120. Aztec education
10/18/21 • 52 min
Which country was the first ever to have universal, free, compulsory education?
Zero points if you said "Prussia". The correct answer is the Aztec empire, almost four centuries before the oft-cited German state.
I happened to find out this bizarre fact from an aside in a YouTube video, and decided to look into it. If this isn't an independent societal data point on the development of education, then I don't know what is!
In this episode, I discuss the article Developing Face and Heart in the Time of the Fifth Sun: An Examination of Aztec Education by Timothy Reagan. You will hear about Aztec society and values, and how the education system fit within the society in order to achieve its educational aims. You will also hear a lot of bloody stories of human sacrifice.
Enjoy the episode.
Which country was the first ever to have universal, free, compulsory education?
Zero points if you said "Prussia". The correct answer is the Aztec empire, almost four centuries before the oft-cited German state.
I happened to find out this bizarre fact from an aside in a YouTube video, and decided to look into it. If this isn't an independent societal data point on the development of education, then I don't know what is!
In this episode, I discuss the article Developing Face and Heart in the Time of the Fifth Sun: An Examination of Aztec Education by Timothy Reagan. You will hear about Aztec society and values, and how the education system fit within the society in order to achieve its educational aims. You will also hear a lot of bloody stories of human sacrifice.
Enjoy the episode.
Previous Episode
119. Stages of learning
I realised I missed something, and I kicked myself.
For a while I've been toying with the idea that learning occurs in two stages, which can be mapped between cognitive science and neuroscience:
- Exposure to new material -> neuronal connections
- Practice and repetition -> myelination
...with elaboration (e.g. relating one piece of information to another) being a practice that involves both stages.
This model appeals to me for several reasons. Firstly, it is simple, which is a relief in the complex world of teaching and learning. Secondly, it is grounded in the idea that learning is all about addition to long-term memory, which is now a deeply ingrained idea with me. Thirdly, it is in line with the way that most teachers would teach, which makes sense - you would think that teachers tend to do something more or less right after so many years of experience.
However, there is one anomaly that I couldn't place in this model: pre-testing. It turns out that when you are given a test on something before you start learning, even if you're completely ignorant of the topic, it boosts your learning compared to just starting off with study straight away. How could this make sense with the above? For a while I just brushed it aside, but now I realised how it would fit in, as "stage zero": humility, or realisation of ignorance.
As I understand it, this is a stage where you can overcome your cognitive biases which make you not want to expend effort to learn anything, by assuming that you already know this, or that there is nothing to learn. Immediate exposure to a test shatters this illusion, and makes you more able - even subconsciously - to pay attention to the lesson.
One of the great things about this way of thinking is that it makes room for some "progressive" ideas within the starkly "traditional" view of stages 1 and 2. While I still feel that progressive education is largely a bad idea and a failure, I don't want to become dogmatically married to another way of thinking, especially not one which is to some extent defined by its opposition to progressivism. The chance for at least some reconciliation through synthesis is something that I warmly welcome.
In the recording, I also discuss how this relates to ideas of mental warm-ups, desirable difficulty, and the differences between learning and performance.
Enjoy the episode.
Next Episode
121a. Attachment Theory as cultural ideology
The title of this episode might ruffle some feathers. Attachment Theory is developmental psychology's shining star, the theory with the greatest predictive success, and one which has become popular among child psychiatrists. You can now hear it spoken about wherever child psychology is the main topic, and it has become something of a buzzword. Could this scientific theory really be "cultural ideology"? What would that even mean?
Attachment Theory as Cultural Ideology is the name of an essay within the volume Multiple Faces of Attachment - Cultural Variations on a Universal Human Need which I talk about in the recording. It is a collection of essays written by anthropologists plus one evolutionary psychologist on the problems with existing Attachment Theory - mainly its lack of applicability outside of a Euro-American context. The Cultural Ideology essay in particular was the one that got me to buy the book, and it shows how Attachment Theory is in fact deeply intertwined with 20th century Western moralisms around the treatment of children.
In this part of the episode, I describe what Attachment Theory is, how it was developed, and biological evidence that would at least partially weaken its existing claims.
Enjoy the episode.
***
RELATED EPISODES
Anthropology: 39. The Geography of Thought by Richard Nisbett; 106. The Anthropology of Childhood by David Lancy; 116. Cultural Foundations of Learning, East and West by Jin Li
If you like this episode you’ll love
Episode Comments
Generate a badge
Get a badge for your website that links back to this episode
<a href="https://goodpods.com/podcasts/education-bookcast-25447/120-aztec-education-17042917"> <img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/goodpods-images-bucket/badges/generic-badge-1.svg" alt="listen to 120. aztec education on goodpods" style="width: 225px" /> </a>
Copy