TEXTBOOK KNOWLEDGE OR WORLDLY KNOWLEDGE ?

There have been three particular occurrences over the last month that have stemmed my current thoughts. The first being whilst on electives when the head OT said to me “You can be a top A student but still have no clinical reasoning”. The second being when we arrived back at holidays and our lecturer explained to us how this module was going to challenge us and really test our knowledge that we have built up over the last two and a half years – knowledge that even though we may have passed previous years, we may still not have because we could’ve been as she simply put it “skating through” without really learning or understanding much. And then finally a few days ago when we got given some articles to read in preparation for our lecture, the one in particular was talking about the importance of medical professionals having knowledge of and being aware of different cultures. This particular sentence from that article got my attention: “It is not rigid and is beyond knowledge, skills and attitudes more a type of thinking and knowing”. These three occurrences have made realise that even though you may be able to recite an entire textbook and get an A for the test does not mean that you know how to use that knowledge, where to use that knowledge or even when to use that knowledge. Basically it does not mean that you understand that knowledge. And just having textbook knowledge is so limiting, what about worldly knowledge, knowing what is happening all around us and how it may be affecting us?  And it may be great that we can memorise our notes and textbooks but we cannot simply put those bits of knowledge into boxes and leave them there, possibly forget it all over a couple of weeks holiday. We need to be able to combine it, intertwine it and apply it to a real life situation. We need to be aware of what is happening in the world because it is probably affecting us without us even realising it and more so it is probably affecting our clients that we are trying to help – well how can we help if we have no knowledge of it? So maybe sitting in front of our textbooks for hours is actually not making us anymore ‘knowledgeable”. Maybe we need to spend less time at our desks and more time out in the real world observing, analysing and possibly just reading the newspaper.

“Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers. Many people of average intelligence are skilled thinkers. The power of a car is separate from the way a car is driven.” Edward de Bono

You are only as knowledgeable and intelligent as you make yourself.