[Editor’s Note: This is the first in a year-long series of blogs that examines how education developed throughout history until the present.]
In its broadest sense, education is the imparting of information from one generation to the generation that follows it. It can be accomplished by modeling actions, sharing oral knowledge, or through reading and writing in the societies that develop a written form of language.
Our ongoing series of the long and storied history of education will ultimately focus on how schooling developed and changed in the United States from pre-colonial days through the early part of the 20th century, but we’ll put it in the context of the numerous systems that came before it, describing how they built the foundation of many of the practices we use today.
We encourage you, the reader, to raise questions, make observations, and challenge what others may see as established fact throughout the course of this series. The act of critical thinking, so valuable in modern society, enables us all to learn more effectively and to determine the path we have yet to take.
Next week: The purpose of education
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