Learning

Welcome once again to World at War With Itself.

Julie Finchscay with you again.

Hello.

This week we are looking at learning one of those things in life that involves everyone.

It is amazing how many different opinions people have on learning and because of this I

decided to ask several people about their thoughts on the subject.

I asked everyone the same question and I'm sure you will find their answers interesting.

The first question I asked was, what are your thoughts about learning as a child as well

as an adult?

I think you can learn in different ways and it varies according to person to person.

Well, as a professional educator for 43 years, while interest has always been in the

age question, life long learning as we say and my feeling is that the sooner human beings

get learning, it never stops.

It goes forever.

We need inclusive minds, people who are furious, who want to know why things happen, how

things happen and to keep educating themselves to the last day they are on earth.

I have always been interested in learning, I have been very inquisitive as a child, still

inquisitive as an adult, learning is life long, just a part of living.

Yeah, look, I remember, still remember things about my formal education, about primary

school and high school and I think there was highlights that always come to mind even

though they weren't necessarily important at the time.

I've always had a good memory for trivia and facts that I've learned and I think I

learned a lot of facts in my school days.

Right, when I was a child I just went to school and enjoyed the schooling that I had, never

thought back learning, it just happened and as an adult I think you wished that you had

done more.

Well, when I was a child I absolutely loved school, I really loved learning.

As an adult I think, I think we never stop learning and I think that once we stop learning

we've stopped really living.

To me personally education is vital and right up to the rest of your life, I think you should

always be hoping up to learning.

Yeah, I think it's something you should always be trying to do, I don't think it's something

that starts and stops necessarily, at least for me it's really important that I'm always

learning something new.

Yeah, whether you're a kid or an adult I think that's always important.

This is a second question I asked, do you think life experiences are just as important

as formal education?

In fact, I think that life experience is probably more important than education, although I

think a good education gives you the ability to take advantage of life experiences.

I don't think they're the same.

I think that the way our society is structured and our economy is structured, that the formalities

of getting certificates and pieces of paper demand that people jump through certain groups

succeed at certain examination levels and assessment and that that will open the door

for their working life substantially.

I think maybe life experience becomes more important than this we get on the road.

Not always, I believe formal education really lays the groundwork so you can have better

life experiences.

Look, I think both are important, life experience certainly is something which is ongoing which

means that you adapt the way you think about things to the way life is.

Your formal education gives you a framework for thinking about things, but I think I can

identify things in my actual life which are relevant to those things.

There's a difference between theoretical learning and physical learning and not everyone

learns in the same way and some people learn better through going out and doing things

whereas others learn better through books.

I think your experiences apart from in a library are just as important.

Yes, I'd say in some cases probably more important than formal education.

I think you definitely need both to live fully, you need to have both.

And the final question was, what is the most important thing you feel everyone should

learn?

How to love and live and get along with people, even if you may not like them or even

agree with them, you are on the same planet and we need to get along.

I think kindness is the most important thing that we should really try to develop in

our lives.

I think people should learn how to relax, how to be able to turn off from serious things,

there's a lot of serious things nowadays and I think it's good to be informed and to

be active in trying to change things or reinforce things but it's also important that you're

able to turn off and sleep properly and relax at times and have fun as well.

I think everyone should learn first is to be taught by your parents manners.

The most important thing is to be literate and numerate.

How to read.

How to read and the art of reading if you like and writing to a slightly lesser extent.

I feel you can give so many different right answers to that because for example at school

I really enjoyed history but whether that's the most important thing anyone can learn,

I'm not so sure on, for example something I've talked about a lot with my partner is

that something we didn't learn at school was stuff like budgeting and like how to manage

your finances which then a lot we have struggled with and a lot of our friends have struggled

with and it wasn't taught in school to us so that's also really important.

I don't think there's anyone on so.

I'd like to thank Greg, Chris, Sally and Karen as well as Nicky, Marilyn, Stuart and

Andy for assisting me with this episode.

I do hope you found their thoughts about learning to be enlightening.

Until next week this is Julie Finch, Scali from a world up all with itself signing off.

Please join me then.