05-17-2003, 02:56 PM
Hi,
Elric already hit a bit of this. Those children probably grew up in a household where the mother (and her servants) spoke her native language, the father (and his retainers) spoke his, many of the servants spoke the local language, and some common court language (or perhaps Latin) was also commonly used. Not an unusual situation.
However, the point is that we humans seem to be hard wired to learn language in our infancy and early childhood. And in that period we learn many "languages" even if we are only learning one language. And we seem to lose much of that ability by the time we are eight or nine. So, that is not a good indicator of how well the teaching methods of a few hundred years ago compare to those of today. Remember that those same children who learned those four languages learned to read and write in none of them. Learned no math. There was no science to learn. However, they did learn to play an instrument, to sing, courtly manner, etc. For the males, the most important and time consuming part of their education was how to fight. The females, beyond some domestic talents, were for the most part ignored as being unsuited for anything other than a bargaining chip in alliances.
And, of course, this was for the tiny fraction of the population who was born noble. As for the rest, they had no education (or much of anything) at all.
Indeed, studies of how we learn and what we can easily learn as a function of age have shown that our school systems is mostly wrong. Young children can learn language very easily. They can learn to read almost as easily. The alphabet and counting are much harder, but mathematical logic could be taught to preschoolers. And, yes, it is possible (and preferable) to learn to read without learning the alphabet first.
Presently, much of our educational focus in the first few years of school is on memorization. Memorization of the alphabet, of numbers, of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division tables. Of States and their capitals. Of names and places and dates. Children have inquisitive and very logical minds. As an example, they invent a regular form of grammar before they learn all the "exceptions" we adults live with. Thus, a child wanting to express the plural of "man" goes through the stages of "men" (when words are individual units), to "mans" when they figure out the regular plural rule, to "mens" when they haven't exactly figured out irregulars), finally to "men" when they've been fully indoctrinated to the illogical way we speak (and pass on) our language.
However, the stress on dull, boring, repetitive memorization in the early years of education is what turns a lot of children off. By the time schools deign to begin to answer all those interesting questions, the child no longer gives a damn.
So, yeah, the genetic makeup of a human should be considered in education and it hasn't been. But that does not mean that children they can learn anything at any time. Different abilities arise (and sometimes go away) at different times.
And, of course, what applies to "children" in the abstract may not apply at all to any given "child" in the concrete.
--Pete
Elric already hit a bit of this. Those children probably grew up in a household where the mother (and her servants) spoke her native language, the father (and his retainers) spoke his, many of the servants spoke the local language, and some common court language (or perhaps Latin) was also commonly used. Not an unusual situation.
However, the point is that we humans seem to be hard wired to learn language in our infancy and early childhood. And in that period we learn many "languages" even if we are only learning one language. And we seem to lose much of that ability by the time we are eight or nine. So, that is not a good indicator of how well the teaching methods of a few hundred years ago compare to those of today. Remember that those same children who learned those four languages learned to read and write in none of them. Learned no math. There was no science to learn. However, they did learn to play an instrument, to sing, courtly manner, etc. For the males, the most important and time consuming part of their education was how to fight. The females, beyond some domestic talents, were for the most part ignored as being unsuited for anything other than a bargaining chip in alliances.
And, of course, this was for the tiny fraction of the population who was born noble. As for the rest, they had no education (or much of anything) at all.
Indeed, studies of how we learn and what we can easily learn as a function of age have shown that our school systems is mostly wrong. Young children can learn language very easily. They can learn to read almost as easily. The alphabet and counting are much harder, but mathematical logic could be taught to preschoolers. And, yes, it is possible (and preferable) to learn to read without learning the alphabet first.
Presently, much of our educational focus in the first few years of school is on memorization. Memorization of the alphabet, of numbers, of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division tables. Of States and their capitals. Of names and places and dates. Children have inquisitive and very logical minds. As an example, they invent a regular form of grammar before they learn all the "exceptions" we adults live with. Thus, a child wanting to express the plural of "man" goes through the stages of "men" (when words are individual units), to "mans" when they figure out the regular plural rule, to "mens" when they haven't exactly figured out irregulars), finally to "men" when they've been fully indoctrinated to the illogical way we speak (and pass on) our language.
However, the stress on dull, boring, repetitive memorization in the early years of education is what turns a lot of children off. By the time schools deign to begin to answer all those interesting questions, the child no longer gives a damn.
So, yeah, the genetic makeup of a human should be considered in education and it hasn't been. But that does not mean that children they can learn anything at any time. Different abilities arise (and sometimes go away) at different times.
And, of course, what applies to "children" in the abstract may not apply at all to any given "child" in the concrete.
--Pete
How big was the aquarium in Noah's ark?