The rapid growth of information in all areas of human activity has led to the point where it is essentially impossible to obtain a “one-time” education that would be sufficient for successful professional activity throughout one’s life. Therefore, the main goal of modern education is to teach how to learn.
Valery Nikiforov, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences
This relatively new educational paradigm means that many who have already received certificates and diplomas were not taught how to learn. Therefore, those who were “not taught to learn” need to learn how to learn themselves. This text will discuss how to do this optimally.
The initial thesis: one can only learn how to learn after initially mastering fundamental scientific knowledge, i.e., moving from the general to the specific and individual – for effective self-education, a certain, sufficiently structured foundation is necessary. Such a foundation must be a scientific worldview.
Worldview
The numerous and very diverse pieces of knowledge about the world that we acquire in school and university, from everyday experience, professional activities, mass media, and other sources can vary in content and degree of reliability. However, a reliable, true picture of the world can only be built on reliable foundational knowledge. The guarantee of the truth of any knowledge is the scientific method of obtaining it. That is why the initial basis for the desire to learn how to learn can only be a scientific worldview.
Objectively, i.e., independently of human consciousness and humanity, there are three worlds: the world of things; the world of representations; and the world of activities.
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The world of things – this includes the seas, forests, mountains, animals, plants, etc. (the world of nature), as well as buildings, structures, cars, bicycles, jeans, cocktails, etc. (the world of “second nature,” created by humans).
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The world of representations: images of the world of things, which are not copies of the originals, i.e., the things themselves – grass does not possess the property of “being green,” salt is not salty – we call salty the result of the impact of sodium chloride on our receptors; our representations are a synthesis of the properties of things and the properties of our psyche.
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The world of activities – the totality of human actions that change the world of things based on the world of representations about them.
The concept of the existence of “three worlds” allows us not only to realize the absurdity of the popular expression “I will tell you one thing…” but also to understand:
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the inadmissibility of using the concepts of “truth” and “correctness” as synonyms;
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the fundamental difference between the laws of science, as reflections of objective regularities of the world of things, and the laws of law, as regulators (rules) of the world of activities;
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the justification for voting (in parliaments, for example) on some issues and the inadmissibility of this on others...
From Knowledge to Understanding
“We all learned a little, something and somehow…” wrote A.S. Pushkin in the early 19th century. Today, at the beginning of the 21st century, each of us possesses a significantly larger volume of knowledge than the best encyclopedists of that time. A bearer of knowledge, if not in the head, then in the pocket, where the phone lies.
But it is not enough to extract the necessary information from one database or another; it is essential to assess its degree of reliability (truth), regroup it, and adapt it to the arising question or problem being solved. However, this is not taught much, so one must learn it themselves.
Effective self-education is not only the expansion of the circle of knowledge but also the deepening of its understanding. One can know without understanding, but understanding always implies knowledge. It is possible and necessary to understand texts (judgments that describe representations) and objects, processes, and phenomena of reality (the world of things and the world of activities). To understand a text means to reconstruct the meaning embedded in it by its author. To understand a phenomenon of reality means to realize its place and role in the existence of humanity.
Characterizing the modern situation from the perspective of understanding the information used, there are grounds to assert that many talk a lot, everyone knows something, some know almost everything, and almost no one understands anything.
It is impossible to understand everything, but one can only successfully use what is understood.
From Knowledge Through Understanding to Skill
Effective self-education is a sequential mastery of information at the following different levels: knowledge – skills – abilities – professional activity programs.
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Knowledge – conscious and figurative reproduction of previously acquired information.
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Skills – the ability to regroup and adapt existing information.
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Abilities – the ability to use existing information to solve practical tasks or to independently obtain new information using the existing one.
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Professional activity programs – the ability to find effective solutions based on existing knowledge, skills, and abilities in conditions of information scarcity.
The listed levels of information mastery represent a hierarchy – each subsequent level includes the previous one but is not reduced to it.
How to use this and what does it give? First of all, one must learn to recognize at what level the bearer of information possesses it. For example, we often observe how a general, very non-specific answer is given to a specifically posed question.
If this is done unintentionally (which happens with businessmen, politicians, and other mortals), one can conclude: the respondent possesses the information necessary for the answer only at the level of knowledge. But they are unable to regroup and adapt the information they have to the given question. Naturally, those answering are not able to practically use this information to solve specific problems and tasks.
Of course, none of us can possess all the information available to us at all the mentioned levels. For example, a businessman only needs to have a general understanding (i.e., to possess the corresponding information at the knowledge level) of the systems of political organization of society or philosophical concepts of the meaning of life, but they must elevate their knowledge of economics and management theory to the highest levels of information mastery – abilities and professional activity programs.
