Education comes not from books but from practical experiences. An educated person has always been described as someone who reads many diverse books, while it is also commonly said that experience is the best teacher. The widely debated topic of the primary source of education has been a prima discussion as people tend to mix up the importance of books and practical experiences in the process of education. ” In this essay, I will discuss the importance of both parties in education and express my views of why the statement “education comes not from books but from practical experiences” is very correct.
Firstly, I would talk about the importance of books and why education cannot be fully achieved without it. Secondly, I would discuss the greater effect that practical experiences have on education and how it is also highly beneficial to the educational process. Thirdly, I would give examples of cases where education comes more from experience than from books. General research on the life of most successful people has shown that books provide understanding upon which experience is built. The use of books in every institution has been made an important aspect because without books, quality education cannot be achieved.
For instance, there are situations where you have to read a book first to learn the required manual skills before applying what has been read practically. Take the case of someone who has never read a book on doctoring and wants to perform a surgery. Without that knowledge gained from books, they do not know the basic procedures to carry it out. Most people believe that experiences like parenting, pregnancy, cooking, driving and so forth cannot be known if they are not practiced physically but nevertheless, there are books on all these issues which will provide a better insight on what is experienced.
Seeger (2013) said, ”Education is when you read the fine prints and experience is what you get when you don’t”. However, books are passive means of education, as it is not as interactive and tends to make people lose interest faster, and this is where practical experiences comes in. Certain skills require a high amount of physical abilities, and as I stated in my introductory paragraph, that education has always been known to be the best teacher. The practical experience is what most people never forget. Albert Einstein*(n. d) defined education as what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.
He (Einstein) also said the steps involved in education is; reading books, hands on experience, and observation. Without practical experience, observation cannot be made. As a matter of fact, every institution that aims in providing quality education for their students, involve practicals to the teaching process. People might read lots of books , but without experience on what they have read, they forget it and don’t have a chance to apply this to life*. It is said that books are more important, but the authors of books, do they not write them out of practical experiences?
Therefore, it is experience and observation, that sets the *standards for books to be written. I have stated in my first two paragraghs the importance of both books and practical experience, but this varies in different ways. On one hand, the level of education attained cannot be reached without books whereas on the other, books are of little value. In the days of old, children in the rural areas learned from their elders and their surrounding activities. Most of the schools then didn’t have access to good books so the kids learnt how to do various things by their own experience.
However, this didn’t mean they were educated, but we can hereby say they were “experienced” or they were “knowledgeable” in some cases. Books open people to critical thinking , while practical experience opens them to *mental thinking due to observation. Most of the greatest *educated people, physicians, chemists and all other successful people were educated due to the amount of practical experience they put had. Books were consulted, but on the contrary they had to practice what was seen in books to be able to come out with their own successful theories.
