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What
is the relationship of formal education and personal
development? Why the formal education alone is not
enough for personal development?
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We
learn during all of our life, from the moment of birth
to the moment that we are gone. This learning path has
different patterns from one individual to another.
It
is said that modern men receive more information within
one day than medieval men within a year. This is no
wander. Since today we are bombarded with information on
ever corner; we receive dozens of mail at our work, we
are exposed to massive information influx through the
internet, we watch TV, we phone and SMS to each other,
etc. It is estimated that visual input to our brain is
32 GB per second. All these information need to be
perceived, filtered, processed, stored or rejected.
So
how should we learn all this information? The answer is
that we shouldn't. The reality is that we should learn
important things and dump the unimportant things.
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Formal
education is the important segment of our learning
trip. Average person in developed countries spends
12-16 years on formal studying, or even up to 20
years of our life. Through that period we are
bombarded with various information from diversity
of fields. These knowledge are applied in
different way, some of them are theoretical, while
some of them are more practical.
What
happen with us when we finished the formal
education? Probably most people are being
employed. Finishing the formal education is
important moment in our life. Since there is no
formal need to learn at prescript rate, it is up
to every individual how will we continue to expand
the knowledge. End of formal education is not the
signal that we earned our degree and that we do
not need to study anymore.
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This
is important to remember, since some individuals
consider their knowledge and grade they earned to be the
ultimate knowledge. Truth is that with the end of formal
education we just finished one phase of learning in our
life. Despite that fact that we learned a lot during our
education, the reality is that we are just starting the
real learning on our work and in our life. The fact is
that in school and university we learned how to learn,
but we didn't learned all what we need. Still there is a
long trip ahead.
I
had opportunity to meet people with high education, who
were having a very high opinion about themselves.
They considered that their degree should be the key that
will unlock all doors on their job. But the degree
itself is insufficient without readiness to learn
further. Also the degree is insufficient without
consciousness about our real value and capabilities.
Having a high opinion or skipping some steps in our
development is leading to the wall and potentially to
job termination. Most of employers are requiring their employees
to continue education, whether it is formal or through
on job learning.
Formal
education is important part of personal development.
Still, it is just one part of our personal development.
Our personal development needs to be continuous, beyond
formal education. Without clear understanding about big
picture, the person with high degree could still be
unsuccessful on the job, unsatisfied with the salary and
the way they are seen by peers and the boss. Learning
should never stop.
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