Does it matter if what we believe is true? Is there any harm in believing knowledge claims that are false?

People all have different perspective and their own understanding to the situation or the problem which makes each knowledge claim unique among the others. So some knowledge claims are not wrong, it is just you have a different opinion toward this statement.  Sometime it is because of the person wasn’t informed with the correct information, which makes him or her to make false knowledge claims. The reasons why people believe in false knowledge claims are it might comes from a person you trust or it is something that you wants to hear about. Sometimes they will even persuade you to believe that their claims are right like propaganda or advertisements.

Personally, I think of course it is important that the knowledge we gain and what we believe is true, but in some cases it doesn’t matter that much. I think the importance of knowledge claims being true of false depends on what types of claim is it. If it is a knowledge claim on our learning then of course it is important that whether we gained the right information or not. If it is a claim that you would like to believe in that it is true and there is no impact on the others too, then I think it doesn’t matter if it’s false or not.  I think If it is just a personal believe and it does not affect the others, it is harmless. But if the knowledge claim is a lie and its on purpose to hide something or to trick someone, it is most likely to be harmful.

Of course, experiential learning is very important in IB courses. Instead of just memorizes all the facts and information, we can learn by practicing and doing exercises more. Through our experience of solving problems and finding solution, we become more familiar with the methods of how to do it and also we are more confident to use the concepts and skills. For example math is a subject that we need a lot of practice of. Our experience of practicing solving questions stay in our brain so we know how to do it next time.

In CAS program, we are required to take on experiences of quality for our own growth. As an IB student, I came up with an idea doing an environmental program to bring up awareness of our environment. I found out that all of the students that are doing CAS are learning through doing things and having experience. In my CAS program I also tried something new like doing student council and this extended my capacity in leadership.

I think many of the experiential knowledge that I gained are to some extend shared knowledge. Experiences like collaborating or doing group works I think are shared knowledge because I don’t learn as an individual but as a whole. As we are working together I gain shared knowledge from sharing opinion and also gain experiential knowledge on how to work collaboratively.

Experiential knowledge is knowledge that you gain from your own experience before.

I think almost everything we do in our life is an experience and that everything we learn from doing things is experiential knowledge. Of course there are also some knowledge like the math formulas are knowledge we gain from the teachers. But as we keep doing and practicing those questions, those become our experiential knowledge.  I think areas like living skills, social skills and sports are mostly experiential knowledge, because those skills and knowledge we need to physically do it and experience it ourselves in order to do it well.

I think people don’t always learn from their experiences. For example all of us had lost our personal item before but we never learn from it, even adults lose things all the time. After our experience, we are still forgetful and not careful enough. Another example is we all know that the food just been cook are usually hot, we still eat it straight away every single time. Because we forgot our experience every time, we don’t learn from it.

If I am looking for someone to help me with something, I’ll trend to find someone who I know that have experience solving this problem, and this is because I believe that those people’s experiential knowledge can be very helpful. Or, I will go to ask people who are also solving the same questions, because they are in the same situation and they are also struggling with the questions, so they would have the empathy to help me with the questions. That’s why when we have problem we trend to ask the teachers or the students in the same class because the teacher have the experience doing those problems and the students have the empathy because we are learning the same things.

I had look for experience for specific knowledge that I can gain. A good example is choosing which class to take, I know Math class can give you skill on calculation and solving problems, English class can teach you skill on reading and writing, since I already have an idea in advance about what kinds of knowledge I can gain from what class, I can choose the classes that it’s beneficial for me like art class if I want to be a designer.

Job applications ask for past job experiences because the companies want talented, hard-working people with a large amount of previous experience in order for their companies to grow and develop. Compare to people with absolutely no experience, the company will more likely to choose people who have experience and done this job before. Because people with more experiential knowledge can do it better, even though it might be a different job experience when people are seeking for a new job, since they already have job experiences they have the communicating skill, collaborating skill, and many other skills and this is why the company wants.