The Broad Swath

Last updated on 25 January 2023: minor tweaks to various posts, latest working draft of the Ellume strategic primer is available here.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Genesis

The First Question

The Spark

The Second Question (In Progress)

Why is Any of This Important (In Progress)

The Naming of Ellume Educational Endeavours

Prologue

Can we paint inspiration? What does it look like?

This was a question posed by a friend over dinner, years ago.

It was quite odd. Inspiration is normally thought of in the abstract and not as a tangible image. Even stranger, was the fact that I had an answer.

——

It started in Vienna, with a portrait.

17^th century. The scene was dim and muted, in keeping with the Flemish tradition.  The interior of the house: gritty, with predominantly earth tones.

In the foreground, a lone desk. And a man with quill in hand, living in the shadow of an overcast afternoon. Bent over his life’s work, with nothing to show for it. Save a scattering of crumpled manuscripts and a crop of ashen hair.

Something catches his attention. Or perhaps he hears something. His chin lifts. Sprites flit across his face, golden shards birthed from impending dusk, parting the sea of grey lying beyond the windows. Age has driven creases round his eyes. But here and now, they sparkle, rivalling the sun. He remembers who he is. And why.

Time falls away, soft as the last leaves of autumn.

——

 

The holiday ended. I returned to the UK. And I couldnt stop thinking about the painting. I really wanted a copy. But every search failed. It drove me crazy.  I had refused to take a photo in the museum. It would have sullied the sublime moment. 50 points for being stubborn.

In desperation I emailed the Kunsthistoriches Museum in Vienna. All I had was a description from memory. No author, no name. But I had to try.

Another week passed, in futile search.

Then, an email from the museum curator. 

“We’ve never had an email like yours, but I’m really glad that our collection has left such an impression. I don’t remember a painting like you’ve described but let me check with our archivist.”

Three weeks later, another email. Before me, that same wizened face, his sun-lit eyes meeting the heavens. Lost in blissful company of something greater.

——

Tell us which painting! I hear you say.

Truth is, you already know. We all have a painting like that, within us.

And that’s how I wish to begin this piece. From the things which speak to the core. Because the foundation has to be firm if we are to withstand the doubts that await us^[1]I will return to this when we talk about the quest to ground our normative values.

Genesis

Amongst the myriad professions, there are commonalities. In particular: a tendency towards self -preservation.

Each applies itself to particular domains and by specialisation, ensures that others rely on them for their depth of understanding and expertise. Thus mechanics repair cars. Butchers point us to the freshest cuts. Interior designers shape dwellings to taste. Money goes to those who know best (a role vigorously claimed by financial planners and spouses alike) what to do with it. And finally, the tedium of regulatory paperwork is left to the lawyers — well versed as they are in things beyond the realm of common sense.

This reliance on others for matters we lack competence in, leads to the mutually assured preservation of diverse professions.

And then there is the educator.

Who by contrast, regards self-obsolescence as apotheosis. Once the student has grasped how to learn and think, the teacher’s job is complete and the proverbial man has fish for a lifetime^[2]Soldiers you may say, do they not exist to prevent the very wars that require their involvement? In this do they not seek self-obsolescence too? Yes but there is a difference, in that such deterrence … Continue reading. 

The First Question

Herein lies my primary motivation:

QUESTION 1A — At what point does the human mind accumulate enough rules about learning itself, such that individuals can use those rules to LEMAC: locate, evaluate, mutate^[3]knowing how to transpose and modify, abate^[4]knowing when to discard and create knowledge on a largely autonomous^[5]clearly there are instances of autodidacticism but I am more interested in principles which can be applied by the majority, i.e. individuals of average intellect and sustained basis for the remainder of their lives?

QUESTION 1B — What conditions (technological, neurological and behavioural) are necessary to achieve this and to what extent can reliance on corrective and facilitative guidance^[6]in particular, externally-initiated guidance (e.g. the need for a teacher to point out inadequacies in one’s essay and provide substantive amendments) as compared to self-initiated (e.g. … Continue reading be reduced?   

The Spark

One consequence of trying to frame the enquiry in as comprehensive a manner as possible is that it tends towards the abstract. So here are some specific scenarios to ground it.

(1) Learning through Play – Gamification and Autonomy

(2) Self-directed Learning – On Autonomy, Zen and Organic Acquisition

(3) Life is not our Favourite Movie

(4) Ossification of Paradigms – Seeing the World through Dated Lenses

(5) Questing the Nature of Cognition

(6) Autonomous Learning in Moderately Isolated Communities

Okay so not quite Age of Empires. Basically, these are images of actual neurons at a highly magnified (x63) resolution. We can produce these through a process called serial-section electron microscopy. For example, one might take a cube sized portion of the brain of a mouse, cut it into very thin slices, image them under an electron microscope, then stitch the images back together to get a 3D image of all the neurons in that cube and how they connect to one another.

Mozak^[8]https://www.mozak.science/landinglets people identify and trace the neuron connections (you do this with your cursor) which are visible in the 3D image (people are still better at this than computers at present so the scientists behind the platform are trying to crowdsource).

But it’s the mechanics of Mozak which I’d like to discuss further.

Firstly, Mozak is designed like a game. As you try to identify the neurons, there are different tasks that you have to complete. These then unlock tools which you can use to help you trace neurons more accurately. You also get points after tracing more than a certain length (e.g. 5cm). And there’s a chatbox on the side which allows for community engagement.

I don’t mean that everyone will find it engaging. Even for someone like me who did A level Biology, this could have been a potentially dry subject. But by turning it into a game, the developers made it fun while helping people more about neuroscience^[9]As an aside, Mozak was developed by the Centre for Game Science at the University of Washington, the same organisation that started Foldit 10 years ago. Foldit is a platform that allows users to try … Continue reading.

How this is related to the First Question:

Thus far I’ve been talking about something which most people are already familiar with: gamification. But instead of games that teach people content I am most interested in meta content^[10]ascertaining credibility of information, how to fact check, logical fallacies, considering counterfactuals and opposing arguments etc.

Let’s use one of my pet peeves as an example. I frequently come across people who make bold and sweeping assertions of fact. We’ve all encountered these situations. Short of being impolite there is no way to ask them to substantiate their claims. Worse still, the captive audience sometimes accept the assertions on good faith and any conversation proceeds on shaky epistemological foundations.

Assume the focus is on students for now. What if we could turn the process of questioning assumptions into a game (and thus more acceptable even in social situations outside the classroom)? We’ve all played the game of tag (the variant I played was called ice and freeze). How about an ongoing card game where player A “tags” another player B with a card when B makes a questionable statement. There’ll be several cards that can be played. These set out the type of issue that B’s statement faces (e.g. unverified claim, over-generalisation, fallacy etc).  B then has to provide evidence the next time the pair meet or do a forfeit.

Incentives could come from the school (e.g player A gets points when B acknowledges that his assertion is false. B can also get points despite making a false assertion because he did the subsequent verification. Accumulated points can grant priority to special electives that are popular with students, grant discounts at the bookshop etc).

This will all be fleshed out in further detail within the Ellume work primer.  But the idea is simple enough: making it fun for people to think critically even in social settings. 

(2) Self-directed Learning – On Autonomy, Zen and Organic Acquisition

Looking back on my teenage years, I wasn’t a very effective learner (maybe I just wasn’t very effective, full stop — but that’s youth eh). Yes I never made trouble, I paid attention in class and I did my homework (or copied it). But most of the time I was just following instructions, being led from one learning outcome in the syllabus to another. I engaged with the subjects, but never whole-heartedly. To this day I find that to be true. Once I’m told to do something and to do it in a particular way, my enthusiasm diminishes. But I don’t think that guided questions are necessarily boring. Games can involve very specific milestones and pathways for achieving them, but they still pique my interest. If so, what is it about formal education that makes it boring? I’ll try to explore this through the lens of engagement and autonomy.

Some of my fondest memories can be traced back to 2014, when I was a student on the cusp of graduation. In the months before the ceremony, I had time to spare. Having gone through the rigours of Finals, I decided there was too much law clogging my head. So I returned to Marx after more than three years. I made new acquaintances: The German Ideology, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte and all the things that Marx never finished writing. I cycled between the Bodleian and the gorgeous libraries around Oxford in search of books.

A friend lent me his reading list for PPE. It took me down the rabbit warren of democracy, to the Greeks, Rousseau and Brian Barry. Some days I would be at home watching David Harvey’s lectures on Das Kapital, baking wings in between breaks and getting distracted from the lectures by the smell of crispy chicken skin (which was obviously the smell of my labour value).

If (when) I got confused I would interpose segments of the lectures against Yale’s foundational course on Marx just to get a different perspective. Iván Szelényi’s version was my favourite, with his stunning Hungarian accent – 40% Arnold Schwarzenegger, 60% eccentric inventor tinkering about in some abandoned Crusader castle.

The summer days were long and when restlessness kicked in, I would find myself taking walks around the Magdalen meadow. From August through September, I watched as England mellowed into autumn. The crisp air was upon me again. Bracing. With traces of sweet hazelnut.

To my mind Mill was right in observing the importance of liberty. And more importantly, the autonomy that underlies it. I knew I’d barely scratched the tip of the iceberg. But in those months, the sea was mine to explore, to dive as far as interest allowed, and to surface when the moment had passed. And I felt fulfilled.

Work in Progress

• Everything has a time and place, knowledge cannot be partitioned into neat blocks
  • My love of museums and the paradoxical slow death of things which are kept protected
  • Accused of growing weed in my cupboard — My bizarre hydroponics analogy
  • Knowledge at the right time and place – A look at the Zen masters’ 禅机 and the Greeks’ search for the kairotic moment

(3) Life is not our Favourite Movie (work in progress)

(4) Ossification of Paradigms – Seeing the World through Dated Lenses (work in progress)

(5) Questing the Nature of Cognition (work in progress)

In the past six years^[11]as of 2021, I’ve tried to figure out the conditions under which I learn best. This deep dive into meta-learning has yielded thoughts in three main areas.

1. If understanding has a face

In 2016, I spent some time working at a tuition centre. One of the skills we learnt was how to “activate schema”. I didn’t understand the concept back then, but the objective was simple. Create an exercise or talking point which will help engage the student (I treated it like turning on the lights in a dim house) — this makes the delivery of your lesson content more effective because the student is “on the same page”.^[12]Schema is basically a theory which has been proposed to explain how we understand things. Given that it was proposed in the 90s and that experimental research only became feasible later on, I remain … Continue reading

Alongside the use of schema, tutors would also set assignments which would test students on specific concepts taught during class (known as  checking for understanding) to see if they’d actually got it. 

But I’ve been thinking about whether there might be a more direct method. If we have a fever, we take it as a symptom, an indication that we might have a viral infection. But the most direct approach is in fact to test for the virus in one’s bloodstream.

What then is the most direct way of determining whether a student has understood something?

Thought Experiment

Suppose we gather a group of students and set them a puzzle. As they try to solve it, we monitor their brainwave activity using electroencephalography. In our case, let’s say the puzzle involves five animals which have to cross the river. Two animals must always be on the boat, and the carnivores on the boat must not outnumber the herbivores.

Once the students think they’ve figured out the solution, they key it in by tapping a button. Let’s call this the “oh I get it” moment, “OIGI” for short. Students who tap the button and get the correct solution are classified as “OIGI-C” (correct) and those who provide an incorrect solution are classified as “OIGI-A” (attempted). Students who don’t tap at all are classified as “ST” (still thinking).

Now we take the brainwave recordings of all the OIGI-C students and do a comparison. Is there a common pattern/level of neural stimulation which can be observed that is not present in the A or ST students?

If the answer is yes, then perhaps understanding^[13]or at least a variant of it which applies to simple problems like the animals crossing the river scenario does have a distinctive neural pattern that allows for identification? The next step would then be to test for the existence of such a pattern in different scenarios. It might be the case that there are different types of understanding. For example, the neural activity involved in solving a maths problem could be different from understanding the concept of carbon dating and using that to explain why metals cannot be carbon dated.

Imaging a scene from the future: as students step into class, the scanner on the door checks their blood glucose level^[14]there’ll be a separate section which talks about neurochemistry and brain performance and logs their neural activity for use as a baseline against neural activity during the class itself.

The content for class is delivered by video. On the side, a teacher monitors the brainwaves of each student for OIGI moments at specific time stamps in the video where a concept is being introduced or has to be applied.

For students who dont display any OIGI moment, the teacher can provide further explanation for the students.

At this point I invite you the reader to question my premise that understanding has, and can be identified by, a particular neural signature. Does the thought experiment work and if so how does it change the way we teach?

2. Comparative meta-learning

The process of reflection begins with a reference point against which we compare our prior thoughts and actions. I find that looking at how other organisms gives me new perspectives on how we as humans learn.

By chance^[15]As part of the backstory, this whole endeavour began on a sleepy afternoon. I was trying to get some work done on my laptop when a reddish black splotch crawled into view – in my impatience I … Continue reading, bees have become one of my reference points.

Studying how bees learn has prompted certain thoughts on how we learn. Here’s one example^[16]if you’re interested in reading the actual paper I have a copy on my Google Drive at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_73BsQvrWK-jCCFfV4bTv2UGUkfLWqJ_/view?usp=sharing:

The experiment is simple. Bees are trained to associate an artificial flower with a reward. Imagine a drop of nectar placed in the core of a plastic sunflower.

Next the sunflower is placed beneath a plastic cover. The cover allows the bees to see the sunflower but prevents them from accessing the nectar directly.

Instead there is a string attached to the sunflower. Tugging this string causes the sunflower to be pulled from under the plastic cover into the open, where the drop of nectar can be accessed. This method of foraging (pulling a string for food) is foreign to the bees so the point of the experiment is about whether bees can pick up a new skill.

291 bees were trained to associate the sunflower with a reward. The flower was first introduced without any plastic cover and then progressively hidden further and further under the cover. 

The bees were then given 5 minutes with the string-sunflower setup. None of the bees managed to extract the flower.

But 25 bees were then given the chance to attempt the setup again. This time, 2 bees were able to figure out on their own that pulling a string gave access to the sunflower and the reward.

A large portion of bees had to be trained sequentially (i.e. step by step from pulling a string to pulling a string under a plastic cover and finally to pulling a string so as to reveal the sunflower from under the plastic cover). Other bees, by observing their peers, also picked up the new foraging technique.

Several thoughts that arise from the above experiment:

• How we learn isn’t really that different from how bees learn — take the idea of sequential training. At the tuition centre I worked at, the tutors were taught to “scaffold”: do a demonstration for the student, handhold the student once, let go of both hands and let the student attempt it alone, et voila~

 

• The inquisitive – those who merely reproduce knowledge outnumber those who generate novel connections between unknown concepts. In the case of bees, such de novo behaviour needs more time^[17]in this I am reminded of the old school classic Grim Fandango, where the answer to the puzzle can be highly unintuitive in many cases and requires one to be irrationally keen to try any method … Continue reading.  This has implications for how we organise lessons — I find the prevailing meta to be content heavy and prescriptive (here’s concept A, learn concept A, apply it).

 

• Learning and understanding – in relation to the 2 bees who managed to figure out how to reach the nectar by pulling on the string, would they be able to pull other types of strings in future experiments and is that ability to apply a concept to other similar situations a mark of understanding?

(6) Autonomous Learning in Moderately Isolated Communities (work in progress)

(7) Entertainment: KY’s Collection of Geriatric Grouses, in Iambic Anyhow-Octameter (work in progress)

Why The Name

The word ellume is a portmanteau of two words: education and illume, the latter meaning “to illuminate”, which can be understood both literally and metaphorically.

In my limited time as a tutor^[18]I do not presume to come anywhere close to being a teacher, those moments where my students’ eyes sparkle with curiosity remain a great source of satisfaction.

To see individuals moved by innate desire to understand the world around them and ponder their place in it;

in healthy exercise of their autonomy with the unspoken and perhaps still unknown object of realising who they really are;

at the end of days that is worth a tear or two;

quickly brushed aside out of embarrassment.

 

 

The story of Darren

 “How would you spend your last day on Earth?”

Those were the words I wrote on the whiteboard.

This was back in 2016. I had spent a couple of weeks of training as a tutor when I got my first assignment. I was to conduct a replacement class on Wednesday for students who couldnt make it for their original lesson that week. Such classes were smaller (less than the usual 8 to 12 students) and often assigned to the rookie tutors.

In fact, on the day itself, I arrived at the centre and was told by the receptionist that there would only be one student.

This was how I met Darren, a 13 year old boy. 

The replacement class was about personal convictions and writing about them in the context of a personal statement.

Eager to put into practice the pedagogical framework that I’d been taught, I designed a primer for the lesson: aliens had offered a tour of the galaxy, and our protagonist had one final day to spend on Earth.

Of course, this galactic tour was actually a veiled reference to death. By emphasising its imminent arrival, I hoped that the student would engage in introspection and that this would draw out some of his deeper convictions.

Darren gave the scenario some thought. He proceeded to explain what he would do:

Play football with his friends.

Wait, what —

It’s your last day on Earth, what about your family? They are the ones who have always been with you — all you want to do is play football with your friends?? How can you —

I was shocked. It wasn’t what I was expecting.

I was about to launch into a full on correction of Darren’s answer; I would provide proper guidance and give examples of real convictions and things which really matter to us.

But at the last moment I stopped myself. Perhaps it was his earnest demeanour. Perhaps it was something else. 

Instead I said:

Okay Darren. So its your last day on Earth and you’d like to spend that time playing football with your friends. Can you tell me why?

What he said shocked me again.

I can only say that the most ardent of football fans could not have done better. Darren gave a fluent expository of the merits of the sport. He organised it into 3 clear themes: strategy, teamwork and camaraderie. And each theme came substantiated with entertaining anecdotes from his own matches. Because Darren was allowed to shape the discourse, he became far more invested in what he was saying.

To this day I’m still not sure why I stopped myself from correcting him at the last minute, but I’m very glad I did.

Darren was my first student. But it was I who came away with an important lesson that day.^[19]Just for the record, it turned out that Darren had had a gathering with his family the day before our class, which was why he picked football as his last activity on Earth — I realised that a … Continue reading