HISTORY OF CHILDHOODNeil Postman (March 8, 1931)

Neil Postman (March 8, 1931)

Attended columbia university 

• Founded the department of media ecology at NYU

  • Specialized in communications technology 

Neil Postman Defined childhood in a relatively broad sense:

• Childhood range broadly from 7-17

• Broadly overlaps how we talk about youth, excluding emerging adulthood

• Adolescence = 12-29 → including emerging adults 

  • Qualities of an adult:

    • Marriage, family, property, career

  • Taking people longer and longer to get these qualities 

• Postman defines childhood as a social construct 

  • Opposed to putting childhood into biological categories

Postman established a lineage for childhood - greeks 

• Antiquity 

  • There were no “children” in ancient Greece → not what we would call children

• Greeks had a broad concept of youth 

  • Had words for “infant” and “youth” - but youth not universal with children

• Youth was a time (for citizens) when they should be educated

  • Youth meant → non-slave males local to greece

• Probably did not include young children, started education around 10 years old 

  • “Youth” was more of a social status, you could be considered a youth for as long as you were a student

Postman established a lineage for childhood - romans 

• Romans had more defined view of childhood → more organized

  • Postman states that the romans had great communication, which required high levels of literacy for the passing of information 

• Romans created separation between those who can read, and those who cannot

  • connected childhood to a sense of shame → feeling bad about divulging too much information to children

• Information particularly about adult affairs:

  • Sex, politics, economics, war

Post-greek and roman empires

• Roman empire collapses officially in 476 A.D (C.E)

• Following the collapse, the west goes into the middle ages for nearly a thousand years (476-1500)

• Society fundamentally reorganised from imperial roman way to feudalism 

  • Messages and information more commonly being transported orally, resulted in less need for literacy

• Catholic church played major role in daily life

  • Knowledge becomes purview of the elite scribal class

  • Most literate people were monks, scribes, and the elites

• Literacy plunged

Middle ages

• Culture became primarily oral

• No real hierarchy to language beyond basic language skills

  • 5-6 years old = competent to exist and function in oral culture

  • 6-7 years old = most likely put to work/sent off to apprentice under a master (for boys) 

• People in middle ages lived in close quarters 

  • No sense of personal/private space 

  • “Children” not shielded from an adult world

• Education disappears for the common people

  • Exists in elite

The printing press and a new adult

• Printing press invented in 1440 by johannes gutenberg

  • Understood that a bible is very sought out in the middle ages (customers) 

  • However, not accessible as it often was hand copied, and taken from ireland 

  • Rediscovered classical works have been waiting to be mass produced (products) 

• Europeans learned abundant ability to make paper (raw materials) 

• Printing press technology is adopted very quickly → increases accessibility and in turn, literacy

Printing creates separation between children and adults

• Adults knowledge start to outpace common knowledge

• Reading becomes basis for adulthood

• Children can speak and understand speech just by being around others 

• Children need to be taught to read

• Postman believes print makes childhood necessary 

  • Childhood being a time to learn things that prepare you for adulthood

Postman’s 3 condition for childhood

• Shame

  • Certain things that kids shouldn't know about

    • Ex. money, sex, politics, war

• Literacy

• School

Incunabula of childhood

• 1440-1850

• Shift in Europe from orla to print culture causes new social categories to be created

• Children become separate class/category bc they need to be taught how to function in print culture

  • Education becomes important social goal 

  • In order to achieve this goal, children need to be held back from joining the workforce

• Scottish presbyterians call for a national system of education as early as 1560 (120 years after printing press is invented) 

• Where literacy is high → there is schools

• Where there are schools → there are concepts of children being developed

• 1480 → there were 34 schools in england

• 1660 → there were 444 schools 

Schools change the relationship of adults to children 

• Children go from being miniature children to unformed adults

• Under apprenticeship childhood effectively ended at 7 years old

• In school, the period that children were shielded from the demands of the adult world got longer 

• Learning became sequential and hierarchical

  • As opposed to the past where it was very discussion heavy 

• One skill needs to be learned before moving to another 

• Students begin to be grouped by age (ability is tied to physical development) 

Distinct forms of youth culture start to emerge as we distinguish between age

• When any group is formed on the basis of a characteristic, it is inevitable that other characteristics will be noticed

• Children’s clothing has differentiated from adult clothing and becomes the norm for children 

• Children's language differentiate

• Books on pediatrics start to be written and published

• First children’s books are published later in 1744

Modern nuclear family emerges ~1700-1750

• Nuclear family results from the needs created by long periods of schooling 

• Parents enter the role of being educators

• Middle class in England uses their wealth to buy larger, segmented homes

• Children become object of conspicuous consumption

  • Way to show off one’s wealth 

• Middle class could afford childhood, so that's where it starts

• Takes a century to trickle down to lower classes 

Adults control the symbolic environment of the young

• Transition from child to adulthood becomes controlled

• Children evolve towards adulthood by acquiring the mind of a good reader

  • Reading promotes:

    • Individuality

    • Logic and sequential thinking

    • High order abstraction

    • Delayed gratification

  • Learning becomes an intellectual and moral pursuit