Life, the Better Teacher Essay

â€Å"In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a testthat teaches you a lesson. † – Tom Bodett. Learning is the activity that all of us have to do during our life. We have been learning since the moment we are born and we will not stop until the moment we die, this is the only way for us to survive and live normally in this world. Many people attend schools to gain knowledge, amd others gain their knowledge from their experience in life, both ways provide us with much valuable knowledge. However, in my opinion, I think that experience is the more important source of knowledge. It is a known fact that we learn all the time we breathe, a baby when given birth learns to cry and to find milk; then some months or years later, he learns how to crawl, walk, and run after many years of learning basic surviving forever. But academic knowledge is not all, and it is often said that not everything that is learned is contained in books. A book can give you moments of relaxation and famous sayings but it cannot provide you the deep understanding of life. And passing an examination can’t make you be ready to encounter difficulties of the real life. Qualifications are record of what you have learned, but they are not relevant to what you need to know to live normally in this world. Knowledge gained from books cannot be compared with that gained from experience. I say that because books provide us with many theories, but they cannot give us opportunities to practice those things. People say that â€Å"Practice makes perfect†, indeed, only by practicing can you deeply understand what are mentioned in books, we can see what we read with our own eyes, this can excite us and make us more engaged in the knowledge that we have read. Both books and experiences provide us with knowledge, but the ways we approach the knowledge are different and what we get are different, too. Books contain knowledge which is arranged and selected carefully from what authors think about real life. So they are easy to follow and understood. When reading books, readers only need to understand what is demonstrated on papers. In contrast, when actually practice in your real life, you need to observe, think and brainstorm very much to get the ideal information. Even when you can carry out the process of practicing smoothly, you may still draw a wrong conclusion, and no one can tell you about that, all you can do is compare your result with the real life so that you can realize the mistake. The risk of getting wrong conception is apparent, which makes practicing for experiences the most interesting yet difficult way to get knowledge. Everyone can have books, books are everywhere. You can buy books in bookstores without difficulties, just select and pay for them. Also, you can learn from books, and what you learn from the source can be gained from other people such as your teachers, your parents, your friends or even strange people. Because knowledge from books is gained from what people see and hear from the real life, anyway, it is motionless knowledge and you get it in a passive way. In contrast, the knowledge from experience requires you to go much, practice much and think much, such effort creates real knowledge, and you can gain it actively. Experience cannot be bought, you need to think about it, practice and produce it yourself. If experience is seen as a purchasable item, then the money used to buy it is not made from paper, but time and effort. The knowledge from books and that from experience are gained at different measures of difficulty, but what you gained from books is nothing compared to those from experiences. However, knowledge from experience and knowledge from books have a relationship and they support each other. Actually, books are attached to experience, they cannot be created or even thought of without experience. When you practice something, you get experience, but to know whether your experience is correct or not, besides verifying it through real life, you may also look for it in books and compare between your conclusion and theories in books. This way, you can use old and certain knowledge to confirm the new and uncertain one.