As for our concept of learning, we explain it from two perspectives: psychological and then environmental. Learning from a psychological perspective is an increase in the cognitive structure of learners’ brains.
As for the concept of learning as an environmental result, it is equivalent to what is known in educational psychology as achievement. That is, it is the sum of new knowledge, experiences, values, tendencies and skills that learners acquire as a result of educational processes.
What is happening now in “learning” in schools and universities in general.. where learning is limited to learners/students studying academic information, storing it in their minds in what is called long-term memory and then giving it orally or in writing by remembering when asked or tested.. it is not considered learning by most psychological standards of educational psychology. It is, at best, storing information and then retrieving it upon request.. just as happens with computers.
Learning does not happen in concept and practice in reality, except when learners activate the information stored in their minds – their long memories – by acting on it in school, work and daily life situations.
Learners’ abilities to use stored information in performing daily duties such as assignments, solving written exercises and practical applications, and to analyze stored information by classifying, discussing, identifying, clarifying and inferring characteristics, phenomena and relationships… and to suggest, plan, design, develop, produce, innovate and evaluate, are all considered actual indicators of learning.
As for learners’ satisfaction with remembering in learning, and teachers in schools and professors in colleges and universities’ satisfaction with teaching information and academic experiences for learners to remember, without cognitively rising to the abilities of comprehension, application, analysis, connection and evaluation, all of these are considered a waste of their mental capabilities and opportunities to develop their personalities and future.
Learners’ readiness to learn and build the future
Learners’ readiness to learn is formed throughout the early childhood years from birth until the age of three years when they enter kindergarten, then to the age of six when they begin learning in the first primary school… passing through the age of twelve years to begin intermediate learning in the preparatory stage, reaching the age of fifteen years, when they learn in high school and begin building the academic or professional future that they aspire to.
The most important type of readiness to learn for the development of learners’ personalities and the making of their future is readiness to learn in kindergarten: the first school in which children begin their formal education outside the informal family environment. The readiness of the family and children to learn in kindergarten and the success of their performance of the requirements of this learning with its simplicity, together form the first basic building block in building their personalities and establishing the type of future that awaits them when they reach adulthood.
Learners seem ready to learn in kindergarten as a result of their regular and continuous interaction with older family members in emotionally stable conditions, a safe home environment that is free of daily incidents, activities that are known to learners and repeated day after day, healthy peers in themselves and their habits that they feel comfortable with, materials, equipment and environmental conditions that stimulate their curiosity and enjoyment sensorially and cognitively and the desire to work in it, and the formation of a feeling of success in dealing with it and learning what they need through it.
The most important behavioral indicators by which the family initially knows the readiness of children to start learning in kindergarten or the following school stages are: clear self-confidence and curiosity, cognitive alertness, attention to what is happening around them in the environment, realism in dealing with people and things, understanding the needs of family members and peers and cooperating with them in daily activities and situations, self-discipline and the ability to communicate and connect with others in the family environment.
While the cognitive and behavioral achievement of children throughout their life in the family is an indicator of their readiness or lack of readiness to learn in kindergarten or the following school stages: primary, middle and secondary.. the family and teachers obtain information about the extent of learners’ readiness to learn from four sources:
1- The course and interactions of the classroom or family environment, and how learners appear behaviorally and the responses of family members and teachers during it.
2- Bilateral relationships between family members and teachers on the one hand and children on the other hand. If these relationships are effective, interactive and regular, they indicate positively the children’s readiness to learn in the relevant school stage.
3- The results of learners’ achievement in the previous school stage. The skills of communication, language, reading, mathematics, classroom behavior, perception and sensory attention, social interaction with others, and the rarity or absence of behavioral problems among learners, all indicate, when positive, their readiness to learn, or to transfer them, if appropriate, to higher grades when they excel in achievement.
4- Family information on the motherhood of children and the family environment: complete, separated, divorced, broken, the ethnic origins of the mother and father, the level of education of family members in general, and the type and amount of economic income.
It is worth noting here a general result: the more complete, sufficient and positive the information from the four sources above is, the more it indicates in principle the learners’ readiness to learn in the relevant class or school stage. However, if the information conflicts from one source to another, or some of it is partially or completely missing in one or more sources, then it is difficult for the family or teachers to make a decision about the learners’ readiness to learn in most cases. That is, the lack or weakness of their readiness for the required learning appears clear. As a result, it requires immediate treatment for the reasons and shortcomings in it.