In this chapter, I suggest an analysis of mathematical texts based on notions, concepts and tools that were instilled during their early education in scholars who were active in Southern Mesopotamia during the Old Babylonian period (early second millennium BCE). The sources considered are mathematical texts from scribal schools that flourished in the Ancient Land of Sumer. I propose to examine the content of the garbage from these schools to access the "internal meanings" of advanced mathematical texts. First, I outline some characteristics of the mathematics taught in elementary education, drawing mainly from sources found in Nippur. Then, I discuss two mathematical texts in detail and show how they can be interpreted using the tools that were taught to (or invented by) their authors or users. The first example (CBS 1215) deals with the extraction of reciprocals by factorization; the second (CBS 12648) deals with volume problems using coefficients. The conclusion underlines the mathematical work that some ancient erudite scribes accomplished in order to emancipate them from the world of elementary education.