I've been quiet for a while because I've been considering some complicated things while juggling fragments of reality. This particular entry was brought on by advocates of a certain technology in education being unable to prove that technology in education has had a positive impact on educational results.

In one line, this could all be read as educational institutions wondering who moved their cheese. I'm just showing my working.

The societal definition of success arguably changes from one generation to the next. If we ignored the previous generations definitions of success, we could say that the definition of success is democratic. Unfortunately, this is not necessarily so since bureaucracy in institutions has a tendency to mitigate change, and the processes of bureaucracy are built upon societal definitions of success - sometimes surviving many generations.

Historically, this is where revolutions take place - not necessarily the violent revolutions but the successful revolutions. The Industrial revolution. The agricultural revolution. And, if we look at the course of the last century, we might find ourselves living at the tail end of a Democratic revolution.

But when is the last time there was an Educational revolution? A true change in the definition of what academic success is?

While at first I thought that technology improving education was putting the cart before the horse these days, I did not acknowledge that technology may be useful in evolving our definition of success in education.

I think that before the age of 10, every child should be able to:

• Cook a healthy meal. Maybe even tasty. Bonus points: something that they can grow themselves.
• Perform basic first aid.
• Build a basic shelter.
• Read and write.
• Understand and use basic electrical concepts safely.
• Hunt, fish or forage.
• Be capable of simple mathematics.
• Discuss two or more religions and cultures by their commonalities. For all intents and purposes, atheism should be considered a 'religion' in this context.
• Use computing devices.
• Communicate effectively.

Additions?

Sooner or later someone asks you what you would do if you won the lottery. Some people talk about houses, cars and boats - all things that just... sit there.

My answer would be to spend the rest of my life learning and experimenting. The logical progression is wondering what I would be learning and experimenting for the rest of my life.

The easy answer is, 'everything'. And the joy in this day and age is that you don't have to win the lottery to do that, though to do it full time you would have to.

All of that said, if I had to pick things I would study, such as what is served up at a University's menu, I'd pick all of the following:

• Physics: I've always loved Physics. On my bookshelves lurk copies of Sir Isaac Newton's Principia and Opticks. I've read and understood Feynman and Einstein, though that sort of understanding only increases in depth over time.
• NeuroAnything: Neuroscience. Neuropsychology. Neurotics. You get the idea. People don't realize it, but that's where the next big things in our world will come from.
• Optical Engineering: Kind of Physics, but playing with light doesn't have to all be experimental.

Best of all, I'd probably just stay home and order books, correspond with authors/professors, travel around (bump into professors) and learn it without paying tuition. Degrees are basically things you can trade in for jobs - and all too often people do trade them in.

The truth is that I'd probably just bumble around, read and write, hack solutions. Sort of what I do now, only with a budget...

I don't know exactly why, but political and economic camps remain just that - with little or no common ground. There is democracy, and there is communism. There is capitalism, and there is socialism. And, for reasons that defy explanation, they are often viewed as polar opposites.

Consider a democracy like the United States, which also is capitalist. The religion that is dominant in the United States is Christianity, which has the Sermon on the Mount as one of the teachings (in at least some versions of Christianity). So, 'the meek shall inherit the Earth'. Is that statement socialist or democratic? Both. And neither. Democracy gives power to the mob. So does socialism. Where it varies is in the 'how'. Capitalism, as we see it working, takes money away from the mob and gives it to the few. Socialism takes money away from the mob and takes care of the mob.

'All men are created equal'. Socialism? Maybe. Egalitarianism? Yes. Democracy? According to many nations, yes. Communism? Yes.

And yet, each political and economic ideology seems to have trouble coming to grips with all of this. Why? Perhaps because people are too busy defending their camps and attacking the other camps to actually try to find the common ground and move forward.

Random pointer: mobile vulgus is the origin of 'mob'; the movable common people.

The roots of economic and political ideologies all tie to a common factor - people. And each method has it's strengths and weaknesses in either theory or, more usually, practice.

Maybe the best thing to do would be to toss the labels to the wind and actually focus on what is most important to people- after all, that's what started this mess. A return to sanity would be refreshing; all too often I hear that one ism or acy is bad and another ism and acy is good.