Jeffrey Alexander Martin

In this article we'll see the differences and similarities between medieval and modern concerns in education from Charlemagne and King Alfred, to Leo Tolstoy, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Hannah Arendt. 'Admonitio Generalis' by Charlemagne 789 AD Charles the Great, King of the Franks, was the first ruler to conquer and unite much of Europe as the Carolingian Empire after the fall of the Roman Empire 300 years earlier. He worked on sorting out problems in the church, including dealing with education. The 'Admonitio Generalis' reforms helped spur the first medieval renaissance, called the Carolingian Renaissance. It consists of 82 chapters. Many of the chapters are only one sentence each, and deal with what priests can and cannot do. Chapters 71 through 74 are about education: "Capitulum 71 That bishops and abbots carefully correct the canonical and catholic books, and that the priests read and understand them and preach according to their meaning. Capitulum 72 Let s...

Depression and anxiety are a normal part of the human emotional experience. If someone says they haven't been sad or worried, they are exaggerating or lying, to you and maybe to themselves. The real question is, how do we deal with them? How do we recover from them and not get stuck? There are two normal answers to how to deal with negative emotions. These have been called different things throughout history. We might think of them from older civilizations as potions and incantations. In a more modern sense they are often called medicine and counseling, or pharmaceuticals and therapy. In the most basic sense, it's drugs and words. Drugs and words are powerful things. They change how we feel, think, perceive, and behave. The problem with drugs is that they have side-effects. Drugs often cause worse problems than they are even intended to solve, and people often realize that too late. The names of the drugs change. New ones are invented. But the same patterns keep repeating. This...

In my mid-20s I was a member of four Toastmasters groups at once, which are training and support groups for public speaking. Giving speeches to each other you learn quite a bit about a person, and they learn quite a bit about you. After one session in Muskegon, Michigan on a Friday a few of us went out to lunch. We often did that, just to talk afterward. Everyone was older than me. The two most common people that I went to lunch with after that meeting were both over 80. One had been a Toastmaster for more than 50 years. On this particular day I asked them, "What do you guys think I should be doing? Like, for a job or career?" The retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel thought about it for a moment and said, "I see you teaching something." I was a little surprised and asked, "What?" "I'm not sure." he responded, "Something. Maybe to kids, maybe to adults." I looked at the other guy there, a successful real estate agent, and said, ...

People assume that education has changed a lot over the last couple thousand years. Some things have changed, but for the most part, people are wrong and education and learning have stayed quite similar through the ages. In this article we'll look at things that are very modern, things that are very old, and things in-between, and see that as things change they often stay the same. 'Edict of Maximum Prices' by Diocletian 301 AD In ancient Rome there were price controls. This included teaching fees. I've taken a section of those prices here so we can see the value hierarchy of different types of teaching. These prices are in denarius communis, which was an accounting currency at the time. The prices are per pupil per month. Attorneys happen to be included in this same section and instead of removing that I included it. Gymnastic instructor 50 Pedagogue 50 Elementary teacher 50 Teacher of arithmetic 75 Teacher for shorthand 75 Teacher of manuscript writing or palaeography...