Empiricus

Who was Empiricus and what is Empirical Education? Sextus Empiricus was a philosopher in ancient Rome who promoted ideas of rigorous thinking. One of the big things Empiricus promoted was the idea that we should suspend a permanent sense of judgement about how things are and skeptically consider and improve our position. If we are using inherited models, simulations, and training exercises to explore the world, this is hard. But if we actually observe nature, use sensors to directly find out about the world, and employ rigorous analysis, we can learn not just for us, but for humanity. This is true in research communities as well as in education communities. In fact, using these methods they merge into the same thing, as we would expect in a society where our K12 system integrates with higher education careers as we all face the challenges that the natural world presents to humanity.

Modern Empirical Education is not just following the teachings of this ancient philosopher, but they are inspired by his efforts in this area. Empirical Education as we know it today is integrating data gathering from the natural world into the learning process, just as we would in scientific research. Then, much like Empiricus himself, we can consider how we can confirm the rigor and meaning of our data, and apply it to making the human situation better.

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