Becoming knowledgeable

Someone is either a student or a teacher for his entire life. He can never be something else. A student is not someone who goes to school, college, university for studies, but a student is someone who is curious and wants to learn more and more. A teacher on the other hand is not the person who explains the topics to the students of schools, colleges, or universities, but a teacher is someone who is able to make his students learn something new. Anyone can be a student, be it a child, a teen or an adult. Also, anyone can be a teacher, be it a child, a teen or an adult. It does not matter if that person has his degrees or not to be considered knowledgeable, but it does matter if someone has a particular skill that he is willing to share with the other people around. A student is someone who wants to learn a skill, and a teacher is someone who wants to teach a skill, no matter the student and the teacher have whatever educational qualification or whatever age or experiences. The reason why I am making this clear is because to develop we have always become a student and nature has always become our teacher and when this wonderful relation of us and nature has been connected, it is then when we humans have learned something. And this process keeps happening every second.

So with all of this in mind, we can ask the question what is knowledge and learning? A person having bookish knowledge cannot be considered knowledgeable whereas if someone does not have bookish knowledge but has learnt the skill to think like a knowledgeable person does is considered knowledgeable. Our world in the present decisively requires these kind of people because it is these kind of people who are going to create the future. Here, we need to get keen for knowledge, not just memorize what the book says. AS the founder of Apple, Steve Jobs once said, "Stay hungry, stay foolish." From this saying, he meant that be keen and eager to learn, and always be ready for something new that you can learn.

Another thing is questions. Students tend to become shy when they have a doubt. They think that their classmates are going to make fun of them to ask stupid questions. But great scientists ask "stupid" questions and actual knowledge is hidden behind these questions. So, never fear asking questions. These questions can make something more clearly to understand. Speaking of questions, we always have an interesting question—"why". This word "why?" can make something endless.

Let's take an example. Let's take the word "star". Let's take the question, "why stars look twinkling in the sky?" this can be answered like this—because the stars are too far away from us, they look tiny and twinkling in the sky?" This can be answered like this—because the stars are so far away from us, they look tiny and twinkling in the sky. For this statement, we can again ask, "Why are stars too far away from us?" We can again answer this as—according to the big bang theory, when the galaxies, the stars, the planets were all specks of dirt scattered around doe to the explosion, they moved extremely far away from each other. To this statement again, we can ask, "why did the big bang happen?" the question like this and beyond have no fixed answer yet. Hopefully, we might get an answer to this in the future, and once we will get an answer to this question then we can have another set of "whys" to again know more. Questions and answers are endless—especially, the "why" questions. This is the kind of approach a student should have towards his learning and the process of gaining knowledge.

Now that we have seen how a student should approach towards his learnings, let's also understand how a teacher should try to keep that curiosity in the student. This teacher not only includes the schoolteachers but also includes the parents and guardians because they play a very big role in the development of the student. Whenever the student wants to ask a question, do not discourage him/her by saying that this question is meaningless, but try to say it in such a way that it makes him/her even more curious. If you start helping in building the curiosity of your student then your student on the basis of this curiosity will want to explore more and more in the vast world of knowledge. So, the guidance of the teacher is very important so that the student can excel ahead. Do not only go on his bookish development, but also go on his intellectual and innovative development.

Hence, becoming a good student and a good teacher is all about wanting to learn. If you want to learn then you are a student, and if you want to help someone to learn then you are a teacher. That is what this discussion concludes with. Hope you have enjoyed it!