EXPERIENCE IS THE BEST TEACHER

 FROM SAMPATH’S DESK:

 

EXPERIENCE IS THE BEST TEACHER

  

The world of today is the end-product of the collective wisdom of stalwarts in different fields knitted through the scientific and technological revolutions.  Man is both a social and political animal. The collective wisdom of the people of a country, region, society, etc. developed the civilization. Again, proverbs are the outcome of the eons-long experience-based collective wisdom of the people that binds, inspires, and drives generations. Life needs to be experienced and experience drives one’s life journey. 

 

Experience is the best teacher even above all other forms and formats of formal education, books, etc. That was almost the trend till 1835 when the English-language-based educational system was introduced in India at the instance of Thomas Babington Macaulay claiming its superiority over the traditional knowledge systems prevailing for eons in India. The introduction of English-medium-based education was imparted Pan-India, but still restricted to a small percentage of the population, as the British Rule wanted English-knowing people to interact with and put them in positions in the administration for dissemination of information and notifying government’s rules and orders for people's notice, attention and compliance; in short, for effectively forcing and promoting the typical colonial system of education suiting their needs. Macaulay recommended the introduction of the English language as the official language in India and that is why English-based Secondary Education was imparted to the natives in all schools established for the purpose throughout the country where there was none before. And, with this in view, English-speaking Indians came to be produced. Thus, the English education became the fait accompli in India. Their idea was not to impart English-based education to all Indians and they just wanted a small percentage of the population to be educated in English for their own purposes including interaction with all Indians through them and for manning middle/low-level administrative machinery. Let’s not further go into that subject; suffice for the present to restrict our discourse to the truth that ‘experience overwhelmed education.’

 

The first printing press in India was set up in 1556 at St. Paul's College, Goa. Earlier, in the absence of literature treasure in printed forms including books, the system of 'word of mouth' and recitation used to be the main medium of education. For centuries, Indian literature in many vernacular languages was invariably available in poetic forms, and mostly, palm leaves were used to write on. Stone/stone-wall/copper plate inscriptions including plaques, birch barks, etc. were also used for the maintenance of literature archives, as could be seen even now in many Indian temples and archaeological surveys.

 

We may read books, hear lectures, and walk and talk miles, but experience used to be the best teacher and eye-opener. Yes, we used to learn through the experience of smiles and tears representing happiness and sadness respectively. 

 

‘Phenomenology’ is the study of how people experience the world around them and what they learn from it.

 

Let’s begin the dissertation with a child. It’s common knowledge that touching a fire or a hot object will be injurious. But, a child is not inclined to accept it even if you tell him/her so until and unless he/she suffers such a bad experience. Here, more than the word of mouth of caution from others, the experience plays an educative and assertive role.

Experience teaches us when to wait, when and how to chip in, when to move forward, and proceed, and so on and so forth! Experience is a hard teacher because it gives the test first, and the lesson next.

Every experience of yours is designed to make you stronger. And, life is full of learning experiences. A right-thinking mind would easily discern that whatever things we have learned, after all, is only the tip of the iceberg and what remains to be learned is ocean-like!

  

Experience-induced expertise does wonders. A failure should not be treated as bad or a curse. Positively, it is a life lesson through experience. Maybe, it is a stepping stone to future success.

 

Connectivity, interaction(s), and entertainment open up channels of your experience to infinite possibilities. Shakespeare had this to say, “There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so, based more on experience.”

 

The generation gap is not just ‘passing clouds’. You have to interact with different people/generations on appropriate wavelengths, as children are carried away mostly by emotions, the teenaged by logic, the youth make a blend of both, and senior citizens understandably go by experience.

 

Every day is a welcome day. Good days give happiness and bad days experience. So, both are essential in life. Don’t blame bad days. Prepare your mind to accept the reality that all are God’s Blessing and Grace, though it may be difficult to reconcile to such a philosophy to start with.

 

Experience, hardship, trials, and tribulations also do bring knowledge and strength collectively called ‘wisdom’.

 

Remember ‘The past is an experience, the present is an experiment, and the future is expectations. Use your experience in the experiment to achieve the expectations.’

 

The experience gained in overcoming an earlier problem may come in handy while confronting with and tackling a new one. Since the new problem may be a different one, the solution may also perhaps be a different one, as, after all, there is no such thing as ‘one-solution-fits-all-problems'. Different difficult situations make you think differently, and carry out out-of-the-box heals-digging analyses for solutions, thoroughly weighing the pros and cons.

 

Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it, perhaps a second time. For example, if all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion at all, as Bernard Shaw said. He also quipped, “If history repeats itself and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must man be of learning from experience.”

 

Needless to say, experience is a living thing and a continuing process; there is much to benefit from it.

 

Arriving at solution(s) based on experience(s), either of your own or of others narrated by them to you, or you have heard them through a third party, is prudent.

 

The simple saying, “If you have experienced the dark, you can better appreciate the light” clinches the importance of experience.

   

Shared experiences make for a treasured trove - a storehouse of knowledge, a gold mine of information, an unambiguous understanding, and a repository of boons and bonanzas helpful in the right decision-making in life.

 

Mistakes are painful when they happen, but years later, a collection of past mistakes, called 'experience', becomes a storehouse of intellect helping us to remain smarter leading to inevitable success. 

 

George Bernard Shaw jovially commented once, “We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.”

 

It is said, "Not everything that is learnt is contained in books". I have strong reasons to believe that education does come from books while, ironically, we learn more from experience. The best comes when the two work together. Too often, facts remain just pieces of information until and unless they are collated, correlated, and taken forward by us, meaningfully and gainfully. Add emotion, a memory, learn to tolerate, recognize, and consider divergences also, et al - then, an ‘experience’ is created.

 

Challenging experiences can teach you a lot; you learn as a result of difficult and unpleasant experiences and the life experiences gained make you smarter and well-groomed. Yes, wind your insights and rewind your experiences.

 

Swami Vivekananda’s comments on experience-based knowledge and intelligence are worth quoting here:

o  Most part of our knowledge is based on experiences. What we call 'inferential knowledge', in which we go from the less to the more general, or from the general to the particular, with experience as the only teacher. 

 

o   We may talk and reason out all our lives, but we shall not understand a word of truth until we experience it ourselves. You cannot hope to make a man a surgeon by simply giving him a few books. You cannot satisfy my curiosity to see a country by showing me a map; I must have actual and real-time experience. Maps can only create curiosity in us to get more perfect knowledge. Beyond that, they have no value whatever!

 

 

(R.SAMPATH)

2/2/2024