Some say that experience is the best teacher. Others insist that experience without theory is critically inadequate. Discuss both views and give your opinion. Use examples from personal experience or knowledge when possible.

When some declare that experience is the best teacher, one must ask what the assumptions are.

If it means to the exclusion of theoretical knowledge, then it does not take into account fatalities and injuries resulting from attempting tasks where the knowledge of underlying theory is necessary. In our outlying islands, many have died or suffered the painful and permanent physical debilitation resulting from diving under the sea with artificial breathing equipment but without training. In the cities, at our high schools, children are only allowed to use laboratory chemicals under close supervision and with prior class lectures. This prevents the students from having accidents ranging from burns or toxic gas inhalation or the absorption of toxins through the skin or through ingestion.

On the other hand, when people say that experience is the best teacher after learning the theory, they are probably correct. This does not mean that experience alone is superior to book learning, but that experience - after theory - caps the learning. Experience sets learning into memory in a way that pure theory has difficulty doing. It is human nature that when we learn the theory, we want to put it into practice. Through repeated practice we perfect the skill and achieve mastery. If we do not gain experience, the theory often slips away and is eventually forgotten.

Theory alone is inadequate. Experience alone is wanting. Together, first with a foundation of theory then followed by practice and exercise, experience completes the learning process. Often enough, experience leads to the development of more advanced theories that apply to the subject and the process of learning continues.

It has been said, “Not everything that is learned is contained in books.” Compare and contrast knowledge gained from experience with knowledge gained from books. In you’re your opinion, which source is more important? Why? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

It is true that not every learned is contained in books, for books are only a medium aimed at transmitting knowledge gained (it is hoped) from experience. Book knowledge has often been put down as inferior to knowledge gained from experience, the “School of Hard Knocks” so to speak. But it is an unfair comparison, much like having someone choose between his right and left arm.

Let us consider the two. Book knowledge has the advantage of temporal permanence, ease of transmission, purposeful scope and depth, and availability. If your bookstore hasn’t got it, Amazon.com will. On the downside, books are boring, time-consuming, requiring of considerable reading skills, and often hampered by how ideas are imperfectly captured by words. I have yet to find a travel book as good as actually being there.

Learning through experience, on the other hand, has stark clarity, personal significance, and is often buttressed with repetitive practice. That is, of course, assuming you do not do too much harm to yourself in the process of learning. The drawback of learning through experience is it can show you how or what, but not necessarily why something happened. Such is the reason why car mechanics might be very good at fixing up your car, but it’s the school trained engineer who’ll probably end up running the car shop. The former knows how, the latter, how AND why.

Now we come to chosing, something I am reluctant to do but am required to. I choose book learning for the very qualities of a book I mentioned earlier. I know that when opportunity presents itself and I have learned my book well, I should have less trouble learning. The reverse, experience before book learning, is likier to bring me to grief.