HE ideas: Medieval Time Travel

Tomorrowland, Dr. Who and Back to the Future are all examples of Science Fiction that borrow ideas from H.G.Wells' The Time Machine - one of the first novels of its kind.

Each story, in its own way, faces the dilemma of potentially changing the future by acting on information gained through time travel in the present or the past.

PICTURE BY TWOBEE AT FREEDIGITALPHOTOS.NET

Without a DeLorean, Tardis or handy Wormhole, however, few of us can know, with certainty, what the future will bring.  The further into the future we step, the more uncertain things become.

And yet educators prepare young people for future careers that neither they nor their students can possibly know will exist.  Employers have been heard to say that they have to get their new recruits to "unlearn" what they absorbed at University, technical subject knowledge becomes out of date, although basic concepts do remain longer until they are challenged.

So what learning pervades?

Our ancestors, the ancient Greeks, Romans and Medieval Universities across Europe had it - Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric.  The combination of expressing thought, thinking and then using the product to persuade, teach, and motivate others.

In order to prepare our students for the future, our Time Machine should visit the past, understand how the Trivium (Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric) can be moulded to today's educational demands and then prepare programmes of study that contextualise these virtues in Art, Engineering, Management etc.

Oh, you're already doing that?  Bravo!