Review of the Trikirion of Communication: Symboleracy, Numeracy and Techneracy

The starting point is the phylogeny of communication because the educational topic I am going to address cannot even exist if there is no communication. We have to understand that all Hominins were communicating. Probably all Hominins after Homo Erectus included had some command of some articulated language, but only Homo Sapiens reached the comprehensive and sustainable command of the fully-articulated language, probably around 200,000 BCE. The next great stage is the development of representational and symbolic inscriptions and paintings or engravings on all durable media available, rockface in caves, stone, bone, ivory, and tusks. This symbolic transcription of stories and experience, maybe some spiritual language accompanying some rituals, is the first form of writing seen as symbolic transcription and going back to 300,000 BCE with Homo Naledi, 100,000 BCE with Homo Neanderthalensis, and 50,000 with Homo Sapiens. Syllabic and alphabetical writing only came around 3,500 BCE for Homo Sapiens. There might have been older cases, but archaeology has not yet covered the whole world for all types of symbolic inscriptions that could have led to symbolic phonetic writing. The next stage was the printing press which enabled mass education and mass communication. The next stage is the digital age as the most advanced form of the mechanical development of oral and written communication, the latest development being Generative Artificial Intelligence. In this modern age, education has to shift completely from teacher-centered education to guided self-learning which is based on 1- The self-learner’s desires; 2- The self-learner’s choices; 3- Teamwork; 4- The freedom of expression, tolerance, and discussion, and the freedom of emotional intelligence; 5- Motivation; 6- No disruptive self-learners, only disruptive treatment of self-learners; 7- All tools available to all self-learners with NO restrictions; 8- Flexibility: top self-learners, average midway self-learners, students with special needs and differently-abled students, Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development, Guide-Coach-Teacher’s flexible self-learning; 9- Systematic recap and discussion of achieved self-learning at the end of each phase; 10- Multi-ism and Pluri-ism. This article presents a globalizing vision of about 65 years of experience in education in many countries and many circumstances. The main methodological procedure is to capture the phylogeny of what I am studying, meaning the inner logic and processing that makes all these phenomena sustainable: at every step in the development, the phenomena themselves produce the means and energy that enable the next step to emerge. Language is a self-developing communicational tool, and communication itself is a self-developing behavioral competence.