Hovhannes Toumanian got his primary education in his native village. His first teacher, he learned his initial literacy from, was his father, Ter-Tadevos, one of the village’s literate and progressive men.
Then, at the age of eight, he attended his uncle’s Grishka Bidza’s newly opened school, with a group of village children, where the pupils made their pencils from lead and ink from tulips. In addition to reading and writing, little Hovhannes also learned to sing from his uncle, because Grishka Bidza was a “church clerk with a good voice”. Toumanian studied here for several months: the teaching was unstable and soon ceased.
After that, little Hovhannes attended teacher Sahak's school.
On the initiative of Toumanian's mother, Sona, a contract was signed between the Dsegh society, represented by the trustees, and the church clerk Sahak, according to which he would be paid 130 rubles annually, and the number of students would not exceed 35.
Teacher Sahak’s school has a Ter-Todik style: he used strict pedagogical methods for small intellectual resources: beating with an iron rod and a large oak ruler, cursing.
At that time, such ungodly beatings were accepted in rural schools. Toumanian escaped “pedagogical terror”: as the poet wrote in his autobiographical notes: “The teacher was ashamed of my father, especially he was afraid of my mother”.
Toumanian studied at teacher Sahak’s school for no more than one year (at 1878/79 academic year). In the first years of school, instead of a large stock of knowledge, the poet received the minimum that was necessary to inflame his knowledge thirst and encourage self-development. The school was closed, and Toumanian’s studies next phase began in Jalalogi.