Once you’ve acquired your diploma and stepped foot into the real world, you’ll notice one universal truth: learning doesn’t truly end.
Crafting academic theses, working on research papers and attending seminars all progress your education, but they’re not the only avenues for gaining knowledge.
The world has many distinct activities and perspectives that all have the potential of becoming the next thing to occupy your time and effort.
To make the most of your passion, whether it’s a physical or mental activity, you’ll need to be in the right frame of mind to absorb and truly excel in your chosen field of interest.
Let’s dive into how educational theory can help you stay curious and enlightened, no matter your age.
Passing through life’s stages
Life can often be sliced into different milestones. Your birth, your first kiss, your graduation, your wedding day, your first child, a family loss and so on.
While all of us are expected to undergo different experiences based on our genetics and environmental upbringing (and our milestones, as a result), there are core human experiences that all of us tend to go through as we pass through life’s stages.
According to Jean Piaget, a 20th-century developmental psychologist, humans go through four distinct phases of growth during their lives.
The sensorimotor stage
This stage spans from birth to age two. During the sensorimotor stage, a child learns through movement and play.
The preoperational stage
It occurs when a child is between two and six years old. They can’t yet mentally manipulate information or abstract concepts, because of their limited cognitive reasoning abilities.
The concrete operational stage
From age seven to eleven, children can finally manipulate mental concepts.
The formal operational stage
Starting from the age of 11 onwards, children can think abstractly and logically, and reason scientifically.
3 benefits of educational theory
Education is a powerful tool at any age. It can change and enlighten your mind, as well as the lives of those around you. However, finding the time to indulge yourself in learning new things can be challenging.
If you’re a student, then attending school and studying for exams will be a daily activity. If you work in the field of education as a professor or college instructor, academic learning will be a big part of your job.
As for everyone else, there are still opportunities to learn new things outside of academic spaces. It simply takes the right motivation and interest in a given topic.
The inclusion of educational theory in your daily life can help you stay curious and enlightened in a practical way. It provides the learner with an intricate understanding of the human mind, so you’ll know how to stimulate it to gain something from your efforts.
Here are three major benefits of learning educational theory:
It provides new ways to look at old subjects
Most individuals who go through the conventional education system are highly familiar with basic arithmetic and the planets in the solar system.
But education isn’t only about accumulating common knowledge. It’s also about being able to utilize our cognitive abilities to the best of our ability. This means being able to think critically in the face of ambiguous and complex disciplines.
For instance, the realm of literature and art can be very subjective. It’s often up to the individual to interpret and express their ideas and perspectives through written or visual forms of expression. Having a solid theoretical understanding, therefore, gives you a strong basis for analyzing and connecting the abstract parts of every piece of work that you study.
That being said, learning educational theories can also bolster your ability to think critically and act with empathy, even when you’re faced with seemingly unfamiliar challenges. Knowing how to support your own claims is one way to reap the fruits of quality learning.
It gives you a deeper appreciation for life
Actively learning helps us gain perspective on the world at large. Whether it’s by learning a new language, a new culinary recipe or a new form of art, learning something new is a prerequisite for creating something worthwhile.
And this isn’t just about trying out something that’s outside your comfort zone or exposing yourself to different cultures and traditions. It also involves understanding the society we live in and how we as connected individuals operate within the realm of this world.
Being able to understand the structure and inner workings of a community, organization or society can help you navigate its structure more seamlessly in your own authentic way. It also helps you make sense of the clutter and confusion that surrounds us.
Without understanding the contexts and elements that come together to make up a given society, you may fall behind in certain areas. This may distort your thinking and prevent you from truly making the most out of your life.
It helps us understand ourselves better
Appreciating the world around us is one thing, but we must recognize that each of us sees the world in an entirely different way.
Life stems from our own experiences and how we choose to communicate our observations with others.
With educational theory, you can hone your ability to look at things from another perspective. It helps you understand how some explanations can come across as more credible than others, depending on how they’re organized and communicated.
Being able to understand how you think and why you think in a certain way is important for understanding others, but it’s equally important when it comes to channelling your own ideas and insights.
This isn’t just about honing in on what you can see or comprehend; it’s about seeing yourself from the perspective of other individuals you interact and communicate with. This is critical if you want to be able to harness your creativity and grow as a person.
"LEGGI RELATIVI" DEAR ‘WHY’ KIDS: Build wisdom, not just knowledge»
