People who are devoted to lifelong learning may be classified as scholars or pedants. I was reminded of this by paleontologist Richard Fortey in his book Life: An Unauthorized Biography. A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth:
There is a difference between scholarship and pedantry, although the two sometimes get confused in popular perception. The difference is this. Scholarship at its best is about adding to knowledge, and the scholar remains for ever a student, even as he or she acquires more knowledge of their field than anyone else alive. Such people nearly always remain humble in the face of what they still do not know, for above all they understand that the task of comprehending history, or even enumerating its facts, is altogether impossibly huge. … The pedant, by contrast, acquires a detailed knowledge of some small thing, and then proceeds to round upon any person bold enough to infringe his small area. Rather than being in awe of history, he denies the magnitude of the task to hand by small-mindedness, by guarding some small piece of the past with pettifogging pickiness, ardent to assert his command of every last footnote and detail. … To the casual observer, the pedant sometimes seems more knowledgable than the scholar because he is more assertive, and more in command of the stray detail. The reverse is the case, and the academic world suffers on account of it.
I offer this quote because it contrasts the kind of teacher who stimulates learning versus the kind that provokes reactance. Academic readers may think this problem is confined to faculties. Rest assured, corporate trainers and “leadership developers” are not much different.
Now we have a great walkway that goes to the beach and to the canals that came from the partnership of community with government
Posted by: moncler shop | December 13, 2011 at 11:57 AM