By By: Oyem, Israel Ekene
For every pupil or student, there is an expected level of knowledge he or she is supposed to be exposed to. Knowledge is a vast concept; hence, its vastness has made it possible for knowledge to be gotten everywhere and anywhere. That knowledge can be gotten anywhere and everywhere is a double-edged sword; it can be positive or negative. This is why there should be a deep cleavage between what learning is, what e-learning entails, and what ill-learning is — and that is what this article centers on.
Learning makes the mind grow. Learning is the activity of gaining knowledge either by studying or by experience. There are various ways one can learn: reading books, watching educative videos, listening to enlightening audio recordings or live streams, and learning from humans by experience. Learning brings about a change in behaviour — that is the end goal of every learning process. Learning shapes and reshapes the human mind. This is why what pupils or students learn should be taken seriously so it remains healthy and age-appropriate.
Unlike the traditional system of operating a library where books are put in a particular building for students to either sit and read or borrow, modernisation has changed the modus operandi of our libraries. You don’t even need to leave the four walls of your place of abode or comfort before accessing reading materials. All you need is your phone or device and access to the internet, and you could have a library with over a thousand books available to you. E-learning has made libraries, books, and knowledge easy to access.
Knowledge is no longer difficult to acquire, and this makes it even more worrisome because pupils and students now have access to anything they want — including things they never thought of acquiring. This is why what they learn should be regulated and monitored to ensure it is age-appropriate. It becomes ill-learning when they are exposed to knowledge or content that is not age-appropriate. We should remember that whatsoever a person (generically) sees, hears, or reads is what he becomes. Also, the child is the father of the man — meaning a child eventually becomes the adult.
Parents and teachers should be very meticulous about the kind of knowledge pupils and students are exposed to because many of them are very inquisitive and curious to find out the “why” and to see for themselves whether what was said is true. It would be very damaging if these pupils or students listen to or are exposed to certain knowledge that is not age-appropriate; they may end up trying to put into practice what they have seen, heard, or read. This is why, in a modernized world, there is only a thin line between learning, e-learning, and ill-learning. The onus is upon educators and parents to be very conscientious regarding what their pupils, students, and children learn respectively.
