We are like fish swimming in the water; the water is the world view. The water is so ubiquitous that it becomes invisible and the most difficult thing for a fish to notice is the water that surrounds it”
From
Concept of the Self, J. Hobson, text of the lecture for SSK12, learning arts and social sciences, Murdoch University
This quote in my opinion best describes what I think world view is. I come from two separate worlds, now you're thinking that I am crazy, but if you believe that world views are the inside view of the way things are coloured, shaped, and arranged according to personal cultural perceptions” it's true. The world views of my parents are so amazingly different that it looks like I do come from two different worlds.
My dad is a true blue Aussie. He is a country guy who left school at the young age of 13 to start working at a mushroom farm, he never really got very much encouragement from the family in terms of education and still now doesn't believe education is all you need. He is also unemployed.
My mum comes from Indonesia; she holds education very dear to her heart and believes that if you want to get somewhere in life education is the key. She came from a middle class family and her parents pushed her to get an education, with many attempts she then finished university at the age of 27 gaining a job as a teacher then in social services.
The reason I bring my parents into this equation is that I wish to show the extremities of the different world views that are in my life.
I am now doing both a university course and a TAFE course and will relate my opinions more to how my mother brought me up. You will also hear how this upbringing and others around me have affected my world view.
Once upon a time there was no such thing as the internet; we all went to the university if we wanted to study there. Now there is distant education a “baby” if you so want to call it, from the internet and other forms of correspondence. I myself am doing distance education though there are many background ideas on distance education itself.
Many people in my community, their world view is that it is not a proper education if you don't have the lecturer there in front of you or that a lot of the things over the internet are just scams and a waste of time, this I believe is due to a lack of knowledge and other peoples ”conception of the world” around them. That's the old view, now we do know that this course is a legitimate course by a legitimate university and that I will one day get a degree by working as any other university student does to get their degrees.
Yes there are differences, I have my lecturers on the internet not at the front of the class and I don't have to leave my home and waste time traveling or finding a place closer to the university to get my degree. The old view by some people are still in, but in many cases the education of the internet in the community itself is helping people to realize that there are now more options and distance learning is becoming more popular and accepted. This shows people's world views as being “automatic and unconscious”, that just means its able to change without us realizing.
Other than university there is also TAFE that provides further education, I shall shake my head at TAFE in disapproval. Yes it can be good and its not really the TAFE institution's fault but the students (if you can call them that) within the establishment that brings it down. In my opinion, and I would not say something bad unless I thought it was true, a lot of the students are there just for the government money. Last year I did a course, first day, 20 people, full class, then, 6 people, the class was struggling to stay afloat and the students that wanted to learn were the ones that were victimized.
Throughout last year sometime the NSW government introduced a solution that the people who take the course must show up to classes in order to get their money, this is being tracked by a roll call over the net that the government can access. This year I am back to TAFE again, yes the numbers are there but those slackers are also there, they don't want to learn so they interrupt and disrupt the class as well as the students who want an education.
The TAFE teachers don't like it but nothing is done. Many people in the community around me believe TAFE is also a waste of money due to the fact that there are so many people that just use it to swindle money from the government and don't want to participate, ruining it for the others in the class.
It's been said that “all knowledge that you encounter at university is a knowledge that is spoken, written, or theorized by a person or group of people in a particular time or within a particular culture” this is a world view by Julia Hobson.
My world view is this, society needs to create a norm for what we base our cultures ideas and beliefs on, and it is something that we don't think about very often yet our whole lives are situated around it. It changes with new technology and new times. This is seen on the introduction of distance education.
Education in my country community is taken for granted by many of the people. This is seen in what I have already written above about TAFE or my parents. The educational world view in my community is a loose one in that depending on who you are with, it may be very important or no use at all.
