Learning as an Incentive ‘in itself’

The method of rewarding and deterring is usually applied to control the behaviour of the class. When it comes to learning it is of remote relevance. Learning by competition has disadvantages that are usually felt after the intellect develops beyond a point of instructive obedience. Instructive obedience is the habit of following instructions religiously. The limitations of this approach are that when individual thinking has to be exercised there will be grave difficulty. Individuality is needed when you have to point out your observations of a concept which are different from your tutor’s. If your observations are unique to you and you are able to perceive features differently then you have to point them out. To do this you need to learn and think for yourself without resorting to incentives that have only psychological importance.

In fact as you learn more and more the practice of incentives and deterrents are obstacles to your thinking process. This is a positive sign as it means that you are evolving as a learner. Think just how grand geometric concepts are. Thinking is largely individualistic because you are interacting with the subject through an inner dialogue. In fact the psychological concepts of id, ego and super ego assume neutral entities when you are involved in a dialogue of this nature with yourself. This dialogue takes you beyond the confines of instructive obedience so that you arrive at the thought process and the solution yourself. There is nothing more joyful than a solution whose time has come. The time is created by your thought process which when ripe is able to fill in the pieces.

Looking at learning as an incentive in itself seems implausible for children. It cannot be understood as the faculties need to be sharp enough to realize this nature of true learning. In fact when you learn automatically you are involved and you generally do not forget what you have learnt. Whereas when you study just to get through assignments and exams you are more likely to have difficulty in retrieving information later on; the reason being that you have not identified yourself with the subject. Your tutor should as far as possible be an enabler and too much insistence on rigidity of approach will only prove to be an impediment. In this age learning has to be its own incentive all the more because competing for scores does not guarantee results. It does not even mean that you will learn genuinely and remember to get value for what you have learnt. Learning as an incentive in itself is the quintessence of evolution.