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Yeah, I'm saying - it could be now, or it could be soon. Math and reading weren't always foundational, it's a pretty recent thing.
by danielmarkbruce 3y ago
Yeah, I'm saying - it could be now, or it could be soon. Math and reading weren't always foundational, it's a pretty recent thing.
- mike_hearn 3y agoMaths, yes, but it's also not really foundational. Most people don't need to do maths once they leave high school, not even basic arithmetic. Machines do it for them better than they ever could. The heavy emphasis on maths in the school curriculum is probably a mistake and should be rolled back. Reading and (basic) writing was always foundational. You can go back to ancient Egypt and there are merchants who have mastered a simplified form of hieroglyphs. They weren't doing maths any more sophisticated than adding and subtracting small numbers, but they needed to know writing.
- danielmarkbruce 3y agoReading can't have been always foundational. Most people couldn't read a few hundred years ago(according to practically any source ever). The printing press has been around less than a thousand years. Paper has only been around a few thousand years or something. Ancient Egypt is like 5 thousand years ago. The agricultural revolution is like 10 thousand years ago and the foundational skills would have changed from running, hunting, foraging to planning out fields, strength and other farming skills.Best guess is that humans have been around 100 thousand years give or take. What is foundational changes over time and depends on what skills you are trying to build. Given math and reading have only become foundational recently, there is no reason to think the skills considered to be foundational won't continue to evolve.