When we think of someone as a teacher, we usually think of that person as offering instruction in a school. Pupils are enrolled in the school and follow a system of education established by the school. There were some schools in Jesus' time that would fit this picture. Up until age twelve both boys and girls who lived in cities and towns spent their mornings in schools where they learned the basics of reading and writing. After that age, only boys of wealthier families continued their education. They were sent to teachers who drilled them in the classics, especially the epic poets Homer and Hesiod, and taught them how to speak like educated men. They would study and seek to imitate famous orators like Demosthenes. Rhetoric was the only training for government or public service. Young men learned the duties and behavior appropriate to various offices by imitating older men, especially natural or adoptive fathers and uncles. Sons of craftsmen learned their trade as apprentices. Schools did not train people for later life. Similarly the sons of priests learned what they needed to know for service in the Temple from their fathers.

Jesus, however, did not establish a school with a philosophical doctrine or special method of interpreting the Law. His followers learned by observing what he said and did in different situations. The Gospels refer to a group of Jesus' disciples as the twelve. Mark 3:14–19 pictures the twelve as having been selected from the larger number of followers. They are shown receiving special instruction from Jesus (Mk 4:10; 9:35; Mt 11:1).