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Society

Essays and videos on social issues, history, political life and the future
Unschooling | Aeon
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Education

Unschooling

It takes nerve to go against the grain and take your child out of school. But, for some, that’s when learning really starts

Naomi Fisher & Heidi Steel

Hitozukuri | Aeon
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Education

Hitozukuri

Japan’s Cold War education policy used religion to ‘make’ the ideal humans needed by its nascent economy. Did it work?

Jolyon Baraka Thomas

Learning styles don’t exist | Aeon
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Teaching and learning

Learning styles don’t exist

A teaching approach that is based on students’ preferences sounds laudable. But this misunderstands how learning happens

Carl Hendrick

Philosophy’s blindspot | Aeon
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Philosophy of mind

Philosophy’s blindspot

Education has long been ignored by contemporary philosophers. That is a myopic view that must change

David Bakhurst

Many wisdoms | Aeon
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Self-improvement

Many wisdoms

There are no transcendent insights that rise above human difference. Yet wisdom exists if we look in the right places

Avram Alpert

Views from everywhere | Aeon
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History of ideas

Views from everywhere

Academic philosophy can indeed make sense of our interdependent world. But only if it transforms by becoming truly diverse

Monika Kirloskar-Steinbach & Leah Kalmanson

Great books are still great | Aeon
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Stories and literature

Great books are still great

Read with love, rather than critical distance, the classics can provide tools to subvert oppressive hierarchies

Roosevelt Montás

In a lion | Aeon
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Animals and humans

An unflinching look at a provocative public dissection of a ‘surplus’ zoo lion

13 minutes

Sex on the curriculum | Aeon
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Education

Sex on the curriculum

Sex education is a battlefield over morals and young bodies, and has exposed fractures in American life for over a century

Kristy Slominski

Jefferson’s university | Aeon
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Education

Jefferson’s university

Thomas Jefferson founded a university believing it would safeguard republican freedom. Slavery was another matter altogether

Alan Taylor

We’re all teenagers now | Aeon
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Childhood and adolescence

We’re all teenagers now

Adolescence isn’t a time of life so much as a frame of mind. Liberating yet damaging, it’s transformed the US and the world

Paul Howe

Everything you wanted to know about sudden birth (but were afraid to ask) | Aeon
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Film and visual culture

Shoddy filmmaking meets the miracle of life in a police training film turned cult classic

11 minutes

Pause. Reflect. Think | Aeon
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Thinkers and theories

Pause. Reflect. Think

Susan Stebbing’s little Pelican book on philosophy had a big aim: giving everybody tools to think clearly for themselves

Peter West

How to be a genius | Aeon
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Cognition and intelligence

How to be a genius

I travelled the world and trawled the archive to unearth the hidden lessons from history’s most brilliant people

Craig Wright

The meaning of a monument | Aeon
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Global history

The American Museum of Natural History grapples with its most controversial piece

16 minutes

Education, unchained | Aeon
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Education

Education, unchained

Rousseau’s child-centred ideals are now commonplace but his truly radical vision of educational freedom still eludes us

James Brooke-Smith

We need highly formal rituals in order to make life more democratic | Aeon
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Rituals and celebrations

We need highly formal rituals in order to make life more democratic

Antone Martinho-Truswell

I was homeschooled for eight years: here’s what I recommend | Aeon
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Teaching and learning

I was homeschooled for eight years: here’s what I recommend

Mordechai Levy-Eichel

The scholar’s vocation | Aeon
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Education

The scholar’s vocation

A century ago, Weber both diagnosed the ills of the corporatised, modern university, and pointed out the path beyond it

Chad Wellmon

Why lifelong learning is the international passport to success | Aeon
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Education

Why lifelong learning is the international passport to success

Pierre Vandergheynst & Isabelle Vonèche Cardia

Summerhill | Aeon
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Teaching and learning

The school where children make the rules and learn what they want to learn

28 minutes

Africa, in its fullness | Aeon
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Global history

Africa, in its fullness

The West focuses only on slavery, but the history of Africa is so much more than a footnote to European imperialism

Toby Green

Is there anything especially expert about being a philosopher? | Aeon
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Knowledge

Is there anything especially expert about being a philosopher?

David Egan

Pluck versus luck | Aeon
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Education

Pluck versus luck

Meritocracy emphasises the power of the individual to overcome obstacles, but the real story is quite a different one

David Labaree