Schooling vs. Online Education

On Wisdom

What is the most helpful thing in your life? Answers could be different, and yet "wisdom" certainly is one of them.

Wisdom is different than knowledge. You have better chances of becoming wise through interaction with great masters than through simple acquisition of knowledge like rote learning.

You may need collective schooling however excellent an on-line education system may be. So, you'd better not complain of attending "old-fashioned schools."  The following piece quotes a chain of Socrates-Plato-Aristotle in the West. Likewise, there was a chain of 孔子(Confucius)-曾子-子思-孟子(Mencius) in the East.

What do you think?

  

From Tom Morris. If Aristotle Ran General Motors.

New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1997: pp. 160~1

Have you ever thought about the fact that the great philosopher Socrates had a student named Plato, and that Plato had a student named Aristotle? Is it just an amazing coincidence that sometimes great teachers have great students who themselves turn into great teachers, and so on? A British scientist, physician, and philosopher, Michael Polanyi, thinks it's no coincidence at all. He has suggested that this pattern can be found in many domains of human activity. Given the right context of intimate and sustained association, greatness gives rise to greatness.

        The old master-apprentice model of education captured a powerful truth. You have a much better chance of becoming great if you hang around with great people. Polanyi cites the Nobel Prize winners in science whose students went on to win Nobels themselves. He insists that it's not just politics. Since the published results of the work of these great scientists are available for other researchers all around the world to read, why is it that something special is picked up by the students who actually worked and talked with the master all day in the lab? Polayni suggests that we convey to those around us insights, knowledge, and wisdom that can never fully be put into words. He calls this "personal knowledge" or "tacit knowledge." This kind of wisdom can't always be captured in a catchy aphorism, an epigrammatic witticism, a slogan for living, or a five-second sound bite, but is nonetheless real and powerful.