It’s all relative, really. Back then technology wasn’t nearly as high-efficiency as it is today, but that doesn’t necessarily mean people all over the world learned a lot slower. In that same respect, although today’s technology in education reaches higher than anything in history, it doesn’t mean we as the human race learn faster. So then the question remains, and it may be a question that will never be sufficiently answered for as long as the Earth still spins around our sun: Has Education Gotten Better?
You have to get into the real root of education and realize that as time passes, so does what we learn.
Back when everyone thought the sun revolved around the world, all the parchment in schools and writing utensils pretty clearly taught that. It was the norm. How to cook was pretty typical, and when you were a resident of the Renaissance, the liberal arts were paramount.
Astronomy came into the forefront. We learned more about what exists out there in the universe. We learned that it’s not the sun that revolves around us; it’s us that revolves around the sun! Education evolves.
This is to say that our way of learning doesn’t get ‘better.’ We learned just as efficiently in history as we do today. But if you’re talking about the kind of education we receive, you can definitely say this one thing:
It has gotten better. Because what we learn ultimately expands more and more into the unknown — from the early theories of history to the better recognized mantras of the present. And it will keep getting better so long as we keep learning.
