Perceptual systems: These are the five senses that both humans and animals use to perceive the world and discriminate between one object and another. 

Reality: Reality is the state of the world or objects in the world that can be known or perceived.

Worldviews: Systems of beliefs, assumptions, values, and knowledge about the world that can be passed from generation to generation. Learning is, in part, about becoming part of a group or culture that holds a particular worldview. 

Indigenous worldviews: Indigenous worldviews are diverse and multiple, but loosely bound by several common ideas. They are holistic, spiritual, relational, cyclical, connected to human and non-human beings, and see the land as sacred. 

Folklore: Folklore was traditionally the main source of knowledge about customs, beliefs, and daily living. Folklore allows individuals to organize their belief systems and preserve their culture, and is passed down orally through songs/music, stories, legends, proverbs, and maxims.

Myths: Myths are a traditional source of knowledge. They are stories that often tell about the early world. In a pedagogical sense, they have been used to teach us how to behave and interact with others as they relay important lessons.

Indigenous knowledge: Indigenous knowledge is local, holistic, experiential, and personal. It relies on the knowledge and teachings passed down orally in narrative form by elders and knowledge keepers.

Plato: Classical Greek philosopher Plato (429-347 BC) viewed reality as something which is created by the mind. Objects are somewhat flawed reflections or copies of perfect and eternal forms that exist in an ideal Platonic realm. 

Nativists: Nativists believe that humans inherit their abilities, rather than developing them through the lifespan. 

Maturationists: Maturationists such as Arnold Gesell argue that child development is the result of a specific pre-determined biological or innate plan that unfolds over time. That is, one’s genetic inheritance determines the pattern of development while experience or environment do not play a specific role. 

Developmental psychology: Developmental psychology is a field of study concerned with the ways in which children develop and learn. 

Aristotle: Philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) believed that individuals’ direct contact with their environment through sensory experiences (that is, experiences reliant on the five senses) allows them to form images and to associate one image with another.
 
Behaviourists: Behaviourists believe that experience rather than genetics shapes the child’s development, thus learning involves the transmission of skills, facts, and concepts. They contended that learning involves creating associations between stimuli (objects or events). For example, children might be taught that when they engage in a particular behaviour, it will result in a certain outcome.

Giambattista Vico: Professor and philosopher Vico (1668-1744) challenged the dominant Cartesian idea that knowledge could be derived from a series of deductive rules. He believed that individuals do not create scientific truths in the mind, but rather experimentation and imagination play a role in constructing truth (or seeing truth). His work can be seen in constructivist theories of learning. 

Charles Darwin: Darwin’s famous work “Origin of the Species” saw reality as fluid and shifting, in constant change, rather than as something which is pre-determined and static.