Is Socratic convo biologically primary or secondary learning?

started. So yeah, always good to see you, Ilana. So what I've been thinking about is there's a distinction in learning. So, you know, as an educator, I'm very interested in learning. There's a distinction in learning between the kinds of things we learn naturally and spontaneously, such as our first language. You know, you didn't need to be taught English. I didn't need to be taught English. People grow up in Spanish-speaking countries, don't need to be taught Spanish. In China, they don't need to be taught Chinese. You know, our first language just happens naturally. Makes sense?

Yes, like immersion, kind of.

Yeah, although also there's the fact that, um, when we're young children, our minds are kind of optimized for learning. So yes, immersion, absolutely. And I think immersion for somebody, for a baby and then a child, is different than immersion for somebody who's an adult. It is similar immersion for sure, but also your brain is kind of optimized at a certain age for learning languages, or your first language anyway. But then on the other— so that's called a biologically primary way to learn, or kind of learning. Because, you know, we evolved to learn a language from our parents and the people around us. And maybe at the other extreme is math, where almost nobody kind of on their own just starts learning math. They might, you know, in a society where people counted and things like that, they might learn a little bit, but mostly math seems to be something that needs to be taught and needs to be studied. And it's not just spontaneously learned. Does that make sense?

Yes.

Okay, well, let me— I'm going to put something in the chat. Um, so Geary was— this is from a scholarly article I'm reading. Do you know what scholarly articles are?

Um, I'm assuming it's a website, but no, I don't.

No, no, in general, um, you know, when people study things at universities. Some of them go on to get PhDs, and then some of the PhDs go on to do research, sometimes at universities, sometimes at think tanks or other kind of institutions. But then they— when they study things as PhDs, then they write articles. Doesn't have to be a PhD to write articles, but a lot of them are because they're the people that have full-time, you know, leisure to write articles. But they study and write these articles in academic journals and, um, that's kind of the main model for how new knowledge is developed in our society. Does that make sense?

Yes.

Um, so at any rate, uh, yeah, uh, I, I have been reading academic articles on this, scholarly, scholarly, kind of, I'm interchanging scholarly and academic, and so there is, uh, the article I'm reading now says that This is from the text in the sidebar in the chat: "Giri's evolutionary approach in educational psychology differentiates between primary and secondary knowledge." I'm skipping over the parenthetical, but the primary are things like the first language acquisition, which is natural and spontaneous, and the secondary are things like mathematics. Before we go into the parenthetical clauses, does, uh, do you have any questions about the sentence without the parenthetical clauses?

No, no questions.

Does it make sense why, um, this would be described as an evolutionary approach?

Maybe just because people, uh, evolved to speak, or evolved a necessity to learn those skills naturally.

Totally, totally makes sense. And then does it make sense to, uh, say why this would be described as educational psychology?

Um, I'm not— I think I unders— I understand why, but I don't really know how to put it into words.

No problem. I would say, you know, psychology is the study of how the human mind works, and this is how the human work— human mind works with respect to education. So not a big deal, but I was just checking because this has a lot of, you know, fancy words and fancy language, just checking to make sure the overall frame was making sense to you before digging into the parenthetical clauses. So then what they say about the primary knowledge is that it has low cognitive costs and a motivational advantage that what they say about the secondary knowledge, things like math, is that it has high cognitive costs and no motivational benefit. Do you have any idea what they mean by this distinction between low cognitive costs and high cognitive costs on the one hand, and motivational advantage and no motivational benefit on the other?

Well, how I envisioned, uh, high co— the cost, high cognitive, high cognitive cost is, um, I, I guess I kind of, uh, linked it to spending money just because that's how I thought of it. It's like the high cognitive costs, like learning math, that costs more for your brain than maybe learning your first language does.

Does that make intuitive sense?

Yeah, I think so.

Um, no, that's exactly right. And, uh, yeah, kind of the idea, to put it in different languages, uh, In general, when babies are learning their first language, it seems to be effortless. You know, at 1 and 2, you know, they're imitating mom and dad and so forth. And then they gradually start— have you been— well, you were around your brother. Do you remember when your brother was learning to speak at all?

I thought it was really normal when he didn't talk, and then when he started talking, I thought— I also thought it was really normal. So I do remember it, but looking back now, it's like, wow, I never— I never noticed that he was actually learning. But I don't remember for sure.

Yeah, no, it is kind of amazing because, you know, they start trying sounds and gradually the sounds slowly become kind of words. And did they actually say mom and dad or are they just, you know, mumbling, whatever? And then eventually, wow, real words and then eventually real sentences. But kind of going back to low cognitive costs, it doesn't seem like, you know, you picture somebody trying to study math. I know, let's go to the highest cognitive cost for the contrast. When you are learning math or Harvard CS50, would you say you really, you have to put effort out and it's, as it were, you have to focus your brain? And does the concept of high cognitive costs make sense in learning math or programming?

For sure, yes.

And just to kind of play around with the So effort, I'm thinking of effort. I know that when you train for jiu-jitsu and wrestling, you're putting out a tremendous amount of effort physically. That is, I imagine there's some times when your body would kind of like to say, I just like to sit and relax, but instead you push yourself to do the thing. Is that accurate?

Yes.

And so with respect to learning math or programming, would you say part of your mind would like to just hang out and watch a video or something, but instead you've got to force your mind to do the thing.

Yeah, that's actually a good analogy, like watching a tablet or TV or something.

Okay. Um, so yeah, and does it make sense that that's a very difference in the way a child like your brother— would you say it never looked like he had to do this, have to study the thing, when he was learning how to speak?

Yeah, for sure. He just kind of picked it up.

Yeah, so that's, that's why I'm very interested in this primary— and not just me, a lot of educational psychologists are interested in these biologically primary kinds of learning, like first language acquisition. That's a major one, but I would say— well, I'll ask you, can you think of any, anything else that we pick up spontaneously as young children?

Walking.

There you go. Exactly. It's not like we have to have today's lesson in how to walk. Now do, you know, 5 reps of walking. You know, basically they just start doing it. So yeah, and those, those are the kind of big ones probably. But you know, if we thought through, we could probably find other examples of you know, the difference between, say, yourself and a 1-year-old, you can do all kinds of things. You know, just I'm thinking of our hands. You know, 1-year-olds are not really great at using their hands to grab things and so forth. And all the motions, both physically and mentally, you and I have so many more capabilities than a 1-year-old has, many of which are not taught. Then in addition to, say, the math and computer science, what are some other examples of things that are biologically secondary, that, that is, they require effort to learn and do not come naturally?

Um, one that comes to mind, even though it's not as complicated as just, for example, math, is reading. Because I know you do have to be taught to read. It's not something that just comes natural, even though you do learn it at a younger age and it might be easier to learn because it's more simple than math, but it isn't natural.

Um, how long did it take you? Do you remember learning to read at all?

Um, to be honest, I don't remember learning how to read, but I remember reading my first chapter book.

Got it. Um, but yeah, learning to read is, is another common example because In general, it doesn't seem to come naturally. And, you know, your dad has the second verse of the ABCs and so forth, and it seems to be something that we need to be taught. So, no, that's a great example. Any other examples come to mind of biologically secondary learning?

Well, there's a bunch. Maybe learning how to drive when you're older.

Yeah, we're not born learning how to drive. It's not like learning how to walk. There are a lot of things we need to learn to be taught. In which case, we've prepared the ground for the conversation that I wanted to start today. We don't have time to go deeply, but given that continuum between biologically primary learning and biologically secondary learning, effortless things like learning to walk and talk on the one hand, and hard things like, you know, math, computer science, perhaps learning to read and drive in the initial stages. Where would you place, um, Socratic dialogue? Is it more like biologically primary or more like biologically secondary or something else entirely?

I think if you define Socratic dialogue as having intelligible conversations with somebody, then I, I think In hindsight, it should come natural because it's just talking, right? It's just having conversation. But I feel like for a lot of kids, they don't do that. There are people around them don't make them do that. So maybe they could think of it as like hard work having a— like, or talking about something like we are right now. But I think in the end, it's just talking and thinking. So Maybe it would be one of those low cognitive cost things, but I guess it depends on the topic, because if you're thinking about the brain spending money, then it could go high, could go low.

Um, with Sia, your, your student, um, do you think it seems to be mostly primary or secondary, or does it go back and forth depending on your conversation with him?

I think it goes back and forth because sometimes there are easy questions or topics, and other times it's a little, maybe a little more challenging and he has to really think about it.

Um, does it make sense why I would be interested in this particular question of to what extent biologically primary versus to what extent biologically secondary Socratic dialogue is?

Well, you are the Socratic dialogue guy, I guess, but I think it also just might be interesting to know whether or not it comes naturally to people or whether or not it should come naturally to people.

Thank you. Totally agree. So again, I want to keep these short because people have short attention spans. But yeah, now we're kind of set up to have a deeper conversation on this in the future at some point. So which day is your competition next week? Is it Saturday, Sunday, or both?

Both.

Okay, so we'll probably skip next week.

Uh, most likely, but depending on the time, maybe I can still hop on. I'll talk to my case.

Uh, if I don't see you, really, uh, of course I don't say good luck because it's not a matter of luck, but may your, uh, maybe the Force be with you. How about that?

Thank you.

Okay. All right. Bye-bye, Alana.

Bye. See you later.