Learning is known to be complete when we notice a permanent change in the behaviour of an individual after an educational process or experience. The brain creates neural pathways of whatever it practices, like something being said or being done repeatedly, but these get weak and eventually disappear without reinforcement.
The kids didn’t learn taking stress at school but as adults live in stress at the workplace. Why??
Formal education and Real Life Learning
In psychology whatever upgrade that happens as one grows in age is not considered to be learning, only those experiences or lessons taught as parts of a formal process are. In other words, only that which can be tested through objective methodology and be proven are considered as learning.
For any academic topic, formal definitions have been theorised. In science, and even in psychology, theories are formed after a minimum number of specified tests are conducted and the learning can be generalised to a large extent, so that the theory can lead to it’s application in real life. Automatic learning does not form a part of formal learning.
In real life though, informal learning as part of ageing, plays a large role in adding maturity and depth to one’s personality and character. Children grow up learning through informal efforts of teaching as part of their growth. Another example of natural and effortless learning is the formation of culture as a community or a group of people. As part of civilisation, cultures have grown and matured with time through experiences more than formal education.
Can we not include these aspects of real life learning in formal education? The world is very different at the workplace than the school. It is even hard to make real friends and trust people there. The transition from school to the workplace is very shaky and can kick start the process of stress creation. How about including this thought seriously into the kid’s education.
From School to Workplace
Therefore, as part of formal school education and training of the younger generation can we make education a subjective process for them to learn what we want them to? Just learning languages and concepts in mathematics, science and social sciences cannot assure the goal of ‘complete’ learning. What about character and attitude that create our personality? Can we focus on ensuring that the learning mechanism doesn’t harm the self-esteem of the learning child but rather enhance it?
The self-esteem of children gets hurt right in the childhood as they learn that their identity is a relative concept based on comparision. Children, not students, learn that whatever innate talent they might have, it means nothing if it doesn’t fall in the criterion that the society approves, particularly scores in studies as was the case historically in the past decades. In the past few years, it is nice to see the scope of appreciation expanding from studies to sports, singing, art and some more areas although ironically most are still called unconventional areas of expertise.
We give scores to children and judge them but who will appraise educators on their success ratio on happy human beings being produced? Add to it least resources to upgrade knowledge and absolutely outdated curricula, which hurts the most in professional studies. For example, manufacturing hiring is hugely upset with the lack of basic knowledge that fresh engineers have about their real work. The poor general knowledge of an average educated individual is another testimony to the irrelevance of our curriculum. One is compelled to ask – why do we still choose to sleep as a human society?
We need to alarmed to see why little kids commit suicides and others living in isolation and stress from a tender age. We need to update students on the challenges that they can face when they work with other people at the workplace. It is well known that friendships that get formed at school are from the heart but those at the workplace are mostly based on selfish needs. These are not reliable as school friendships. Can the school focus on helping children to learn creating lasting relationships based on good work, sharing and support? Can the school teach the children how to deal with failure and learn to be mentally strong rather than already judging and stereotyping them on the basis of marks? The to be adults need to be taught how not to follow the herd and become a selfish individual but stand up for themselves in times of adversity and also help others do that.
Can the learning process create a curious learner forever and not let a couple of formal degrees satisfy the willingness to learn. Why do we see people around us with high formal education behaving like pseudo-intellectuals full of arrogance and behaviour brimming with rudeness? Is there something wrong with the learning mechanism of humans? Are we paying the price for missing the most important piece of the learning process – the self development attitude in every child?
How can formal education help in reducing the widespread workplace stress in offices today which WHO calls the biggest occupational hazard today? What will be the state of human society if one lives in stress for majority of waking hours? If we as a society, which includes school and parents both, start creating free minds, we will be justifying our role as responsible adults.
Finally, we need to create young kids into adults with high self-esteem who know how to create success with holistic happiness in place?
0 Comments