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Indeed, that’s why no one ever learned how to hunt, gather, smith, knapp flint or make pottery before the rise of literate civilisations. The first appearance

Indeed, that’s why no one ever learned how to hunt, gather, smith, knapp flint or make pottery before the rise of literate civilisations. The first appearance of anything resembling schools in the historical record are for scribes in Mesopotamia, about 5,000 years ago. Many very complicated things have been and continue to be taught through the apprenticeship model, otherwise known as be useful to me or get out. It doesn’t make sense to take an apprentice unless you’re going to get some advantage from it so the learning generally proceeded slower than it could have if instruction was the sole aim. Activities as complicated as architecture, engineering sufficient to build cathedrals and aqueducts and painting and sculpture sufficient for the renaissance were taught in this manner.

watwut 8y ago
They did not learned to to hunt, gather, smith, knapp flint at the age of three nor sooner. They learned that at later age, when they could be actually useful. The article is about small kids. My comment is about small kids too. Also, parents or elders would explicitely teach you, even if you was aprentice of something more complicated explicitely teaching was there. It was not based merely on observasion and wish to be useful alone. Moreover, it make sense to take apprentice that is not useful - when his parents pay you.
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  > Kids learn simple activities this way, but they won't learn complicated ones. That is why all larger civilizations had tutors or schools for those expected to do non-simple work (read not poor). No reference to age, claims that all non simple skills were learned from tutors or schools. If you read Anthropology of Childhood hunter gatherers really don’t do explicit instruction in anything resembling structured lesssons, ever. Children and adolescents watch, imitate, beg to be left to do things and occasionally get maybe five minutes of an explanation that amounts to “That’s wrong, do it like this.” And that’s really, really rare. Farming is very far from being simple or easy work and no peasants taught their children how to farm, they got them to be useful where they could, as they could. There’s a certain amount of explicit instruction in apprenticeship but there’s a hell of a lot more practice and observation than explicit and deliberate information or skill transfer.
  - watwut 8y ago
    Peasants did taught their children to farm and craft to the extend that was possible. There is a lot of knowledge captured in sayings (at least in my language) that rhyme for better recall. When literacy started in region, farming advice and hints written into book are first usages of it. It is that useful. Writing changed farming, effectively. This kind of learning had definitive limits. Great example of it is Russia which had feudalism longer then west and had large illiteracy rates. When literacy started to be a bit more common, before WWI essentially, the way they farmed became way more effective - they used much less effective methods before. The style of learning you describe happen to coincide with low effectivity, poverty and social problems. The reason apprenticeship learning could be based on observation only is that the amount of knowledge to learn was smaller. Landlords and aristocrats had tutors and teachers - because you won't learn that by observation only. You don't learn history or math or chemistry either. You don't learn reading like that (there are only few exceptions).

watwut 8y ago

They did not learned to to hunt, gather, smith, knapp flint at the age of three nor sooner. They learned that at later age, when they could be actually useful. The article is about small kids. My comment is about small kids too. Also, parents or elders would explicitely teach you, even if you was aprentice of something more complicated explicitely teaching was there. It was not based merely on observasion and wish to be useful alone. Moreover, it make sense to take apprentice that is not useful - when his parents pay you.

barry-cotter 8y ago
> Kids learn simple activities this way, but they won't learn complicated ones. That is why all larger civilizations had tutors or schools for those expected to do non-simple work (read not poor). No reference to age, claims that all non simple skills were learned from tutors or schools. If you read Anthropology of Childhood hunter gatherers really don’t do explicit instruction in anything resembling structured lesssons, ever. Children and adolescents watch, imitate, beg to be left to do things and occasionally get maybe five minutes of an explanation that amounts to “That’s wrong, do it like this.” And that’s really, really rare. Farming is very far from being simple or easy work and no peasants taught their children how to farm, they got them to be useful where they could, as they could. There’s a certain amount of explicit instruction in apprenticeship but there’s a hell of a lot more practice and observation than explicit and deliberate information or skill transfer.
- watwut 8y ago
  Peasants did taught their children to farm and craft to the extend that was possible. There is a lot of knowledge captured in sayings (at least in my language) that rhyme for better recall. When literacy started in region, farming advice and hints written into book are first usages of it. It is that useful. Writing changed farming, effectively. This kind of learning had definitive limits. Great example of it is Russia which had feudalism longer then west and had large illiteracy rates. When literacy started to be a bit more common, before WWI essentially, the way they farmed became way more effective - they used much less effective methods before. The style of learning you describe happen to coincide with low effectivity, poverty and social problems. The reason apprenticeship learning could be based on observation only is that the amount of knowledge to learn was smaller. Landlords and aristocrats had tutors and teachers - because you won't learn that by observation only. You don't learn history or math or chemistry either. You don't learn reading like that (there are only few exceptions).