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Education and past lives

Ailish

Ailish

Administrator Emerita
Do any members have memories of attending a school, college or university in any of their past lives? It's not something you hear very much about -- so I am curious. ;) The education system has changed so much – I often wonder if people have memories of the olden days and how differently things were done. I'd love to hear some stories!

I have memories of attending a Catholic school in 1950’s Boston, and although things have changed a lot since then – it wasn’t really that long ago.


Ailish :)
 
I have some pleasant memories of attending school, also in the 1950's, but it was very different where i came from, as it was a remote part of the world, and children were few and far between.


I remember the school itself was an odd structure, used for various things, and class was one of them. I can only describe it as a wood and straw roof, on stilts, with a type of canvas floor covering.


Lessons weren't the same here as they were in organized societies, we didn't have the privilege of textbooks and mathematical instruments, or any of the other apparatus found in normal schools.


We simply learned the things that would become useful to us in our everyday lives, although i do remember we had a book each to write and draw in.


I remember about 5 or 6 of us sitting cross-legged in a circle on the floor, in the company of our teacher, who was called Anilah........

Anilah is teaching us how to milk a goat. There are 2 goats, and we have to split into 2 groups, I'm a bit scared of the goat, I don't like it's eyes, but I make an attempt at milking, and i'm very pleased with myself at the results
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......and the lessons continued.......

Each of us children have a round piece of leather laid out in front of us, and we're each given what appears to be a metal spike and a large stone. We have to punch small holes around the outside of the leather by hitting the spike with the stone, and then Anilah hands out a kind of metal hoop with a ring at the end to each of us, which we have to thread through the holes in the leather. The end result is a kind of leather bag, bunched up at the top around the hoop, and I believe this was used to carry small quantities of water or milk
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School-related memories.


Hello Ailish,


Very good question. The only memory I felt I had appeared to be in a classroom type room; with a standard school issued clock that read 5:30 (PM I assume). I may have been a teacher or student involved in adult evening classes in the late 1950s.


I strongly felt my PL was involved with trade-school; that my occupation was in public works i.e., maintainence, skilled work in an industrial shop (I've had one or two memories of guys in overalls). Many of these skills can be acquired at a trade-school; as such vocational/trade programs received support in the town I feel my PL lived.


Regards,


Marc
 
I have memories of a few lifetimes where I was studying.


- In Ancient Egypt. I remember living at the palace, as the adopted daughter of King Sekenenre Tao, and getting lessons together with his son Ahmose, who was a few years younger than me. In the mornings, first we had to go to the temple, for prayers and offerings, and then we had to go to the 'classroom'. Here Ahmose and I were sitting on the floor, and I remember holding a palet for writing. I don't know if I could read, maybe I just learned to copy.


After a while, the teacher started telling us things, mostly history I guess, and the stories about the Gods. The next day, questions were asked about what was told the day before, and the stories were repeated daily till we could answer all the questions.


I also remember that later during the day, when Ahmose was attending other lessons (military and fighting and hunting lessons), I was sitting in the garden, on a low stone wall (not exactly a wall, it was too low to be called a wall) that surrounded a fountain, and there I was also practising the writing/copying.


- In Victorian England. Here also I got private teaching, because I was ill, and weak. I had a nurse that was also my teacher, and I remember sometimes a man also came to teach me other things, I guess this was a real teacher. I know I didn't like him as much as my nurse, and his lessons were more dull and I had to pay more attention. I remember I was often laying in bed with pillows behind my back, reading, and I had a notebook, in which I could make exercises, or write down questions about things I didn't understand from the books, and that needed more explanation from my nurse/teacher.


-Italy. I remember being a (female) student at a University. I don't really have memories of the university, but I remember it was in a place far away from my home, and I think I was staying in a room at the University. I don't know what I was studying, but I had a friend who was studying science. I often went to him to help me with my courses. Something happened, an earthquake or a bombing, and everything was destroyed, and I couldn't get home to my relatives because the train station was also destroyed, so I tried to survive with the help of my friend.


Eevee
 
I have some rather vague memories of attending grammar school in London in the 1560s; in those days you went to petty school from five to seven, where you learned reading, writing and basic maths, and, if you were lucky and your parents could afford it, you went on to grammar school until you were about 14. I don't remember much about the building, but I remember that the teacher sat in front, behind a tall desk, wearing a black robe and a close-fitting cap, and the pupils sat in front of him on small stools, holding their books and writing stuff on their knees.


He was strict but fair, and we liked him very much. Since my father was so cold and indifferent towards me (he thought the world of my older half-brother Richard, but I was just the unfortunate by-product of his second marriage) I stayed after school for as long as our teacher would let me, sweeping the classroom, tidying things up and so on, as I wasn't missed at home anyway and our teacher always had a kind word or two for me.


I remember that he sometimes brought small, sweet cakes to school and promised a cake to each boy who could decline a Latin noun or conjugate a Latin verb without faults, or who could recite a passage from the Greek or Latin author we were reading correctly. This definitely made learning more fun!


My favourite subjects were Latin and Cosmography; I always loved learning about different countries, especially about the sea monsters and dog-headed people and so on that were still featured in the travel books of the time. After all, the world wasn't so completely known yet, and many of those books were full of travellers' tall tales. Nevertheless, they were very interesting and fun to read! I don't remember if we had astronomy as a seperate subject, or if we briefly touched it in connection with cosmography, but I think I enjoyed that, too - and rhetorics, which was a great help later in life, when I became a player at a theatre!
 
I remember martial arts training in old Japan somewhere and training to be a dancer in India some several hundred years ago, but not school as such. I remember being taught things by older men - such as weapons training - archery, falconery a bit, hunting, that sort of thing.


I must have gone to school at some point at least for a while in my most recent life, but I don't remember it. I doubt I went to school much in my other lives though, not having been of that class mostly.
 
I remember attending school in Germany in the 1930's. It was some sort of boarding school. Apparently, my PLS was no great scholar--my most vivid memories are of running on the school's track, and of the uniforms we wore, blue and white.


In 17th century New England, I somehow learned to read and write (haltingly), but don't remember going to school at all.


Another memory, which I can't place any better than somewhere in Europe during the Dark Age, is of being a young woman, wearing a long woolen dress and large crucifix, reading a huge book (think modern-day atlas) with thick, crinkly pages, handwritten in black. Wherever and whenever this was, that was an unremarkable book.


I have the impression that this person was a student of or recent convert to Christianity, a new imported religion.
 
hi, sorry I have not been here for a while,


-In my life as Alice(Home girl-like servant girl),I remember being in a small room in the home that I lived and worked in,sitting at a little table(looking at notebook)and there is a woman pacing back-and-forth infront of me.


-I also have a little memory of being a girl learning falconery,in what seems like somewhere in medival times.


bye,vintage_rose,
 
All of your guys' memories are awesome! I don't know if this counts, but my Grandfather in my "Renee life" taught me jazz music. Quizzing me about which songs were which and who they were by was one of our favorite pastimes, because it was something we both had in common. Sorry if I got OT Aili. :eek:


VanH.
 
hi,


I would would say that counts as you were being taught something and then expected to remember the information like the quizzes/tests that are held in school classrooms.:thumbsup:


bye,vintage_rose, :)
 
I had a quick flash about attending Munich university in the 30´s, it was mostly about a hall and a teacher talking to me and telling me something like "when a drop of impure blood was admitted in the roman empire their structure collapsed"
 
I can't believe I never posted on this yet. Anyhow, when I was younger I had repeating dreams about going "to university", is how I phrased it in my dreams.


In one, I was a young lady sitting in the second-story windowsill of a home, looking down on a dirt lane and people loading my belongings into a carriage? old car? - I'm not sure anymore. It's foggy in my mind now. Mostly what I remember is thinking about "going away to university" and I didn't want to leave home. I felt this awful sadness at going and I can still feel it now when I think of it.


In another dream, I see old buildings all set together on a cobblestone street. I go inside and see a stairway on the left and a hall on the right leading to other rooms. This was a school of some sort, or perhaps a building within a school complex. I'm not sure, but it's associated in my mind with the same word "university" - not "college" or "school". Every dream I had then switched to running from someone in a maze of halls and rooms on the second floor. I was terrified of being caught, knowing that if I was caught something bad would happen to me. (Assault or rape comes to mind.) I don't feel that I was in trouble, escaping etc. That's where the dream ends. I'm cornered in a dead end where a hall ends under a staircase, or something like that. I never see who's after me.


The most prominent thing from that whole dream, every time is how the walls of the whole building are covered in a green carpeting(??). It's not paint or wallpaper, but some kind of material(?) that's dark green.
 
My most recent life is the only life I've had specific memories of going to school. My very first regression I was a senior in high school. I was very excited to be going away to college. Most of my memories from that life revolved around school and my friends from school. It wasn't that long ago so the experience wasn't that different from my current life. The biggest difference was not having computers then. I did go to college but I was killed before I ever got a chance to graduate. :(
 
Very interesting thread :thumbsup: I don't remember studying or going to school as such, although I do have a memory of my mother in second most recent life trying to teach me and my adopted sister how to paint. I was hopeless though :D And still am when it comes to that.


I was a monk in the 1300's and must have studied some then, but it's not anything I can remember at the moment.

The most prominent thing from that whole dream, every time is how the walls of the whole building are covered in a green carpeting(??). It's not paint or wallpaper, but some kind of material(?) that's dark green.
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Was it possibly hessian? Back in the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's hessian was a very popular "wall paper" in Europe (I know houses in Denmark where walls, floor and ceiling is covered in hessian) and I know for a fact that it comes in a dark green colour too (as well as many other colours). Just a suggestion :)
 
Interesting that that was the memory that came to mind for me as well== being a monk in France in the 1400s. The only thing I remember from that life is sitting at my desk [ in education mode] writing something. I was probably in my 60s at that time and loved to study.


Another memory if being taught piano as a boy who grew up to become a minister in the 1800s. And another I was a Jewish woman long ago who resented not being able to study Torah { their religious scripts equivalent to the first part of the bible} . I died with alot of anger towards my people for that prejudice of preventing women from being equal. I do not think I ever did much about it == not like Yentl :laugh::laugh::thumbsup:
 
I googled "hessian" but it didnt come up with much. I will keep trying to find that word in context though and some photos. It sounds right.
 
I have no clear memories of school. I know I was home schooled many times, as was natural in those days.


I have one very clear memory of being fascinated by the books and the leather bag that my parents bought for my cousin Martin, who lived with us. I can see them clearly now, in a neat pile on top of his bed, and how the soft afternoon sun made the brown covers glow. :) I was very proud of (and very much in love with :eek: ) my cousin. This was in Wales, more than a century ago.
 
I vaguely remember the school I went to as a child in the 20s in my WWII life. It was a big school although the classes for the lower grades were smaller (more classes, less children per class). Everyone was really loud and rambunctious. I was the quiet child :angel:


My teacher in that year was young and happy, despite the troubles she dealt with in her life outside of school. I don't think she was ethnic German (she certainly wasn't "Aryan"), Czech maybe? She, unlike some of the other teachers *looks at random teacher* understood us younger kids better. She was probably my favorite teacher because also unlike the others (particularly the male ones), she encouraged my love of the arts, and particularly acting.


I do believe she was Jewish, and I'm not too positive what happened to her later, though she most likely was sent to a concentration camp.


In the life after in Cuba, I was taught at home by my mother (Mami) while my father (Papi) went off to fight in the revolution. And no, we didn't get air-conditioning in those hot and humid Cuban summers. No wonder I hate the heat :cool
 
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I remember being placed in a "kids area" or nursery while my parents were shopping...I was about 6 or 7 at the time. There were cots on which we could take naps and I was highly irritated at having to be hanging around with all these loud, running and shouting kids. I went in to relax in the relative quiet of the room with cots and noted a musty smell...sort of a mix of antiseptic and clorox with a smattering of dust and closed- room.


As I drifted off I went to another place...a place with the same smell and it was a one-room school house. My sister was two years older than I and a great cut up, while I was more serious, a listener and a good student. The lessons all came easy for me and I'd help her, but not because she couldn't do it; more because I didn't mind and she was doing everything but school work. I got pleasure and comfort from being in that school room and the odor of the "nursery" took me back to that time in the 1890's.
 
What an interesting thread! :)


My mom has memories of being a late 1800s to early 1900s school teacher. She remembers tending to a cast iron potbellied stove in a small one-room schoolhouse. She wore her long hair up on top of her head, her name was Marion or Mary.


I don't remember schools of any kind really...


- I was musician/violinist during the Renaissance (performed in wealthy courts), but don't remember the actual learning.


- Like Sunniva, I remember being a monk, could fluently read and write Latin, so must have had a good education then too...
 
I haven't had any past life school memories. The only thing I know that my life as a monk in the middle ages, who created the beautiful illustrations in books, must have had an education.
 
I remember, more feel, that I was highly interested in science and such, but I think I must have had my fill of it because I really don't care that much for it at all, anymore.


I remember being very 'lovey-dovy' to my girlfriends if they would sit next to me in class; putting my arm through their's, leaning my head on their shoulders. I think school was a lot of fun for me then and not something I took seriously very often.


....I had one memory, but I'm not sure on the authenticity of this one mind you, where I was sitting in class and pretended to lift up my skirt in a very slow, almost sensual way, to scratch my upper leg, but was only doing so for a laugh because I knew there was a boy a few seats back staring at me.... Needless to say, I was a bit of a flirt. : angel
 
While browsing through an old section of the Grad Library at university of Michigan many years ago, I was suddenly enveloped in a kind of flashback, in which I was pulling rare and musty old volumes from the shelves of an even older library and trying to read them in the light of a tall and narrow casement window, which was the only available light. I was not just taking notes, but actually copying entire sections. It seemed that I might have been engaged as an early nineteenth century university student in England or Germany, and the work was not only tedious but stressful, for the quality of work depended upon one's ability to find and copy the most appropriate passages, which best supported the strongest argument before darkness fell.


The frustration of such an endeavor would lie in the fact that one could not draw references from any source other than those which were acceptable and already established as truth by the university. In other words, one had to be creative without creating anything new. Unfortunately, this was not unlike much of my education during the 50's and 60's during this lifetime in which one was judged more by the form, grammar and quality of the penmanship rather than by the originality of one's ideas.
 
Only one PL I remember going to school. SS Junkerschule Bad Tolz (SS Officer Candidate School). Blimey, that was hell.


Wake up at 6AM, getting your butt whipped and being nice won't help. And you have to meet the requirements before entering school, I remember a doctor or something examining my teeth. And according to a article (somewhere) that SS soldiers couldn't even have teeth that is filled!


And then the sport games, they put the ruth in the ruthless. And unfortunately it shows now when I play sports... I just run and push like a maniac... Until my mates called me a gladiator.. Ow
 
I used to want to bring gladiator games back. Thought it good punishment for criminals. I've changed my mind >.>


I steer clear of all the big people when playing sports. Unless someone trips me and makes me mad, then they just wrote a death sentence for themselves
oh_no_not_finland_by_ipl0x-d2zhr7r.jpg
 
Might just be my imagination, but the first time I saw a one-room school house and the way the desks and everything was set up (it was part of a collection of historic buildings) I had an image of myself sitting in the front row and trying to get my letters right on a piece of slate with a small stick of chalk tied to it. I was right next to a window and couldn't keep from looking out at the sunny day and wishing I was any place else but in school. A hoarse cough from the school marm snaps me back to my letters.
 
I do recall a memory of my life in early Shogun Japan where I was learning how to write with Japanese calligraphy. I kept messing up and was getting ink all over my hands. My mother kept laughing at me because I would go to brush my hair out of my face and smear black ink across it :laugh:


In my WWII life, I remember my father giving me lessons on how to play the piano. He may not have been the best teacher, but he was the only I knew that could teach me.
 
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I don't directly remember much about it, but I'm pretty sure I went to college in my Civil War life. It may have been law school, but I'm not sure, because I would have been pretty young to be in law school at that time. I do recall that I moved to Chicago to attend college, which seemed like a really big deal at the time.
 
Writing is something very important to me, almost as much as the actual handwriting is. I've my own script with letters taken from different styles, and I'm happy with it. I love the feeling of a nice pen gliding across the page, forming somewhat attractive letters.


So, naturally I like to improve my handwriting when I can. Just moments ago I started practicing moving my arm instead of my fingers; the 'proper' way to write, and all of a sudden a flood of memories (not very visual, mind you) came rushing in. I remembered being taught the very same arm movements and a very plain script that was meant to be written quickly, with little ornamentation. I think it's called 'Business' or something. It bothered me so much, just as the simple cursive taught in schools today bothers me!
 
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