Educational Systems

Communication Systems That Enable Educational Systems

Educational systems are communication systems that enable people in the role of teachers to communicate with people in the role of learners about a body of knowledge in order to help the learner apply that knowledge. In preliterate societies, this was done with oral communication, observation, and practice. What brought about the modern concept of education as a classroom-based activity was the invention of writing and the need for a sheltered environment in which to practice it. The earliest known classrooms in Ancient Sumer date back 6,000 years and already have the critical component of a modern classroom in the form of rows of seats that facilitated reading and writing exercises. Shards of the clay that was used for writing have been found that evidence this and that the verbal transactions between students and teachers were remarkably similar to those of today.

The educational process that primarily takes place in a classroom can be seen as a system whose inputs are students who are in need of learning and teachers who can help them and whose outputs are students who have learned something. Classrooms are grouped in schools that allow for shared functions such as libraries and playgrounds, support services, and administration. A further systematization of education began in Renaissance Europe following the writings of John Comenius (The Great Didactic [1638]). Comenius held that the young of both sexes should be compulsorily educated in common, in schools, during common hours, and in a common curriculum and that the division of time and the subjects studied should be rigidly adhered to. It was Comenius who established the ideal that education should have four stages of 6 years each, from preschool education (up to 6 years), to formal primary schools (6–12 years), to secondary schools (12–18 years), and to tertiary institutions (18–24 years). He argued that these stages imitated the progression of life in nature, and nature reflected God's design for the universe. The global paradigm of formal education was modeled by Comenius on the life span of a tree and, in consequence, had little to say about adult educational systems, which are a modern concern.

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