Philosophy of Education: You Need Just Three Languages to Succeed

Every so often I take a break from teaching the syllabus and talk to my students about life, the universe and everything. This usually ends up revolving around how to learn effectively and what to concentrate on.

Thinking about what students really need to focus on, I tell them that they just need to learn three languages: English, mathematics and programming. In essence, students should aim to be literate, numerate and logical.

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Literate

The ability to express oneself clearly is important, whether it be in English or your native language. I am a big fan of the classical Liberal Arts trivium of logic, rhetoric and grammar. Even if one needs to be impenetrably obscure, that too is an art that needs to be practiced. Being able to turn abstract ideas into concrete sentences will also make the difference between being ignored and being listened to.

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Numerate

Mathematics is everywhere and yet usually hidden. There is a disturbing split that takes place some time around the introduction of algebra where some students "get it" and the rest just look bemused. Students really need some basic level of mathematics, some understanding of how similar patterns occur in different environments, and some way of reading mathematics in the same way they understand traffic signs. With another nod to the Liberal Arts quadrivium, I would retain arithmetic, geometry and the practical applications of both.

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Logical

The birth of computing has created a third kind of language: the algorithm. There is some overlap here with classical logic and mathematical logic, but programming languages can teach a lot about feedback and loops and decision-making. I tend to teach students what I think is a fairly simple and intuitive language, Python, and I also focus their minds on pre-coding the structure of their algorithms with pseudocode.

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That's it! Everything else is a mixture of the above skills, dependent on each individual's talents and commitment. There are obviously other skills, both personal and interpersonal, that make life more than just an algorithm, but those require a different set of learning techniques.

Just to reiterate, I feel students need to express themselves eloquently and clearly, to handle abstract and symbolic ideas and be able to analyse processes and systems using algorithms.

What do you think?

_{images: Pixabay, Wolfram}