Monday, February 2, 2015

EDFD MATTER: Our tools of knowing

Are there people who would count as educated but do not know anything? If you think there's none, it's probably because you believe that knowledge is a central component of being an educated person. You probably think that no person will ever count as educated if he/she is ignorant about everything. I myself believe the same. In the absence of knowledge, there can be no such thing as education. It, therefore, seems to me that knowledge is a necessary ingredient of being an educated person.

Knowledge and cognition

To ensure a strong foundation for our children's future schooling and education, what exactly should we do to carry out the strategy of helping the child develop his/her cognitive faculty? A few words first about the idea of cognitive faculty.

Our cognitive faculty is our means of knowing. There are two known tools of knowing: the sensory faculty and the faculty of reason in the domain of logic. Senses are our means of establishing contact with the things that exist in the physical realm. Such connection is also referred to as experience.To not have the ability to see, hear, feel, smell, and taste things since birth is to not have the opportunity to know the physical world. Without our senses, we are close to being dead.

As for pure reason, it is the tool that we use to tell whether a truth claim in geometry, trigonometry, math, and other similar areas of study is true or false. The ability to reason is learned at a much later period in the life of a child. Compared to the development of the sensory faculty, the human being needs a longer period of time to develop his/her ability to solve pure mathematical problems.