What’s the most important in learning? It is doing the right thing and avoiding the wrongdoing, which is what learning is all about. Doing right is its own reward; doing wrong is its own punishment. There is nothing worse and more foolish than being in the wrong persistently. Therefore a wise person is quick at learning from his or her own mistakes. And a really wise person, I would like to emphasize, should be interested in truth for truth’s sake when it comes to the matters of learning.
How should we learn? We basically learn from teachers, peers, and ourselves. They teach us standards by which the right is kept from the wrong. When we are young, we tend to trust in our teachers. As we grow in age, however, we believe more in ourselves. In either case, we tend to learn as believers rather than critics. A more effective way of learning, I think, is to learn critically with one’s peers.
