ABSTRACT
What is it? He whose eyes are not open enters it He whose eyes are (wide) open comes out of it. (Riddle from a tablet excavated at Ur. It dates back to c. 2000 BC. The
answer is a classroom-Kramer 1963:236.) Archaeologists believe that ruins found in the ancient Sumerian city of Mari in the valley of the Euphrates are those of the oldest known classroom (Kramer 1963). Inscriptions that described school life found in other parts of Sumer of a comparable age read like pages out of Tom Brown’s Schooldays.1 Classrooms have probably been around for at least 4000 years (Kramer 1959, 1963; Gadd 1956). Whether in schools or churches or temples or battleships, the classroom has proved a remarkably durable system for communication. This chapter looks at the reasons why. It also looks at ways people are educated outside the classroom, in the home and the workplace.
