#Public Address System For Schools

[cybergroupahm-blog]

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[th3-c0ll3ct3r]

Preaching to all people who think some content creator are messaging minor for no reason

aka Twitter/tumblr cross over users.

AhEm... YOUR INTERNET PROVIDER(S) CAN SEE THE THINGS YOU DO WITH YOUR INTERNET AND THAT INCLUDES MESSAGING

(and discord... because you're using the internet to get on there... As hotspots too)

This means if a content creator is messaging a minor in an inappropriate or bullying way (in the UK at least) they would come knocking at you door asking for all your personal information, identification, means of contact and be asking questions.

Has that content creator been arrest yet? Nope.

Is cyber bullying/harassment a crime in the UK?

Yes! Under the laws:

Protection from Harassment Act 1997

Malicious Communications Act 1988

Defamation Act 2017

And can even prevent you from getting jobs in the future of your employment wants to look at your social media! Which is legal! (as in they want to make sure you're not a weirdo or anything! They can't deny you a job based on political stuff or opinions on other companies!)

Is messaging a minor inappropriately a crime?

FUCK YES‼️‼️

Sooooooo keep this in mind when you post things online, that the government CAN BE INFORMED OF YOUR ACTIONS ON THE INTERNET BY YOUR INTERNET PROVIDER IF YOU DO SOMETHING SUSPICIOUS OR THAT BREAKS THE LAW

[monstermoviedean]

at the end of my fucking rope with "conversations" about k12 chronic absenteeism.

[tittyinfinity]

I don't think that kids should be exclusively homeschooled, but I also don't think that kids should be going to a building with hundreds of people 5 days a week during a pandemic. It's one of the main reasons why it keeps spreading so rapidly and won't go away. They don't take any preventative measures at schools anymore (at least not around here). You got kids? You're getting sick. Your coworker has kids? You're getting sick.

Schools are back to counting attendance. You can't even keep your kid home long enough to recover from covid before sending them back. They literally send a "truancy" (police) officer to your house if you keep them home too often.

I feel like we could be doing something better. I'm not entirely sure what the solution is. But this isn't it.

[weaselle]

listen. There's a whole mentality shift that needs to happen culture wide here, from the schools to the public infrastructure to pet ownership to the justice system

The proper response to your dog doing a natural behavior you dislike (digging/barking/protecting etc) it to give them an appropriate time and place to engage in that behavior

The proper response to skateboarders damaging infrastructure is to build more and better skate parks, or build skate elements into the public infrastructure on purpose.

The proper response to homeless people sleeping on park benches is to build them houses.

you see how there's like, a commonality at play here?

The proper response to a disruption is to address the root of the disruption directly, not somehow attack the disruption itself -

you don't invent a muffler by swinging a bat at the engine noise, you don't relieve your hunger by punching yourself in the stomach, you don't resolve public unrest by sending armed men to control them and you don't prevent homeless people using bus shelters as a roof by removing the bus shelters.

a whole ass shift in a basic mindset, i'm tellin' you. We need it.

[rinielelrandir]

Nothing like uncovering levels of mental illness you hadn't realized you'd reached while sorting through stuff to move. Next therapy session in 3 weeks (cause move and my therapist is on vacation) should prove interesting :)))))

[chronicbitchsyndrome]

so: masking: good, unequivocally. please mask and please educate others on why they should mask to make the world safer for immune compromised people to participate in.

however: masking is not my policy focus and it shouldn't be yours, either. masking is a very good mitigation against droplet-born illnesses and a slightly less effective (but still very good) mitigation against airborne illnesses, but its place in the pyramid of mitigation demands is pretty low, for several reasons:

it's an individual mitigation, not a systemic one. the best mitigations to make public life more accessible affect everyone without distributing the majority of the effort among individuals (who may not be able to comply, may not have access to education on how to comply, or may be actively malicious).

it's a post-hoc mitigation, or to put it another way, it's a band-aid over the underlying problem. even if it was possible to enforce, universal masking still wouldn't address the underlying problem that it is dangerous for sick people and immune compromised people to be in the same public locations to begin with. this is a solvable problem! we have created the societal conditions for this problem!

here are my policy focuses:

upgraded air filtration and ventilation systems for all public buildings. appropriate ventilation should be just as bog-standard as appropriately clean running water. an indoor venue without a ventilation system capable of performing 5 complete air changes per hour should be like encountering a public restroom without any sinks or hand sanitizer stations whatsoever.

enforced paid sick leave for all employees until 3-5 days without symptoms. the vast majority of respiratory and food-borne illnesses circulate through industry sectors where employees come into work while experiencing symptoms. a taco bell worker should never be making food while experiencing strep throat symptoms, even without a strep diagnosis.

enforced virtual schooling options for sick students. the other vast majority of respiratory and food-borne illnesses circulate through schools. the proximity of so many kids and teenagers together indoors (with little to no proper ventilation and high levels of physical activity) means that if even one person comes to school sick, hundreds will be infected in the following few days. those students will most likely infect their parents as well. allowing students to complete all readings and coursework through sites like blackboard or compass while sick will cut down massively on disease transmission.

accessible testing for everyone. not just for COVID; if there's a test for any contagious illness capable of being performed outside of lab conditions, there should be a regulated option for performing that test at home (similar to COVID rapid tests). if a test can only be performed under lab conditions, there should be a government-subsidized program to provide free of charge testing to anyone who needs it, through urgent cares and pharmacies.

the last thing to note is that these things stack; upgraded ventilation systems in all public buildings mean that students and employees get sick less often to begin with, making it less burdensome for students and employees to be absent due to sickness, and making it more likely that sick individuals will choose to stay home themselves (since it's not so costly for them).

masking is great! keep masking! please use masking as a rhetorical "this is what we can do as individuals to make public life safer while we're pushing for drastic policy changes," and don't get complacent in either direction--don't assume that masking is all you need to do or an acceptable forever-solution, and equally, don't fall prey to thinking that pushing for policy change "makes up" for not masking in public. it's not a game with scores and sides; masking is a material thing you can do to help the individual people you interact with one by one, and policy changes are what's going to make the entirety of public life safer for all immune compromised people.

[dragon-in-a-fez]

it's fucking insane that we have a whole system of national and international charities and NGOs and government bodies and treaty organisations all devoting themselves to children's rights work while simultaneously being completely unwilling to name the problems they're fighting against.

imagine if every feminist organisation on Earth was unwilling to say the word "misogyny". imagine if the NAACP refused to address racism. that's what it's like.

everyone from the Children's Commissioner for Wales to fucking UNICEF is out here like "we are here to protect children from harm" and won't say the words "adultism" or "ageism".

they run campaigns to get children's rights taught in schools and deliberately never talk about the fact that the reason schools aren't already doing that is because authoritarian institutions have a vested interest in people not knowing their rights.

they petition governments to outlaw beating children and then spend half their public messaging falling over themselves to apologise to parents for implying they might be doing something wrong instead of saying "yeah, actually, we have a problem of systemic parental violence against children and parents who commit and defend that violence are, in fact, the enemy."

it's like they think children's rights and dignity are threatened by some unknowable force of the universe at large instead of by observable systems of power and privilege perpetuated by actual real-life people. and anyone who notices this ends up going crazy feeling like the guy who got out of Plato's cave but couldn't convince anyone else the shadows weren't reality.

[reasonsforhope]

"Buried among Florida’s manicured golf courses and sprawling suburbs are the artifacts of its slave-holding past: the long-lost cemeteries of enslaved people, the statues of Confederate soldiers that still stand watch over town squares, the old plantations turned into modern subdivisions that bear the same name. But many students aren’t learning that kind of Black history in Florida classrooms.

In an old wooden bungalow in Delray Beach, Charlene Farrington and her staff gather groups of teenagers on Saturday mornings to teach them lessons she worries that public schools won’t provide. They talk about South Florida’s Caribbean roots, the state’s dark history of lynchings, how segregation still shapes the landscape and how grassroots activists mobilized the Civil Rights Movement to upend generations of oppression.

“You need to know how it happened before so you can decide how you want it to happen again,” she told her students as they sat as their desks, the morning light illuminating historic photographs on the walls.

Florida students are giving up their Saturday mornings to learn about African American history at the Spady Cultural Heritage Museum in Delray Beach and in similar programs at community centers across the state. Many are supported by Black churches, which for generations have helped forge the cultural and political identity of their parishioners.

Since Faith in Florida developed its own Black history toolkit last year, more than 400 congregations have pledged to teach the lessons, the advocacy group says.

Florida has required public schools to teach African American history for the past 30 years, but many families no longer trust the state’s education system to adequately address the subject.

By the state’s own metrics, just a dozen Florida school districts have demonstrated excellence at teaching Black history, by providing evidence that they are incorporating the content into lessons throughout the school year and getting buy-in from the school board and community partners.

School district officials across Florida told The Associated Press that they are still following the state mandate to teach about the experience of enslavement, abolition and the “vital contributions of African Americans to build and strengthen American society.”

But a common complaint from students and parents is that the instruction seems limited to heroic figures such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks and rarely extends beyond each February’s Black History Month.

When Sulaya Williams’ eldest child started school, she couldn’t find the comprehensive instruction she wanted for him in their area. So in 2016, she launched her own organization to teach Black history in community settings.

“We wanted to make sure that our children knew our stories, to be able to pass down to their children,” Williams said.

Williams now has a contract to teach Saturday school at a public library in Fort Lauderdale, and her 12-year-old daughter Addah Gordon invites her classmates to join her.

“It feels like I’m really learning my culture. Like I’m learning what my ancestors did,” Addah said. “And most people don’t know what they did.”"

-via AP News, December 23, 2024

[werothegreat]

A man is shot in the back in broad daylight. A man most people had never even heard the name of before his killing, but was the CEO of the most profitable health insurance provider in the entire world.

The media framed this as a tragedy, an unimaginable act, a heinous crime. We should grieve for the family left behind. All lives are precious, and murder is never okay.

The police have publicized their manhunt for the assassin. They update us every hour on how much closer they're getting, which isn't close at all.

Insurance companies are taking down their executive staff webpages and beefing up security. They know that they're no longer safe, and are hiring more protection.

The assassin took out this man like a professional, quickly fixing his gun when it jammed, executing an execution perfectly, then disappearing, leaving behind only a backpack full of Monopoly money, a few smolders on security cams, and bullet casings with the words "Deny", "Defend", and "Depose" written on them, echoing the "Deny, Delay, Defend" tactics taken by health insurance companies to refuse coverage.

Every single social media post I have seen, regardless of platform, has been supportive of the assassin. There has been no sympathy for the CEO, or his wife or children. We are not buying into the narrative the police and the media are trying to peddle. We are the ones who have had to deal with the bullshit health insurance and other corporations have been foisting on us for decades. And we've had enough.

We will not grieve. If anything, we encourage, and wait for the next CEO to be capped. We're not the ones in danger. The rich are the ones who have fought so hard for Americans to have easy access to guns and nothing else. For decades we have pleaded for gun control, to save children from getting mowed down by machine guns in their schools. For decades we have pleaded for a more humane healthcare system where people do not go into medical debt just in order to keep living.

The answer from the rich and powerful has been that life is not and never will be fair, and to be happy with the dogshit served to us.

Our answer now is equally and reflectively callous. We will not mourn a single dead CEO until we have some means of addressing our grievances that doesn't come from the muzzle of a gun.

The rich of today had better read up on the French Revolution and make some changes very quickly, or history will repeat itself.

[tchiyya]

Right well see the thing is that if the antisemitism is just words on the internet and irony, then it's just a joke and you're overreacting if you say anything about it.

If the antisemitism is just words even if said to your face in person, then it's just words and you shouldn't let them rile you up.

If the antisemitism is just microaggressions and people taunting our kids in public schools, then it's just bullying and you should just ignore the bullies.

If the antisemitism is discrimination by not getting holidays off or having kashrus respected or having religious clothing banned, then it probably affects other religious groups just as much or more than us, so you should really be fighting for and centering them.

If the antisemitism is people using slurs or blood libel or other canards, it could be worse, you're just being a neurotic Jew; it's still just words, at the end of the day.

If the antisemitism is Jewish shops or establishments or synagogues being vandalized or threatened, then it's just a little broken glass and spray paint, it's not like anyone actually got hurt, y'know?

If the antisemitism is people shouting out genocidal rhetoric in their slogans and seig heiling in the streets at protests, well really what do you expect when Israel is committing a holocaust of their own?? (If the antisemitism is holocaust inversion then fuck you for trying to control the narrative; dontcha know lots of other people were targeted and killed by the Nazis too? How dare you try to monopolize this tragedy??)

If the antisemitism is violence-inciting rhetoric from religious or political leaders, that's just, like, free speech man.

If the antisemitism is stochastic terrorist shootings at synagogues and JCCs and day schools (etc.) then it's just lone wolf actors and it's part of a larger conversation on mental health and/or gun control; it's still too early to say we should address it on its own terms.

If the antisemitism is individual Jews being physically attacked for looking Jewish in public, that's really unfortunate but also are we sure they aren't Zionists? Because even if not they might have been asking for it by looking like Zionists.... and if they were, well can you really even call that antisemitism? Anyway it's not like it's a widespread problem and there are more pressing issues than antisemitism that we should address first.

If the antisemitism is widespread violence, discrimination, and an inability to safely express Jewish identity, then we should maybe issue some meaningless platitudes about how that's bad, but make sure to include how Islamophobia is also bad too even if it's not at all relevant to the conversation.

If the antisemitism is individual Jews being killed, it's still too early to intervene, because can we really call that systemic violence? We should be focusing on the groups experiencing systemic violence first.

If the antisemitism is pogroms, make sure to ask which side of the political aisle it's coming from first to determine whether it's worth using as additional tar for our enemies, and if it's not, best to sweep it under the rug in service of The Cause. But it's still not the right time to actually take a stand on it.

If the antisemitism is groups of Jews being attacked and killed, that's deeply unfortunate, but it still really can't be our priority when there's a genocide going on. (Also have you considered that maybe those groups of Jews deserved it or are lying?)

If the antisemitism is state-sponsored repression, expulsion, concentration camps, and/or attempted genocide, well, it's kinda too late to do much about it, you know? Why didn't you say something before now?? Why did you let it get this bad? No way can we do anything about it at this late stage; it's not worth risking our people over people who won't even speak up for themselves.

If the antisemitism is a successful genocide insofar as it seriously reduces the Jewish population for several generations, then really the question we should be asking ourselves is why didn't they stand up for themselves? Why didn't they fight back? Why did they go like sheep to the slaughter?

[qqueenofhades]

hi I hope you don't mind but I would love to hear your long tired historian rant you mentioned in your tags on that one post, if you feel in the mood to share? (no pressure!)

(also thank you for existing, you do wonderful work and the world is a better place for you being in it)

Aha. Well. For context, the mention of said rant was in relation to this post:

Basically, this post struck a nerve because of how it exactly encapsulates the anti-intellectual, anti-academia, anti-historical, anti-reality thinking that is absolutely rampant in social media spaces, even and especially spaces that identify as leftist, liberal, or otherwise "superior" to the right wing when it comes to identifying fake news or misinformation. (Example A: anything ever written by a self-proclaimed leftist on Twitter.) We all know that there are huge problems with the American public school system (and the people writing this are almost always American) and the American practice of education in general, and that yes, there are many things that happened in the past (or y'know, the present!) that are not taught very well, or at all. But because the American public school system is so decentralized and largely autonomous, incredibly dependent on the temperament of local superintendents and/or school boards, taxation and funding, availability of teachers, requirement of useless standardized tests, etc., it is very difficult (if not outright impossible) to claim that this is the result of a Unified Grand Conspiracy To Not Teach Real History To The Youth In Order To Make Them Mindlessly Support Capitalism. That is the exact sort of deranged conspiratorial thinking that the right wing does and fits everything into a sinister narrative about how "They" are planning to keep you ignorant and therefore nothing harmful that you ever think or do is really your fault. It's not good.

(Whoosh. That was very calm and reasonable of me. For the rest of this post, please just picture Captain Holt "apparently that's a trigger for me" dot gif.)

Also: even in public school, and despite the Republicans' best efforts, there are plenty of opportunities to study complex or "controversial" subjects. For example, I spend a week every June grading AP Euro History exams with a lot of other educators in a giant windowless steel box (woo-hoo, fun times!) Every year, there are questions on the exam about women's rights, imperialism and exploitation, slavery/race relations, the development of capitalism and the current economic model, religion and science, the history of labor, and other topics that would be considered "controversial" if you're an idiot. This is an exam taken by high school students in all grades from across the country, and there are also AP World History and APUSH (US history) exams every year which are doubtless making an effort to address similar themes. This is an advanced program, yes, but it's widely available to many schools and is not a result of a sinister plot to keep the youth from discovering the truth. Also: you live in an era of absolutely unprecedented access to information. Put down the ChatGPT bullshit generator and visit a goddamn public library. Or even open Wikipedia. The tools are there for you to start educating yourself and they are so easy to find!!!!!

The "Historians Are Hiding The Truth!!!" narrative becomes even more ridiculous in university-level or professional academic historical-study spaces, especially when historical educators and associations (such as the American Historical Association) have been at the forefront of pushing back against right-wing efforts to censor history, punish teachers, and remove culture-war subjects from classrooms. Also as someone who has advanced degrees in history, has taught/worked in several universities in different countries, writes and publishes historical research, and otherwise participates professionally in the field: trust me, we aren't "hiding" shit. There are vigorous debates and disagreements on various bogglingly obscure subjects and points of clarification and so forth, but that doesn't mean we're not talking about them (trust me, we're often talking about them too much). If you're issuing confident blanket statements about how "historians are conspiring to hide x," you're an idiot.

This also has dangerous repercussions in the field of, say, politics and civics, where a lot of absolutely braindead Online Leftists have spent the last four years posting deranged nonsense on social media and then, whenever they're called out on it for that not actually being how anything works at all, whining that "I was never taught this!!!" (And yet, it somehow never actually changes their perspective or their theories....) They whine about how "they didn't know this" and it was someone else's fault, they make up total fantasy about what the Biden administration did or should have done and now are still happy about Trump coming back because "It will teach the Democrats a lesson!!!" and otherwise accelerating us oh-so-quickly down that slippery slippery fascism slope. Their weaponized ignorance and their magical fantasies about what "should" have happened often come back to this same learned helplessness, where it's everyone else's fault (especially Capitalism's) that they're total wankers. Look: I'm not a goddamn fan of capitalism either. But we all grew up in this same system, and some of us aren't raving idiots, so at some point, you have to take the tiniest modicum of personal responsibility for the information you seek out, the content you consume, the opinions you propagate, and the people you surround yourself with. Shocking.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Online Leftists are actively and unrepentantly enabling American fascism and should be treated in the same way as we treat MAGA when it comes to deciding what is good or worthwhile information. This is because their entire political philosophy (insofar as their beliefs can be dignified with the term) is based on the "make shit up and remove it from any basic empirical references, grounding in reality, or 'should I run the most basic Google search and see if I'm completely talking out of my ass in a distorted social media echo chamber? Nah I'm good' " technique. This is, as the original tweet above references, trying to retcon sheer malicious laziness and stupidity into grand ideological theories about how it's actually "better" that they don't know a damn thing and won't shut up. It's your evil history teacher's fault, or "academics are all rich and elitist" (ask any academic-precariat person like me and we will laugh hollowly and then throw monkey poop at you), or "They" wouldn't let you learn this, or on and on. Even in our terrible, awful, no-good very-bad timeline, there are still ample tools to educate yourself, to learn how to filter out bad information and junk news, and otherwise gird yourself even a little for the even-more-massive assault on empirical reality that we are about to experience in the next four years (ugh). I suggest you take advantage of them.

[sarkos]

As Musk brings his staff to the Office of Personnel Management, senior officials' access to data systems is being revoked. "We have no visibility into what they are doing with the computer and data systems," one of the officials said. "That is creating great concern. There is no oversight. It creates real cybersecurity and hacking implications." One key database, the officials cited, is Enterprise Human Resources Integration, which has "all of the birthdates, Social Security numbers, appraisals, home addresses, pay grades and lengths of service of government workers." Reuters spoke with University of Michigan Professor Don Moynihan, at the Ford School of Public Policy, who warned th at there doesn't seem to be any congressional oversight over Trump and Musk. "This makes it much harder for anyone outside Musk's inner circle at OPM to know what's going on," Moynihan said. The officials said they still have the power to log on and access their emails but there's no access to the massive datasets they managed. Musk demands that his team work overnight and 80-hour weeks to find all of the necessary cuts, violating federal labor laws unless a worker is paid overtime. However, it's unclear whether Musk or American taxpayers are paying those workers. Musk had sofa beds brought into the OPM office on Jan. 20, the day Trump took office, to ensure his personal team could work non-stop. The area can only be accessed with a special security badge or a security escort, an OPM employee said.

'Great concern': Musk aides reportedly lock career civil servants out of computer systems - Raw Story

[dandelionsresilience]

Dandelion News - April 22-28

Based on the results of this poll, for the next few weeks I’m gonna test out doing 5 articles a week instead of 10, as part of an effort to maintain my own mental health. If these half-sized posts get markedly fewer notes, I’ll try to figure out a different compromise.

Like these weekly compilations? Tip me at $kaybarr1735 or check out my Dandelion Doodles!

1. Turning Surfboard Waste Into Sustainable Housing

“A Hawaiian architecture firm has found a creative way to repurpose discarded surfboard foam by transforming it into building blocks for constructing homes. […] The firm also partners with local businesses to collect foam from packaging materials[….] While the materials used are lightweight, they still offer excellent insulation and durability, addressing both environmental and practical needs.”

2. HHS Walks Back “Autism Registry” Plans

“Thursday April 24th, HHS said in written statements to multiple journalists that they will not be creating an autism registry, contrary to Dr. Bhattacharya’s statements. HHS’ reversal on creating an autism registry shows that even when it seems that no one is listening, your voice matters. Public outcry seems to have caused HHS to change course and walk away from some of the most concerning aspects of the project. Right now, HHS does not appear to be creating a centralized list of autistic people that could be used against our community.”

3. Teaming up to track the Pacific walrus

“In Alaska, western scientists often collaborate with Alaska Native hunters when counting, tagging, and/or sampling wildlife. The Indigenous knowledge and expertise that these hunters bring encompasses everything from animal behavior and capture techniques, to reading the weather and sea ice.”

4. Workers in 600+ US Cities to Protest 'Billionaire Takeover' on May Day

“The protests will take place in over 600 cities in all 50 states, said organizers[….] “Across the nation, we're reclaiming May Day in the spirit it was born, in solidarity with immigrants, in defense of all working people who make our schools run, our hospitals heal, our trains move, and our cities thrive."”

5. Loos to loaves: How the ‘nervous wees’ of London Marathon runners are being turned into fertiliser

“The campaign is powered by Peequal, a company designing women’s urinals that it claims are 2.7 times faster to use than traditional port-a-loos[.…] Instead of being sent into sewage systems, the collected urine will be treated using bacteria to extract nutrients like nitrogen, a chemical that wheat craves. The fertiliser will then be trialled on test fields to evaluate its performance. According to NPK Recovery’s estimates, 1,000 litres of urine could eventually grow enough wheat for about 195 loaves of bread.”

Bonus: Wildlife livestreams!

April 15-21 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

[fixyourwritinghabits]

Oh boy, I'm seeing a wide range of pessimistic responses to the last reblog about computer skill gaps in younger people, and I need to take a big step back and yell

WE'RE NOT DOOMED EVERYONE CALM THE FUCK DOWN

Ahem. First, the reason why the lack of computer literacy skills seems so abrupt is because the pandemic prevented catching it in the classroom as it was happening. Second, educators are well aware of this gap and are taking steps to fix it. Many colleges have or are working on introductory computer skill classes. Public libraries often have tech help programs, and there are many, many free walkthroughs and tutorials freely available online. A boring, two minute YouTube video on how to save a Word Doc can head off hours of frustration!

If you're worried about younger people in your life, check in and see where they're at when it comes to using a computer. See if your local school system is working on addressing this. Often students don't know what skills they're missing - checking in with folks can help guide them to heading off huge problems down the road.

This is an unexpected problem, but it's not unfixable - there's no need to throw up your hands when you can help direct folks to better resources instead.

[whencyclopedia]

Education for Girls in Ancient Rome

The upbringing and education of girls in ancient Rome are rarely addressed in ancient sources. A young Roman girl from an affluent family married very young, often in her mid-teens, and girls, according to tradition, were brought up solely for marriage and to bear children. A Roman girl's formal education, mainly dictated by the prospect of early betrothal, was short-lived.

"Sappho" fresco, Pompeii

Carole Raddato (CC BY-SA)

Although education was seen as crucial to self-advancement, the Roman education system was directed towards a young boy's 'career' in politics or in the Roman law courts. It prepared the boy for his entrance into public life and was key to him obtaining a prominent position in Roman government and society.

The Roman Education System

Formal education for children began at about the age of seven years; girls from affluent and elite levels of society would have received an elementary education at home from a private tutor, as would the boys. However, if a father did not employ private tutors, children may have been enrolled in schools outside of the home. This early education for both sexes would have included reading, writing, maths, and Greek and Latin literature. Plutarch (c.45-50 to c.120-125 CE) writes of nine-year-old Pompeia, daughter of Pompey, proudly reciting verses to her father from Homer's Illiad (Quaest. Conv. 9.1.3).

On completion of this elementary level, boys aged around 12, progressed onto classes at the school of the grammaticus, where they would develop and refine their writing and speaking skills as well as study philosophy, astronomy, and natural science; it is here that boys also began their preparation for oratorical studies. Girls did not attend the schools of the grammaticus. At the age of 15 or so, having possibly assumed the adult toga as part of a Roman boy's rite of passage, boys then moved on to the rhetor where they would learn to become skilful orators, study law, politics, astronomy, geography, Roman and Greek literature, philosophy and mythology. The wealthy young males might then further their education by joining fellow Roman students in Athens and other intellectual centres in the Far East. Roman girls by the age of 15, could already be married, could already be mothers, and if not, they were being prepared to be such.

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