My junior year of high school I had the opportunity to go on a spectacular adventure. But, like most things, it came with a choice. My mom came to me and told me, "You have the opportunity to go to London for two weeks, but you will miss school for two weeks." I know what you're thinking, when you get a parent telling you that you can skip class for 14 whole days and galavant around Europe, you go. But it's not that easy.
Two weeks of class is a lot to make up. So much homework. I would risk failing some of my upper-level classes. After considering the pros and cons more closely it became a much harder decision to make. As we are both in the future, I'll let you know what happened. I decided to go. Let me tell you why. I believe, fundamentally, that experiences trump education in nine cases out of 10. The worldliness travel provides is infinitely more valuable than the book driven education. After all, the object of our education is not to teach what to think, but rather to teach young minds how to think.
One of the best ways to improve the "thinking" capability in students is to give them perspective. This is why we have "core" classes. We teach everyone the key subjects, language, mathematics, science, and history, so that they are rounded. Exposing them to a variety of subjects and experiences allows them to improve their judgement and analytical skills. There is a limit at how much this can be taught in a classroom. Books are wonderful learning tools, however, they have their limitations.
This is where life experience comes in. When we reach the limit at which the classroom can no longer add to a student's perspective, they must have real world adventures. Adventuring is learning. Living in a way contrary to how one normally lives is learning. We must expose ourselves to the foreign, to the unfamiliar, and in that we find out who we are.
Imagine you are a small, purple, paper doll. You are set in a purple paper box. You could live your entire life not knowing where your purple paper doll self ended and your purple paper box home began. All you would know would be purple. I was that paper doll. So when my mother asked me if I'd like to be in a pink paper box for a little while, how could I say no?
I'm not advocating traveling instead of education. Although, if that is fiscally possible, maybe I am. However, I am saying that perhaps we need to look at how we value our experimental learning. It is a gift. It is what truly rounds a person. Because really, why only know purple when there's a rainbow of boxes out there.
