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The Great Aim of Education Is Not Knowledge, but Action.
The Great Aim of Education Is Not Knowledge, but Action.
I started learning and studying how the Internet works in the 1990s after I came across some American-published back-issues of different Internet-based magazines in my country.
From the basic knowledge of how the Internet works, I ventured into the study of developing and designing Websites.
That was when Microsoft Frontpage and Hyper Text Mark-up Language, HTML, were among the few Web development and design tools or software that were around.
After acquiring the knowledge of how Websites were developed and designed, I abandoned it and crossed into the marketing of young soccer players.
The reason I abandoned Web development for the soccer business was the frustration that I suffered when the people I approached to allow me to design Websites for them told me they had no interest in owning Websites.
After some years of soccer players-marketing, the urge of continuing with my information technology, IT, career came to me again.
By the time I returned to IT, I had forgotten most of the things I was taught while learning Web development and design.
But after a few weeks of revision of my Web development and design lecture notes, I became knowledgeable again in the business of developing and designing Websites.
Rather than prospecting for clients who needed Websites, I decided to start developing and designing Websites for myself, which I used for my online businesses.
And since then, I have not looked back because my online business has been growing by leaps and bounds.
Do you know why?
Because I know what works and what doesn’t work in my own area of information technology, IT, as a result of practising my knowledge.
It was after I decided to test my Web development and design knowledge that people began to reach out to me to develop and design Websites for them.
“I want my Website to look as beautiful and functional,” demanded one of my earlier clients, “as those of your Websites that I see online.”
Many people are like me of old.
They have different kinds of knowledge in different areas of human endeavours, but are sitting on that knowledge; doing nothing about them.
Are you one of those people?
If yes, then, one strong piece of advice for you.
Here’s my advice for you:
If there’s any knowledge that you have, in whatever area of life, that you’re yet to put to use, please, get ready to activate or take action on that knowledge now.
If you don’t make use of any knowledge that you have, you won’t be able to know what works and what doesn’t.
Many people might even be waiting to pay you for that knowledge that you’re wasting.
I know what I am saying because I am speaking from experience.
That knowledge that you left unutilized might even be the joker that you need to achieve that business or life goal that you have in your mind.
For you to know whether there’s power or any usefulness in your unused knowledge or not, go out there and take action on it.
You cannot conclude on the knowledge that you’ve not used without taking action on it.
No, you can’t!
You need to activate and experiment on it. It is only after then that you can make an educative conclusion on it.
As a matter of fact, what you do with your knowledge matters as much as what you know.
Having knowledge about something is never enough. You need to put that knowledge to work before it can make any meaning to you and society at large.
For example, it is no longer news that insecurity is one of the greatest challenges that is facing the world today.
You’re most likely to be aware of this because insecurity is almost everywhere, today; without boundaries.
If you have an idea or knowledge on how the plague called insecurity can be tackled or exterminated, but you decide not to do anything about it, you would have succeeded, though indirectly, in perpetuating the problem of insecurity because you decided not to make use of your knowledge to help stop it.
Really?
Oh, yes!
The major reason we go to school, observed the English Philosopher, Herbert Spencer, in his quote, “The Great Aim of Education Is Not Knowledge, but Action,” is not to acquire knowledge for keeps, but for the benefit that is accruable to the education that is applied.
That was also why German novelist, playwright, and poet, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said: “Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”
The Holy Bible has its own version of this teaching, which says: “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.” James 1:22-24
A word is enough for the wise.
So, go out there, today, now, and activate or put to use that very knowledge that you have been rendering redundant for some time now.
It is by so doing that you can know what really works and what doesn’t, as well as contribute to the betterment of your life and the good of society at large.
See you at the top!
The Great Aim of Education Is Not Knowledge, but Action. THE END.
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