"In Our Time" Podcast Thoughts- Michaela Boon

Pros:
Discussion from knowledgeable professors
Professors brought different points of view
Allowed us to learn more about the author and time period
Creates overall a better understanding of the novel

Cons:
Very long and drawn out
Not all aspects are discussed in detail
For the most part only taken from a women's point of view

A topic that was mentioned but not thoroughly discussed was education in the Victorian Era. In the story, Charlotte Bronte creates a very bleak and sad picture for schools with her discussion of Lowood. Something one of the professors mentioned was that it's possible Bronte exaggerated her experience at Lowood and made it worse than it was. This made me wonder what Victorian education was actually like, so I decided to do a little research.

I found many connections between Jane Eyre and common Victorian Schools. To start, during the Victorian Era almost all of the teachers were women. Men thought that the pay was too low, and teaching wasn't a noble profession. Most of the teachers were unmarried women. When they did eventually get married, they were expected to stop working to go home and raise children. This is what Miss Temple does as soon as she gets married. Commonly, the teachers of the Victorian era were very strict. Physical punishments such as hitting a child with a ruler or flicking their ears were common. Miss Scatcherd beats Helen Burns very early in the novel.

Another fact about Victorian Education I found interesting was the difference between boys and girls in their education. From a young age, boys would be tutored. When they reached eleven years old they were then sent off to a boarding school. Commonly, the boys boarding schools were not religious. Boys were believed to make better decisions than girls. While boys were sent to boarding schools to learn business and other useful subjects, usually girls were educated at home, learning how to be a wife. They learned cooking, sewing, cleaning, and how to raise a child. If they did go to school, they were religious boarding schools. It was, as Jane Eyre described, often very dull. The walls were bare, and there were often few windows. The girls were usually forced to give up luxuries, in order to focus on god. Girls and boys in schools were usually always kept separate, to keep their minds and bodies "pure". 

Social class played a huge role in the education you received. Most of the richest kids could get at home schooling instead of being sent to a boarding school. This is where a governess came in, which is Jane's occupation. While it used to be that only rich kids could go to school, in the middle of the 1800's things began to change. Laws were put in place that allowed every child to get an education. While the law required this, it did not require that the education be high quality. Schools for the poor kids or "ragged schools" were often very beaten down, with no supplies and a very unqualified teacher. The middle class went to public schools. These were newer, with hand-me down supplies. There was often three or four teachers per school. The upper class went to nice boarding schools or hired a governess. 

While learning about Victorian education, it was easy to see why Charlotte Bronte and her character Jane Eyre would've wanted to bring about a change. Questioning education is a common them throughout the novel. Every kid needed a quality education, because even the saddest childhoods can become successful, such as Jane did. It's amazing to see how far education has come since then, which is all Bronte could've hoped for.