How we learn and acquire knowledge: the role of experience and explanation, and the timing of them…
With my most recent obsession in finding meaning for my life, I’ve been drawn to what “The Glossary of Literary Terms” calls “the literature of the absurd.” Albert Camus is the poster boy for the genre. The literature of the absurd explores the premise that being human is like being Sisyphus: always laboring under unimaginable circumstances and never succeeding. But what I missed in high school was that Albert Camus suggests that we can create meaning in the face of such conditions. His work is hopeful. Who knew.
In revisiting these books from high school, I realized that when you read, there is an issue of timeliness that comes into play. In “The ABCs of How We Learn,” J is for “Just-in-Time Telling.” Schwartz, Tsang, and Blair explain that “experience and explanation produce different types of knowledge, and they work very well together when the experience comes first.”
Reading during high school was all about explanation, since I had experienced very little up to that point in my life. Over a decade later, with a little more experience under my belt, I’m now looking for a little more explanation. I do believe it’s finally time for me to read. What about you?
Changelog 🔗
- 2023-09-27: Migrated content to a new site. Changed the title from “How Experience and Explanation Impact Reading” to “How to Learn and Explain Things,” so it fits in with the rest of the how-to’s.
- 2021-03-14: Changed the title from “How Experience and Explanation Impact Reading” to “Experience and Explanation.” Pulled this out of the “How to Read and Write” section. After re-reading this, what I want to keep from the article is just the last two paragraphs. The rest is TMI. Omission preserved here just for posterity’s sake, not because I think you should read it.
- I went to a private, all-girls Catholic high school (preparatory, to be precise). My English teachers could assign whatever books they deemed appropriate. Looking back at their assigned reading, I see that the books they assigned reflected what they thought would be important for girls on the verge of independence. I didn’t read much of anything, but remember a few key selections from each of my teachers: some because I did read them, others because I couldn’t even fathom how the book ever got published.
- My freshman and junior year teacher was an older woman, with thin brown hair and thin glasses that rested low on her nose. Her assignments were: “The Awakening,” “Rebecca,” “Jane Eyre,” and “The Wide Sargasso Sea.” She asked us to fill out study guides that would help us with multiple choice tests.
- My sophomore year teacher was a square woman in her 40s with square rimless glasses. She assigned us: Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” and William Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury.” We were asked to recite three paragraphs of Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense.” “The Sound and the Fury” is, to this day, the most difficult novel I’ve ever tried (and failed) to read. I simply couldn’t follow and I’ll admit that I’m a little intimidated by the thought of going back to it.
- My senior year teacher was a gaunt British man with gray hair and a sense of humor drier than the Sonoran desert. He assigned: Albert Camus’ “The Stranger,” Alain de Botton “Kiss and Tell,” and Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice.” After assigning “Kiss and Tell” (which I didn’t read), he suggested that we should pick up de Botton’s “How Proust Can Change Your Life” (I didn’t do that either). De Botton has become one of my favorite writers, winning me over with “The Architecture of Happiness.” Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” will likely always have a special corner in my heart. “The Stranger” was bleak and depressing, and I skimmed it as quickly as I could to minimize its emotional impact. I then vowed never to pick it up again.
- 2021-03-13: Changed the title from “All Explanation and No Experience” to “How Experience and Explanation Impact Reading.”
- 2017-07-26: Created.