Nature of learning

One of the most common question parents pose to their young children is "What did you learn in school today?" The most common replies are "I don't know" and "nothing." Does this indicate a general weakness of our educational system? The answer is no, it simply indicates, among other things, that much of learning takes place without our realizing that we are learning.

Life consists of continuous experiences. There are many activities that we recognize as learned skills, like throwing a ball, playing the piano, and programming a computer. There are also other things that we do not think of as being learned, like discriminating pizza from hamburgers, or Jollibee from McDonalds. However, these tastes are actually also learned.