Disclaimer: This is not to disparage media or education on its whole, but merely an inquiry regarding one part of both. I am no expert in either field and am only posting opinion. I may point out disagreement with other opinions in the effort to include as many options/perceptions as possible in the conversation. Nothing is meant to be personal.

Now, to the point:

Often times, most times I would argue, the 'knowledge and wisdom' we attain is not come by mere osmosis .. the KW we acquire comes from word of mouth or a book (someone else) who got it from word of mouth or a book(someone else) and so on and so forth.

And when it comes to our media and our educational system, there is no exception. The news is passed on and along from (human) source to source. Our school curriculum is information coming from books written by people who also used a human source of some type, who did the same and so on and so forth.

So my question is regarding how thin the line is between actual 'knowledge and wisdom' and mere memorization of the tidbits of possibly flawed information others have passed along to each other and to us? Or are they basically the same thing where 'wisdom and knowledge' just makes people seem so much nobler and worthy of merit than does 'memorization of tidbits'?


This stems from an interview with a college student who expressed the opinion that students would do better and be more intrigued by questions that didn't require students to 'just memorize' things.

My opinion is that all information is on some level 'memorized' and when dealing with such high student to teacher ratios, how can teachers be expected to teach without focusing on having students 'memorize' the information needed?


So, I guess the two questions are:

1. With regard to media and social culture, is there any difference between someone having 'wisdom and knowledge' and someone who has a good knack for 'memory of tidbits that have been passed along" ?

2. With regard to the educational system, is there any difference between students "memorizing information' and them "learning"? And if so, how can the school system better reinforce the latter?

1st wisdom and knowledge are not synonymous

while knowledge can be memorized

wisdom must be learned or acquired


to answer

1yes someone can posses a lot of knowledge from retaining bits

but wisdom comes from the intergration and use of those memorized bits

2 yes there is a world of difference. math is a good example it uses rote memorized bits multiplication tables for example to work in learned formulas (algebra say) to gain more function from all math.

the ability to make the leap and combine the 2 usefully is a demonstration of wisdom.


how to make the system better, is to return to using both methods and finding new ways to impart them at varying rates to students learning ability. as opposed to no child left behind and all win and get a trophy methods in place now

I am of a similar mind that wisdom includes an element of experience(acquiring moments where knowledge is applied)

I am also of the belief that we may do better in our educational system to adapt the learning styles to the environment in which the students are learning AS well as using common 'tidbits' to assist them in competing in the real world

Eric22t had some great points.

I hesitate to combine media and social culture in the context of wisdom and knowledge.
Media and social culture is a society aspect.
Wisdom and knowledge is a personal aspect.
Many times they conflict, which leads to stress and anxiety.
Stress is not always severe, it builds up over time.
When conflict is experienced, no matter the severity, it remains until it is alleviated.

Anyone that is functional acquires tidbits of understanding of the world around them which they retain as wisdom. Wisdom is not the same as knowledge because wisdom changes as more knowledge and understanding is attained.

Human beings are social animals.
Society is the result of being a social animal.
Way back in time, humans were not social. Imagine caveman Bob has a cave fire. Other cavemen see the fire and do nothing to help caveman Bob. Then, one day, they help put someone else's cave fire out. They start helping other's tend to life and those helped in turn, return the gesture. Society initiates.
Our society today is that concept 1.6 million years in the making.
What changes is the number of people in that society.

Societies split and merge. The more people within a given society increases conflict. Not only are there different geographical societies (with different value systems) there are different levels of society within a society (with different value systems).

It is often heard that you should "Know Your Place".
That concept is realized in adolescence from social dynamics learned from friendship groups in school.

Knowledge can prepare you for rising thru the dynamic range of society's social groups but wisdom is what defines your social place. You may understand (knowledge) what it takes to be a drug user but you choose (wisdom) not to enter that social group.


There is no single education system. There is baseline requirements as determined by society that educators are directed to teach but every method is unique towards the same goal.

The Golden Rule: Teach the children how to function in society.

That is accomplished by exposing the child to different scenarios to form an understanding in them as to how society is at that time.
The task is shared by parents, family, teachers, other children and society itself. Media is the society portion of the equation.
Schools teach the basic formulas needed to understand basic functional concepts.
They do this by first exposing those concepts to the children then by repeating the exposure, over time, to set the formulas into patterns of recognition the child can call on.
Its the repetition that establishes the learning.
Tests are used to determine if the child has learned the concepts taught.
If tests results are high, a new set of formulas are introduced, if they are low, the child must return to more repetition until the old formula is learned and the new material is initiated.

Its like teaching a puppy to do a trick. Repetition and reward continues until it is learned and a new trick is started.

The education system is not meant to be precise. It is there to teach concepts which for a basis of common understanding.
The precision learning we all do is from interacting with society over time.

Life shows us repetitive things. If our baseline knowledge is sufficient we gain understanding from those life repetitions. That understanding builds our wisdom. As we learn new patterns of life, our wisdom morphs to include those as well.

A note about media over-exposure.
Most media is broad spectrum. Meaning it sources from many different social standings. Learning from media exposure can teach a wide range of understanding that is not applicable to your own personal social standing. Any 'wisdom' acquired from that broad spectrum is useless for actual true life scenarios unless you make it apply.
This is an understanding that can't be gained by more exposure. To see the results, one must remove the stimuli and take note of the personal understanding that results.
Without massive media exposure, wisdom and knowledge is more personally focused and life is easier to manage. Stress levels decrease and clarity increases. It gets easier to function in the smaller social groups because your focus is no longer on such a wide range of stimuli. Happiness and contentment are easier to attain.

I agree but only to a certain degree.

Schools are not supposed to teach real-world environmental learning.
They are there to teach basic commonalities to societal standards as established by society.

Real-world environmental learning is taught by parents, family and friendships. All of which teaches yourself by trial and error.

Schools can teach you how to balance a check book but life teaches you what happens in real life if you don't.

The wisdom you gain from experiencing trial and error is gained from patterns of repetition.

Dad lets you use the car to take you date to the movies but tells you to be home by 11pm, you agree. You come home at 11:30 pm and dad is angry. He sets consequences in place so you learn to keep your word but doesn't tell you that. He allows you to use the car again and you again fail to keep your word. He stops allowing you to use the car.
Do you learn to be home on time or that you should always try to keep your word? Is it learning how to keep a schedule or a lesson on integrity? Wisdom allows you to understand the hidden lessons to be learned from your experiences.
You can't learn some of the most important lessons in school. School does teach you basic understanding so you can gain wisdom to learn from your experiences.

ding ding ding we have a winner

tom you get a gold star

knowledge can be taught

wisdom can not

okay. Cooking with oil here. Now, we are coming to a distinction between types of 'learning', I believe

there is learning of 'life lessons' which I absolutely belong with family and reinforced through repetition in the community and the media

there is also learning 'intellectual fundamentals' like the maths, reading, writing, comprehension, grammar ... etc

which, I believe, belong with the educational system and reinforced through repetition in the home and the community

When it comes to the latter, it is disheartening how many are coming out of our institutions so under skilled in those basics, and as it pertains to those basics, I believe we could do better by adapting the teaching styles of the teachers to the communities in which they teach.

I recently shared a link, I dont want to search for it now, of a teacher who adapted her style to include a speak-answer style of interactive and physical participation from the students. This serves both to keep their interest, and more fully observe their interest and understanding, while maybe peaking their health just a bit more as well.

Another teacher uses animations and music, to help the children with 'retaining' what they learn

I think gone are the days of stale educational multiple choice style teaching in a very overly animated environment of technology, entertainment, and immediacy.

Several things.

I see at least three elements, not two in this realm. Three levels, so to speak.

First level is DATA. The "memorized tidbits." It's similar to collecting a bunch of bricks and wood, because you anticipate building a house.

Second level is Knowledge. That's the level where you actually know where each piece fits with each other piece and why.

The THIRD level is Wisdom.That's the trickiest level of all, and involves the student being able to use DATA and Knowledge to transcend both, and see reality itself, with the CONCEPTUAL WORLD and the FACTUAL WORLD all coordinated and integrated within their minds and lives.

When it comes to the educational process, there are inherent processes that students at the relative beginning of knowledge, aren't able to appreciate. That's why many will complain as the one you heard did, that there's too much memorization involved, and that it feels as though the memorization is in the way of gaining real knowledge and wisdom.

The tricky thing is, many areas of study have to be built on a large foundation of data which can only be acquired rapidly enough, by WAY of memorization.

I was History major in college, for example. I eventually came to the (I would say wise) insight, that in order to reach the point where I COULD begin to do the real work of Historians (that is, explaining not only what, but WHY life came to be as it is...)that I had to first go through years of just building up an information base of facts and figures and names and dates and so on.

Sports is similar. You can't go directly from "this is a football" to scoring touchdowns,you have to learn running techniques, passing rules, and build up the various physical skills needed. The newbies to the game, will often be found complaining about all the mindless jumping jacks and pushups, but it's not necessarily an indication that the coaching staff needs to have a new approach.

nice use of analogy ... always one of my favorite techniques for teaching/learning

well said igor which leads to some of the recently not so good changes in education as reported by many i personally know in education.
both whole language teaching and new math have proven to do just that eliminate early the rote learning steps and jump to knowledge based processes.

whole language by passes spelling and grammar in its earliest stages and has proven ineffective by the time you get to english composition level later on.

new math does the same so by the time students are starting to learn formulas they keep tripping over simple addition or multiplication.


on a first hand basis my niece after 2 years learning a musical instrument in school still could not read sheet music. in her 3rd year with the replacement teacher by the end of the 1st quarter her playing jumped exponentially after learning the language.


improvements to teaching MUST take care to not "throw the baby out with the bath water"

I totally agree. I believe sometimes changes are made JUST to meet demands for change, without any real value to the change, and sometimes with change that creates more problems than it solves.

I see a permeance of the 'change is always good' philosophy, that throws out details or consideration of change resulting negatively.

I agree with all the posters here. The reality is that the skill of memorising and recall are the lowest levels of learning .Analysis, synthesis, and evaluation are the highest ,

In my country, the assignment tasks for lower school start off with questions like "List/identify the advantages of" or "State the procedure of", which excercise students skills of recall.

By the time they reach the age of 15, the tasks progress to questions like " analyse to what extent is a particular statement true or " evaluate the criteria used for guaging the success for a particular event, Those are aimed at developing the higher learing skills of Analysis and critical thinking.

Thats why Im really excited when students are given projects that involve enacting one's perception of a Literatre character or historical figure or event ,as it taps into skills of interpretation , analysis etc. The educational system definitely needs to get more strategic and creative across the board.

A wonderful discussion.

Igor explains that learning, all learning is built on a foundation.
But it is not a pyramid. Its more of an inverted pyramid with each foundation leading to a larger more complex foundation.

Eric examples a definition of how that foundational ladder gets shortcut and results in new foundations that are not as sturdy as the previous.

There are hollows which weaken all the subsequent foundations.


Society is the framing of the effectiveness of the education system. Not only the institutional but the personal systems as well.

Assessments of society are often understood based on ones personally experienced society. Where one may see graduates as under skilled, others may see them as highly qualified.

As a manager, giving training to groups, I assessed my effectiveness by how well the information was processed by the groups. I did not see it as their failure to learn but as my failure to effectively teach. The information needing passed was always there.
Teaching apprentises required a different strategy that teaching the masters. If found that sometimes, reasserting apprentise level information to the masters opened their heads to accept the more complex information they needed to learn. I used the complex information in small vague ways with the apprentises to inspire a quest to find out more.
It was my job as a teacher to understand my class so I could use different techniques to pass the material that class required. Each class had different methods in different degrees.

Schools are pretty much the same way.
There is a set of defined criteria and established tools to impart that prescribed information to the students.
The teachers use various methods to make that happen.
Some are effective and others are not.
The teachers that employ the most effective methods have students that retain the most material.

The standard in the instutional education system does not always support every teaching method that may be needed for every class group. Those institutions are only concerned with the average outcome as a whole. That is why some communities have great schools and others do not.

Schools are the baseline for the society as a whole. A mere building block to the foundation, not intended to be the entire foundation. The intellect of the graduates is not solely based on the institution's effectiveness.

If it were up to me I would run the schools more like a military academy and then maybe we could get some of these young men and women more direction and a better education geared at more than starting at the bottom.It's time to get a grip on all this school violence and bullying they'll either shape up or ship out..Maybe with better guidance we can keep some of these kids from wandering the streets and disrespecting their parents.For sure knowledge is power and wisdom is knowing how to use that power in the correct way..

I've seen some pretty good teaching systems, and some terrible ones.

School systems seem to be another of those elements of life where the old saying "the more thing change, the more they stay the same."

When I was a kid, the local Virginia schools were going through a series of what I would call 'fad' method shifts, and it chanced to screw things up for me pretty good, because I changed schools a couple of times. I lucked out and didn't suffer one of the dreadful so-called "new math" ideas that my younger brothers did, but I managed to go to one school that planned my English education around the idea that I would get "phonics" the following year, and then my family moved, and the new school announced that following year, that since I had phonics the previous year, that I would be expected to progress from there on, with no help. Classic school system politics.

I think the one thing I really wish would be tried, is to change the purpose of tests. Instead of having tests decide the entire course of your future life, or teacher pay, they would be used to correct the teaching itself. The schools would have to see to it that the students actually learned.

Of course, that's never going to be politically popular, because it would involve spending more money, and where I live, people get elected to REDUCE spending on education.

Another smaller item to watch out for, be careful of, has to do with Wisdom.

Something I noticed about Wisdom itself, is that trying to pass it on to others can be a very tricky business indeed.

What we often call "wise sayings" can be the most intriguingly tricky of all. The PURPOSE of a lot of our 'wise sayings," is to encapsulate a tremendous amount of knowledge and insight, into a short and memorable statement that helps those on the VERGE of recognizing wisdom, to more readily put the pieces together, and move forward in their lives.

However, it is ironically very common, for real wise sayings to be used instead, as cudgels to berate people who DON'T understand enough to grasp their subtle meanings, into cooperating with the person cudgeling them.

Many truly wise people have tried earnestly to save the rest of us time and pain, by expressing their insights to us in simpler terms. It is common during formal education, for teachers to try to use those intentions to good effect, to help students progress more rapidly, and it can work well. But it can also accidentally confuse students, to try to hit them with the WISDOM level understanding of a subject, before they have achieved the KNOWLEDGE level, because it DOES appear to them that all there is to "wisdom" is MEMORIZING more pithy phrases.

Teaching is every bit as challenging as learning is.

Generally speaking, there is no difference between someone having 'wisdom and knowledge' and someone who has a good knack for 'memory of tidbits that have been passed along" .

The difference comes in practical application.

'Wisdom and knowledge' allow for specialized behavior and abilities.

General and social behavior is usually more homogeneous. Better to conform than stick out.

e.g. compare someone at their accounting job, the language, skills, and knowledge they use to perform their work compiling a report, suggesting future action for the company.
Now compare that to a dating site forum OP.


Of course.
That's why there are distinct words.
"Memorizing" and "learning" have separate meanings.


What you are ultimately asking is "how can the centrally planned, theft from taxpayers funded, school system reinforce the desire for individuals (possibly forced to attend depending on if you are referring to k-12, or college/trade school) to learn (as opposed to mimic) what the centrally planned system has decided is best for those people to learn?"

No matter what, people learn.
They just might not be learning the things "the school system" wants them to learn, or place more value on ancillary learning (e.g. social hierarchy, social relationships) over direct "education."

Students may have learned memorization and regurgitation is the most efficient means of getting through "the school system."

"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink."
Or, in the case of "the school system:" you can compulsorily force your horse to water, but you can't make it think.

How can the cowboy better force the horse to drink the water he wants it to?
Punishment, threats, saturation (throw the horse into the water, force its head under, some will get in its mouth), physical control, manipulation, guilt.
Usually hidden in a voice of false sweetness so the horse doesn't spook and just decide to run off.

People "learn" when there is a desire to learn and/or an immediate and desirable outcome to learning greater than any perceived benefit to not learning or valued alternative learning.

So "how can the school system better reinforce the latter?"
Based on the current system in place the only real options are:
- Increase severity of punishment for not learning.
- Imply greater future threats for not learning.
- Increase sheer volume of work throughput and applicability.
- Keep students on campus for greater amounts of time to control all aspects of behavior.
- Manipulate the information to a more pleasing format offering a false patina of fulfillment and achievement.
- Increase social dependence on faculty/teachers so fulfilling role expectations overshadow peer group expectations.

My goodness, ciretom, you appear to believe that all schooling of any kind, is hopeless. No solutions offered at all.

I disagree with a lot of what you said, to one extent or another. For example, I would say that there is a TREMENDOUS difference between someone with 'wisdom and knowledge' and 'someone with a knack for memory of tidbits.' The latter are entirely incapable of successfully performing any task whatsoever which requires knowledge of the subject area. That's rather a significant difference.

In addition, since you use the term "the centrally planned, theft from taxpayers funded, school system" to refer to what I presume are public schools, that tells me that you are coming from a pure propaganda viewpoint, and have no accurate knowledge or understanding of any American public schools at all. You have substituted memorized dogma for factual information AND for knowledge. That in turn, is WHY you offer no solutions, because your dogma based definitions of public school systems directly define them as hopeless, without providing any factual or logical supporting proof whatsoever.