Page:SELECTED ESSAYS of Dr. S. S. KALBAG.pdf/114

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Mind is a self-organizing system. It can combine patterns and make new combinations. This is how past experience is used repeatedly. Nature of Thought In thought, we reproduce an activity in our mind. The old pattern is recalled and we'feel' the old activity in our mind. Human society has evolved over a few million years. We have replaced groups of patterns by symbols that we call words. This is the need for language, which thus further speeds up thoughts. Thus, when we say 'tree', the mental patterns, relating to the tree are recalled. The thinking process is thus recreating in the mind the activity patterns, without actually going through the activity. We think in languages. This produces savings in time and effort and has made for faster progress. But we cannot forget that new patterns or new combinations must be produced by activity, before they can be recreated in the mind. In other words, we cannot think of something of which we have no patterns, because we have never done it. Activity / work is thus the base on which all thinking and learning is set up. Let us consider some examples: Example: 1 Case 1: A child has not seen a chair. The teacher describes a chair in the class. The only pattern the child can get is of the sound produced by the teacher. It can reproduce that perhaps; this is like rote learning. It has no value as far as the chair is concerned. Case 2:The child has seen a chair and has a visual imprint of the chair in its mind. When the teacher says 'chair' this mental picture is recalled. Case 3: The child has used a chair, perhaps has built one or worked with it in some way. The word "chair" brings back all these experiences and the child can use the new information from the teacher usefully. Rural Development Through Education System 101