After the play, use the following discussion questions and slides to advance the lesson and assist students in note taking.
1. How many years did a scribe student attend school?
2. How many years do you have to attend school? (Legally, until age 16 but most kids will answer twelve years.)
3. Were the scribe schools connected to religion in Ancient Egypt”
4. Is your school connected to religion?
5. Who attended scribe schools? Who couldn’t attend?
6. How long was the school day for Shunat? How long is your school day?
7. How many subjects did scribe school students study?
8. How many subjects do you study? What are they?
9. Do you learn various skills?
10. Was scribe school expensive? Is it expensive to go to your school?
11. What methods were used to teach scribe students? What teaching methods are used in your school?
12. How were scribe students disciplined? Can you be disciplined in school in the same manner?
13. Did scribe students have desks? What do you think their classroom looked like?
14. How is your classroom different?
15. What did the scribe schools hope for their students to achieve?
16. How does the answer to number 15 differ from the hopes your school system has for you?