Where did children grow up and learn?

This lesson asks you to describe how your own daily life differs from the lives of young people in early societies, whatever their background. The curriculum asks for a few societies, including a First Nation and an Inuit society; the museum offers medieval Islamic records of where small children were raised and where children were taught, and these records do not cover children's work or play, so your class must bring the other societies and those parts of childhood. ¹

The expectations ask you to compare your daily life with that of young people from different backgrounds, such as town or country. Set your own first years and your school next to what each record says about a child's place and teacher.

The Sealed Nectar says the Arabs of the towns sought wet-nurses for their children among the desert people, to keep them from the diseases of the towns, to strengthen their bodies and firm their nerves, and to master the Arabic tongue in their cradle ². The child remained in the desert for two years until weaning ³. In Cairo, the sabil-kuttab was a two-storey structure: below, a public fountain dispensing water; above, a Qur'an school for children ⁴.

One child spent two years in the desert, and another was taught in a school above a fountain in Cairo. Whose day is closer to your own, and why?

• Sending infants to Bedouin wet-nurses: how the custom worked and how long the child stayed.
• The sabil-kuttab: the building that put water and a school in one place in Cairo.

Read the records on sending infants to Bedouin wet-nurses and on the sabil-kuttab. Write three sentences that begin "I differ from this child because ...", using only what the records say.