School
Learning
Overview
Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behavior, skills, values, attitudes, and preferences. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, other animals, and some machines. There is also evidence for some kind of learning in certain plants. Some learning is immediate, induced by a single event (e.g. being burned by a hot stove), but much skill and knowledge accumulate from repeated experiences. The changes induced by learning often last a lifetime, and it is hard to distinguish learned material that seems to be "lost" from that which cannot be retrieved.
Human learning begins at birth and may even start before birth and continues until death as a consequence of ongoing interactions between people and their environment. The nature and processes involved in learning are studied in many established fields (including educational psychology, neuropsychology, experimental psychology, Cognitive science, and pedagogy), as well as emerging fields of knowledge (e.g. with a shared interest in the topic of learning from safety events such as incidents or accidents, or in collaborative learning health systems). Research in such fields has led to the significant identification of various sorts of learning. For example, learning may occur as a result of habituation, or classical conditioning, operant conditioning or as a result of more complex activities such as play, seen only in more cognitively complex animals. Learning may occur consciously or without conscious awareness. Learning that an aversive event cannot be avoided or escaped may result in a condition called learned helplessness. There is evidence for human behavioral learning prenatally, in which habituation has been observed as early as 32 weeks into gestation, indicating that the central nervous system is sufficiently developed and primed for learning and memory to occur very early on in development.
Play has been approached by several theorists as a form of learning. Children experiment with the world, learn the rules, and learn to interact through play. Lev Vygotsky agrees that play is pivotal for children's development, since they make meaning of their environment through playing educational games. For Vygotsky, however, play is the first form of learning language and communication, and the stage where a child begins to understand rules and symbols. This has led to a view that learning in organisms is always related to semiosis, and is often associated with representational systems/activity.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Learning is discussed.
Probably the greatest and commonest mistake that we all make is to forget that learning is a necessary incident of dealing with real situations. We even go so far as to assume that the mind is naturally averse to learning--which is like assuming that the digestive organs are averse to food and have either to be coaxed or bullied into having anything to do with…
John Dewey, Schools of to-morrow
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
(4) The wisdom touching negotiation or business hath not been hitherto collected into writing, to the great derogation of learning and the professors of learning. For from this root springeth chiefly that note or opinion, which by us is expressed in adage to this effect, that there is no great concurrence between learning and wisdom. For of the three wisdoms which we have set down to pertain to civil life, for…
Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning
names the idea; states what it is; the book is about it; opens on it
If we go back a few centuries, we find a practical monopoly of learning. The term _possession_ of learning is, indeed, a happy one. Learning was a class matter. This was a necessary result of social conditions. There were not in existence any means by which the multitude could possibly have access to intellectual resources.
John Dewey, The school and society
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
For what is talent but a name for an older piece of learning, experience, exercise, appropriation, and incorporation, perhaps as far back as the times of our ancestors, or even earlier! And again: he who learns forms his own talents, only learning is not such an easy matter and depends not only upon our willingness, but also upon our being able to learn at all. Jealousy often prevents this in an artist, or that…
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Dawn of Day
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
If pure learning is to survive as one of the purposes of universities, it will have to be brought into relation with the life of the community as a whole, not only with the refined delights of a few gentlemen of leisure. I regard disinterested learning as a matter of great importance, and I should wish to see its place in academic life increased, not diminished. Both in England and in America, the main force tending…
Bertrand Russell, Education and the good life
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
Philosophers who discussed Learning
Related ideas
- Educational psychology
- Artificial intelligence
- Operant conditioning
- Culture
- Neuroplasticity
- Neuron
- Teaching
- Understanding
- Motivation
- Knowledge
- Preference
- Memory
- Neuroimaging
- Attitude (psychology)
- Experimental psychology
- Brain
- Pedagogy
- Behavior
- Chess
- Ivan Pavlov
- Stimulation
- Cognitive science
- Consciousness
- Episodic memory
Place in the tradition
Part of Consciousness.