Personal Knowledge, Favoured Knowledge, Useful Knowledge
There are lots of kinds of knowledge, but in school it’s useful to think of three kinds of knowledge. These are:
- Personal Knowledge
- Favoured Knowledge
- Useful Knowledge
Personal Knowledge
Personal knowledge is what we know from all our experiences as human beings. It is what have learned from our family, our friends, our teachers, our leaders, the media and the rest of our culture. It is also we have learned from ourselves, through our own reflection and the synthesis of the information we discover through participation in community life.
Favoured Knowledge
Favoured knowledge is what decision makers, or people in power, believe is important for them or (sometimes) for others to know. This kind of knowledge often comes from “experts”. Governments often recognize experts and grant powers to them through professional classes. Professionals form groups, and often limit membership in these groups to people with specialized training in favoured knowledge.
Sometimes favoured knowledge is based on facts, such as knowing how to build a building that won’t collapse. Sometimes it’s based only on opinions or customs. Favoured knowledge has an important role in the power relationships of society. Once you favoured knowledge it becomes part of your personal knowledge. There are many times, however, when personal and favoured knowledge will conflict, such as when favoured ways of knowing violate your personal values.
Useful Knowledge
Useful knowledge is information that helps people do the things that they want or need to do. To be effective, useful knowledge may need to be based on reality. Some times it may need to based on imagination instead. Useful knowledge includes strategies and tactics for doing things and intended results in mind. It also includes knowledge about patterns, knowing how things work, and understanding things well enough to predict outcomes based on inputs. Some people may try to present useful knowledge in inaccessible ways, to keep others from knowing useful things. A lot of useful knowledge is also personal or favoured. Some useful knoweldge is neither personal nor favoured.
