Education
Carlisle Indian School Students
The photograph shows buildings and students of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School around 1900. Attended by over 12,000 Native American children from more than 140 tribes between 1879 and 1918, the school was the model for nearly 150 Indian schools. Its founder was U.S.
My Weekly Reader
First launched in 1928, My Weekly Reader sought to make the national news accessible to elementary school children. By the early 1970s grade-specific versions were available for students from preschool to the sixth grade.
Maqamat al-Hariri, Rural Scenes by al-Wasiti
The image by 13th–century illustrator al-Wasiti is from the Maqamat (Assemblies), a collection of stories of a picaresque hero. The author, al-Hariri (1054-1122 CE), is an important figure in Arabic literary history.
Kuttab, or Primary Level Qur’an School
This public building of Mamluk Cairo in Egypt has two functions. Its lower level housed a sabil, or fountain, for dispensing water to thirsty travelers and denizens of the city, and its upper level was a public primary school for the teaching of Qur'an, called a kuttab.
Maqamat al-Hariri, Kuttab School
In this painting of a kuttab, or primary school, boys sit on a mat or carpet huddled close together with their writing boards. Boys, and sometimes girls, learned to recite the Qur'an at an early age, as well as the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic in schools called kuttabs.
Majalis al-‘ushshak: Gathering in a Mosque
This image from a 16th-century Persian manuscript illustrates the visit of a renowned teacher to a mosque. Such visits were much anticipated, and this image demonstrates the wide range of people who attended. Seating arrangements illustrate the social organization for the event.
Ijazahs (Diploma)
During the medieval period, gifted children who successfully memorized the entire Qur'an left their home at the age of about 12-14 to travel to a nearby town and eventually around the Middle East to study with renowned academic authorities to hear historical, religious, philosophical, and legal t
Education in a Warzone
In some regions of the Middle East today, conflict impacts students' daily educational experience. Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, militants have targeted educational establishments, thousands of academics have fled the country, and up to 70% of schools have been closed.
Ostracon
In Greek and Roman times children and adults often wrote on ostraca (that is, pieces of broken pottery and limestone flakes). They were costless and convenient writing materials. On this flat limestone piece a student practiced letters of the alphabet.
Pippi Graffiti Stencil
This image found on a wall around the University of Vienna and the Austrian Parliament, in 2008, is a graffiti stencil of Pippi Longstocking, the eponymous fictional character created by the Swedish children's book author, Astrid Lindgren, in 1945.