Learning and Practical Experience
Education comes not from books, but from practical experience
Education comes not from books, but from practical experience
Education is the transmittance of knowledge or skills from a source to students and other learners. There are two ways of transmitting knowledge, via books or by offering practical experience. Unlike the practical experience that hands-on activities provide, books are more passive and the authors tend to transmit their knowledge or skills uni-directionally to readers. Practical experience is sometimes important in certain fields to give the big idea and has multiple areas of interpretation and learning experiences.
First consider a situation in which education comes from practical experience and not from books. Experiential learning is superior in most instances of education, because of the higher level of engagement of students that leads to better retainment. For example, one cannot learn to swim or do math by reading a book; one must practice, make mistakes, and learn from the errors. Likewise, many students either volunteer ot take up jobs to learn certain values, handling the public and developing social skills that are not clearly represented in books. Another example is in medical education. Medical students in human anatomy class are not restricted only to book s but have labs to give a big picture and learn visual skills and orientation of the major organ systems and organs. Although it may be learnt from books, practical applications of the knowledge must be learnt as well to become a well rounded physician. As a result, only when students apply the skills or knowledge they learned in a practical setting such as swimming laps or doing math problems can these skills truly be learned and valued.
In contrast, some subjects must be learned from reading books, and with no practical experience. In many college classrooms World History courses aim to teach students the contributions of Ancient civilization. For example, reading
Education comes not from books, but from practical experience
Education is the transmittance of knowledge or skills from a source to students and other learners. There are two ways of transmitting knowledge, via books or by offering practical experience. Unlike the practical experience that hands-on activities provide, books are more passive and the authors tend to transmit their knowledge or skills uni-directionally to readers. Practical experience is sometimes important in certain fields to give the big idea and has multiple areas of interpretation and learning experiences.
First consider a situation in which education comes from practical experience and not from books. Experiential learning is superior in most instances of education, because of the higher level of engagement of students that leads to better retainment. For example, one cannot learn to swim or do math by reading a book; one must practice, make mistakes, and learn from the errors. Likewise, many students either volunteer ot take up jobs to learn certain values, handling the public and developing social skills that are not clearly represented in books. Another example is in medical education. Medical students in human anatomy class are not restricted only to book s but have labs to give a big picture and learn visual skills and orientation of the major organ systems and organs. Although it may be learnt from books, practical applications of the knowledge must be learnt as well to become a well rounded physician. As a result, only when students apply the skills or knowledge they learned in a practical setting such as swimming laps or doing math problems can these skills truly be learned and valued.
In contrast, some subjects must be learned from reading books, and with no practical experience. In many college classrooms World History courses aim to teach students the contributions of Ancient civilization. For example, reading