Daniel Bogert "Knowledge vs Experience"

Walt Whitman's poem "When I heard the Learn'd Astronomer" illustrates the difference between knowledge and experience. The poem tells the story of a young college student who sits in the lecture hall of a famous astronomer. This professor is extremely knowledgeable and lays out all kinds of charts and diagrams analyzing the stars. Yet the college student inexplicably begins to feel tired and sick. He only feels better when he excuses himself from the lecture hall and then looks up at the stars in perfect silence. Learning everything there was to learn about the stars just made the student feel worse. Only by experiencing the stars himself could he feel at peace. I believe way too much emphasis is placed on knowledge in our current academic system. I believe a person can learn more by experiencing first hand what he is learning about. For this reason I respect Dr. Redick for teaching classes while on the AT or Camino de Santiago. In such a setting the students experience the very things they are learning about. I think more classes should be structured this way. I've learned a lot about nature and wilderness in this class, but I'm not sure it really means anything until I step outside and experience the stars for myself.