If you've heard of a school of whales, or dolphins, you may have wondered why they need teaching. The answer is, this sort of school has nothing to do with the place you go to be educated. The two words school are completely unrelated.
School for teaching actually goes back?inappropriately, you may think?to a Greek word for 'leisure': skhole. The ancient Greeks, who were often very high-minded, tended to use their leisure time not for frivolous games but for intellectual pursuits, so in time skhole came to mean 'an educational assembly'.
The school of fish, on the other hand, comes from the medieval Dutch word schole, which meant 'a group' or 'a troop'. English adopted it in the 14th century, and then borrowed it again in the 16th century, in the form shoal.
