Joe Stephens

Professor Lappin

Psychology 115

1 December 2000

As we have seen throughout this course, through the texts we have read, the examples given, and the theories analyzed, human knowledge and the process of acquiring it is quite intricate. From the very design and outlay of the human brain to its mysterious functions and capabilities, it becomes rather apparent that any definitive or objective answer to the question of basic brain functions is likely to be nonexistent. Here, in the exhaustive How People Learn, we are exposed to an excellent crux in our journey through the realm of human understanding, comprehension, and knowledge acquisition (as the course is appropriately titled), and it seems appropriate to attempt to make some basic connections.

Using the most recent text as a base, we can begin to analyze basic (or rather complex) human thought. Firstly, as Bronowski advocated, our thoughts are products of our senses, and in turn, what we are and have been exposed to. In chapter four of How People Learn, the same sort of theory becomes fairly implicit, especially in the development of children and their critical period: what they are exposed to, how they respond, and their development in that regard is a product of their senses. Clearly this is not all that is being said, and this is a small portion of both of these arguments, but it seems fairly pivotal to both areas. In fact, on any level, especially at that of child development, knowledge and sensory perception is a vital part of the rest of one’s life. It becomes painly evident when someone who is deaf from birth is matched with a normal child equipped with all of his or her senses–only then do we see how imperative sight is to the maturity of one’s intelligence.

Bronowski talks about this on a larger scale and maybe focuses on the life and results of sensory perception in the world of adults. Either way, it applies to all humans and may even be more critical to the world of children, especially during their early stages of development and mental growth.

Another major aspect of the most recent book is that of strategies one can employ either to enhance someone else’s knowledge (like teachers giving tests), or that of someone out to better his own knowledge (like reading up one a specific subject or writing to better one’s communication abilities). This knowledge starts usually in a formal way with the beginning of the school process, and never really ends. Regardless, parents have their children learning how to count apples and pears, or identify words and numbers or noises of animals at an early age, and from there, we move into more complex levels of understanding. From multiplication tables to analyzing Marx’s theory of Communism, we are usually all exposed to some levels of age-appropriate mental challenges which come from a rigid mental base established firmly at a young age with a fitting introduction to what will inevitably be complex human practices. That is, what we learn later is really a product of how and what we learn when we have to at a young age.

These topics are all implicit, and sometimes explicit, in some of the texts we have read. To specifically delve into them all would be quite a task, but mere identification of a few common threads is quite interesting. Either way, the enigma of how people really learn is one that can only really be speculated upon and not specifically defined.