Early American Education

Early American Education

Early American education was based on the premise of teaching its citizens how to read so that they will be able to read their bibles. To understand why their whole system was based on religion, we have to trace the puritans back to their lineage in England. The puritans were being persecuted in England for their religious practices, they believe that the English church was becoming too politically involved and was not looking out for the moral and religious purity, because of that they flee England to avoid any further persecutions.

They believed the bible was truly the word and laws of god himself and they had to follow these laws to the letter. They were as we may consider extremist in today’s meaning they refer to the bible for every decision and how to raise their children and how to live their everyday lives. So it came as no surprise their main educational goals were to teach others how to read the bible in order to save their souls. Their schools were called Latin grammar schools, because majority of the texts were written in that language. In the Latin grammar school students were thought how to read and write in Latin as well as English, their focus were to prepare their youths to go to college where they would use the Latin they’ve learned during their times in grammar school. The sole purpose of their educational system was to prepare the students to become pastors; this career was the most honorable choice in a town that was so very religious.

Teachers during the puritans’ era were not as professional as the teachers of today, which is because most teachers were not trained in the field, most of them were servants and the rest of them were drunkards, the ones that were the least qualified were the interns to professional teachers. Today we are more advance mathematically, scientifically and socially, today’s teachers has to undergo rigorous training to sustain the educational values of this society. Teachers has to know how to deal with not only diverse personalities of the students, but also their different economic and geographical backgrounds as well as religious affiliations as to not offend other students, which is why religion was taken away from modern educational system. This stops students from being discriminated against because of their religious beliefs, by taken religion out of the schools we made it a safer place, where the main focus is to learn and not theological segregation.