ABSTRACT
Human beings are unique in their ability to construct meanings from their experience and to code these meanings symbolically. Public misunderstanding of the nature of knowledge production is a major obstacle to the optimal utilization of knowledge. This argues that much of the fear of or even antipathy to learning comes from the ineffectiveness and negative feelings associated with most school learning. Learning based on explicit consideration of the key concepts that make sense in any area of human concern will differ dramatically from rote learning of facts and procedures. Cognitive learning results in further development of cognitive structure, the structure of knowledge possessed by an individual. Meaningful learning involves subsuming new knowledge into existing relevant concepts and propositions, a process that leads to some modifications of both the existing knowledge structures and the newly learned material. The chapter suggests a new hope and a serious dilemma regarding the optimum utilization of knowledge.
