Father: Son, where did you go today?
Son: I went to school.
Father: What did you do at school?
Son: I recited my tablet, and I ate my lunch... I laid out my dictionary exercises and after the afternoon snack I laid out my practice tablet.
This terse exchange could have taken place in any contemporary home where any father (or mother) tries to engage his (or her) child in answering the age-old question of: "what did you do at school today?" However, the "tablet" the child refers to in this conversation is not an iPad, but an actual writing tablet, made of clay. The conversation was not recorded via keypad, but etched into that clay tablet in Sumerian symbols. And, the exchange, itself, is proof that calling that "how-was-school-today"-type question "age-old" is no cliché, for, this conversation took place 4,000 years ago. Horace Mann School students and teachers were intrigued by this connection with antiquity they learned from Ancient Near East scholar Dr. Alexandra Kleinerman during a visit she made to HM in October 2013. Dr. Kleinerman is an authority on language development and the origins of writing in Sumer, as well as on the origins of education. The visit to by Dr. Kleinerman was one of two recent appearances at the school by scholars whose work challenged HM art and art history students to expand their visual literacy. The second was by Finnish artist, fine art teacher and researcher Elisa Alaluusua.