2 a.m. nonsense

What was going on in the average child's head in late Ottoman schools?

If we attempt to get a picture of Ottoman education in the late 19th /early 20th centuries, we are confounded by the fact that information based primarily on official documentation represents normative views.

One way to get around this is to rely on memoirs of students.....

However, we're stumped again because:

1) Many students wrote their memoirs at later stages of life.

2) Childhood memoirs do not belong to 'ordinary children': they were exceptional.... the lucky ones.....the elite.

Somel (2001) in The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire (1839-1908) gleaned some sense of the feeling of students through his study of memoirs of ordinary students:

There was a general unhappiness of the students during their educational life, particularly at the rusdiyye (primary) and idadi (secondary) schools. Instruction by rod, memorization of fixed textbooks and the atmosphere of intellectual bondage led the students to feel pessimistic and doomed in their lives. The young generation almost sensed a general distrust and hostility of the administration toward them, which in fact complemented the attitude of distrust the minister of education held towards the instructors. These generations of youth increasingly felt hatred toward the educational system and the state administration.

Reminds me of LIFE IN HELL.....