We live in a rapidly changing world with many challenges and problems to solve. Our lives require us to have critical thinking skills and information literacy. Education is a way to gain the foundational skills, but learning should never stop completely. Education continues to change us in many positive ways. This article will explore these positive changes.
One of the important changes that education creates is our ability to separate false information from reliable information. We call this skill information literacy. In our society, we are bombarded with media messages from the Internet, news, social media, newspapers, magazines, television, and radio. It is very difficult to determine which ones of these sources are unbiased and truthful. Education will help us to separate good information from bad. It will teach us to focus on peer reviewed academic journals and other academic quality sources. This will improve our worldview and decision making. It will help us to understand the world around us accurately and to navigate our lives better. Since information is always changing, we need to engage in continuous learning to keep out knowledge fresh. New information will never stop coming.
Education is also the foundation for our critical thinking. We study philosophy to learn to reflect on our own lives and to build our value systems. We study psychology to learn about ourselves and to maintain good mental health. There are numerous academic disciplines that help us to think about the world around us critically so that we would not live our lives with blinders on. The world around us is complex and increasingly threatening. It is easier to cope with it with an understanding of it. Political instability is easier to understand with some knowledge of political sciences. Global warming is easier to understand with some knowledge of biology. Critical thinking is needed in every aspect of life. We are all part of the systems around us. Systems theory will help us to navigate these systems. Continuous learning keeps our eyes open and understanding sharp.
Our world is facing many problems, and we face problems every day at our work. We study mathematics and physics to help us to solve those problems. Imagine how engineering, architecture, computer science, and numerous other academic disciplines impact our lives every day. None of it would be possible without continuous learning. Our lives depend on technology, and we could not perform at work without it. We use probabilities, correlations, and regression analysis to predict and forecast events. We use dynamic programming to manage logistics. We also use quantitative methods in production and operations management. That is, all manufacturing facilities for all the products that help us to live more comfortably rely on these academic and scientific tools. None of it would be possible without continuous learning.
Our ability for higher level learning is what makes us special as species. Our ability for metacognition. That is, thinking about our thinking, separates us from animals. We are self-aware and have an ability to use that self-awareness to consciously and continuously improve ourselves. This is a gift that should not be wasted. As Socrates said, “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Our ability for educated self-examination and reflection is unique to us as human beings. Our evolution is based on this ability. Therefore, learning is the most human activity of it all. We should not waste this ability and stop learning.
