Hello Knowledge and Education
All the cool kids are on Substack these days so I figured I’d join as well. As a start, I’ll begin republishing some content (with some edits) from my previous blog. The first series will discuss different area of knowledge I’m interested in learning more about. These fall into five categories:
Theoretical topics (e.g science) - It's interesting to learn about the world even if I probably won't make new scientific discoveries myself. Schools primarily focus on these topics, usually without checking whether students are interested in learning them.
Practical relevance to world (e.g politics) - learning these topics isn't something I can practically use, but it can affect how I vote, and one individual can influence other people.
Practical skills - These can be a specific skill relevant to one's career (e.g software development) or generally useful skills (e.g. typing). This could also include general-purpose abilities such as thinking rationally.
Interpersonal skills (e.g public speaking) - these are also the subject of many self-help books
'Intrapersonal' skills - this includes practical areas like time management and learning techniques, as well as skills for living a happier or more meaningful life, such as Stoicism or meditation. This could potentially include being a good person more generally.
Schools focus on theoretical topics but have very few classes dedicated to Interpersonal and Intrapersonal skills. Most people don't manages to master all these skills on their own so it's something a good education system could potentially help with.
Many subjects can contain topics in multiple categories. For example, “Algorithms” contains some practical applications for software development and some abstract mathematical theory. While some theory is often be necessary, a good education system would let students choose to focus on more practical areas if they prefer.
In future posts, I'll outline actual topics in more detail. I’ll discuss what I’m interested in learning more about, and how these topics could or should be taught in schools.