Elizabethan+Education

//During the Elizabethan Era, education was just as important as it is now. Back in the Elizabethan Era, only a small minority of Elizabethan children received high-classed schooling but before you knew it, the number was growing. (Singman, 41)//

= __Petty schools__ = If you were from a wealthy family, you’d begin school at the age of five or six (Andrews 108). You had a choice between private and a grammar school where you’d most likely be taught reading and writing. There’s also a chance you might have learned ciphering, which is basic arithmetic with Arabic numbers (Singman 42). Both boys and girls in petty schools learned the alphabet from a hornbook. A hornbook was made with just a piece of paper covered with a thin piece of see-though horn. The paper was then placed on the wood with a handle. The Petty school may sound like heaven but it’s the complete opposite (Andrew 108). First of all, it wasn’t much of a school. It was actually in the house of the ‘teacher’. The school was mostly run for a small fee and the teacher was usually a local, well-educated housewife (William-shakespeare.info.com). If you were poor, most likely you’d be taken out of school to work for your parents but if you were from a wealthy family or were very smart you’d be able to continue their education at Grammar schools, which were, very ruling but at least the teachers were highly educated (Andrew 108). __ Grammar school __ Tutors taught children who were born into royalty at home from the age of seven to fourteen but children of a lower standard went to Grammar school. Ushers would teach the younger boys in their early childhood. An Usher was a junior master or senior at the Grammar school where they’d learn the basics of Latin with a little help from the Tudor textbook. They also usually used the hornbook and the alphabet which contained twenty-four letters where our alphabet has twenty-six. In the first year of education, the children would learn parts of speech with verbs and nouns. During the second year, the rules of construction and how to form a sentence is learned. Then, during the third year, everything is based on English-Latin and Latin-English translations.

Kids these days believe school is too hard but during the Elizabethan Era, school was very strict. For example, summer school started at six in the morning and ran till five o’clock in the evening. Luckily there was one break for two hours out of the day. School ran for five das with a half day on Thursday for forty to forty-four weeks in a year, which meant, children spent at least 2,000 hours in school. //We// don’t even spend that much time in school. The Elizabethan children spent more than double the current school hours. If you were caught speaking English anywhere on school property during school hours, you were punished. Most of all punishments were done on Fridays. They were harsh with fifty strokes of a cane was the most common. So if you think school is harsh now, try going to school back in the 1550’s to 1650’s. Just be glad school isn’t so cruel now.

Works Cited Andrew, John F, ed. //Shakespeare’s World and Work//. Vol. 1. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2001. Print. “Elizabethan Education.” //William-shakespeare.info/william-shakespeare-biography-childhood-and-education.htm//. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2010. Singman, Jeffrey L. //Daily Life in Elizabethan England//. Westport: Greenwood, 1995. Print. // **65. Tisbury //. N.d. //www.wingfield.org//. Web. 12 Apr. 2010.