Learning through experience

The lecture on experiential learning a few weeks back was one of the lectures that really gave me a lot of information and introduced to me a lot of concepts that I think are really useful. But aside from all of the terms and diagrams, what I took away from that lecture was that there must always be a balance between words on paper, and actions in real life. When we teach kids how to read, it's not just about them being able to decipher sounds and give textbook meanings to words -- it's about them being able to process all of that and use those words in real life.

To use myself again as an example, as a kid whenever I'd read stories about people who love their jobs so much that they would sacrifice a lot just to keep on doing what they do, in a sense I understood the surface of those stories, which is what I just said. But it was only when I myself found something that I love doing so much I'm prepared to drop everything I have if it means I get to keep doing it, that I fully understood not only what those people felt, but how. There's a difference between knowing the who, what, where, and knowing the why and how, and experiential learning attempts to give the why and how, while testing our knowledge of the who, what and where.

This is a lot shorter than my other entries, but I think I managed to put my point across, and that's what matters anyway, I guess. :D