BRIDGING THE GAP IN THE LEARNING PROCESS

Learning, they say “is a continuous process” which controls all facets of human development and affects all caliber of persons, be it a child, young adult or the elderly. In essence, it holds a primal position in the shaping of world view, man’s concerns and opinions, perception and forges the entire human development as we have it today.

Whatever we can feel or touch remains a product of preconceived idea or knowledge garnered through pain, pleasure or serendipitous moments.

Sometimes the learning process comes as a first-hand, second or third-person acculturation (transferred knowledge). Learning being a process is inevitably fated to reach a goal, resultant upon two results; good or bad. Where, in most cases the result determines the outcome, since in any instance of knowledge impartation or idea exchanges, the aim is to incite with facts or fallacies, inform the truth or instill falsehood in order to make or mar. But in all, between the source and the recipient, the later bears the benefits or the brunt of the new knowledge.

It remains unarguable that man had begun learning from time immemorial, even while life was as crude as living in the caves and so without unintentionally restricting learning to classrooms only, the learning process pervades all processes of idea exchanges and knowledge through experience. However, from this period to date, anthropological studies have revealed the ancient realization of man’s freewill to think and act for self usually by instinct at the detriment or stifled freewill of another. So it was understood why there would be frequent brawls between persons, fracas amongst interest groups and general anarchy due to clash of interest and immediately a “Rule for Order” was mounted to settle such uprisings. Such Rules as organized systems called government, family, society, community, church, school and such Order as Codes of Conducts called constitution, law, tenets, customs and traditions were all set up to serve as control knobs irrespective of whose freewill is denied.

Furthermore, it is important to note that ignorance of the existence of these Codes of Conduct in most cases does not extricate anyone who violates them from punitive measures set up against such violations or rewarding anyone who keeps them religiously. This means that reward or punishment was the correcting measure and the lever for holding up or down the hammer against intending violators. Remember, the type of punishment or reward varies with the platform upon which these Rules were set up. For instance, if it was the government, the aforementioned measure will vary in type and degree with the church and the church with community doctrines and so on.

In psychology, these measures are called behavioural modification tools. I call them behavior/character modeling techniques as they are known to be most effective method of controlling and determining short-term and long-term behavior and personal traits.

Psychologists having understudied human growth and development from childhood to adulthood, discovered that there are unique developmental features associated with each stage from Childhood-Adolescence-Young Adult to Mature Adult, which remarkably points to variation in experience, understanding and perception and therefore, in this respect calls for a behavior modeling strategy particular to that stage and must take into consideration the personality of the individual.

The waves of the 21st century have come with increased socialization especially in the digital world which poses the greatest influence that lay hold on the individual throughout his/her life especially children. In this contemporary society, there are four basic agents that powerfully and lastingly influence an individual. They are the family, school, peer group and mass media.

A child learns the language at home and starts internalizing cultural norms and values. The school socializes the child in particular skills and knowledge, indoctrinates and inculcates values into the pupils to a large extent. As the child grows older, the influence of peers (people with approximately equal age, background, values and interests) is increasingly exerted upon him/her, and of course, that of the parents begin to diminish. Hence as a child grows he/she spends twice or more of his time with his/her peers than parents.

The mass communication entails various forms of information dissemination that reach large audience without any personal contact between the sender and the receiver of the message. They include weekly and daily newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, direct mail, circulars and billboards. These use the sense of sight to pass across their information. Others include, radio, television and motion picture which appeal to the sense of sound and vision.

There are some other agents that exert lesser influence on the people of a cultural group or society. They include religious groups, youth organizations, clubs, the military, political movements and many others.

One other factor apart from the four basic agents mentioned above which has strong influence on development of character is the gene factor. It potentiates the capacity to reason, and develop cognitive prowess as intelligence and rational judgment. Being an inherited phenomenon, and basic to other agents of influence, it is the centre around which the learning process between the source and the recipient swings, as postulated by science.

However, the focus of this paper is staged at bringing to limelight the lacuna in the learning events as seen in the outcome of many interactions, or instances of knowledge impartation and idea/knowledge exchanges. For instance, quarrels due to misunderstandings, fallacious arguments, mediocrity, poor academic and professional performance, poor leadership potentials, fanaticism/insurgency, stifled dreams, timidity and mass ignorance are consequences of miss-step in the learning event.

The writer believes learning connotes a positive meaning and as such portends a positive outcome of every knowledge impartation, idea/information propagation and assimilation. Therefore it is emphasized that the gap in the learning process be bridged, as when the truth alone is told, learnt and practiced, in the face of formidable socio-economic or political challenges in order to place learning at its noble place of pride