Exams are usually about cranking a lot of information and then regurgitating it on paper. But it often does not lead to you retaining what you learnt. And obviously, what you don’t retain, you can’t apply. This is why many star students do not go in to have star lives, and many dull students leave school and become brilliantly successful.
The secret of learning is to focus on the application of what you learn, not just on short-term retention, in order to download it to your examiner.
If you do not apply the knowledge you learn, what you have is no different from entertainment. Information has to transform you through your application before it can be called knowledge. Until then, it is just information.
Beyond application, only those who analyse before they apply can use their knowledge in groundbreaking ways to achieve outstanding success.
Because if you do not analyse what you know, you will not be able to evaluate where, when, and how it can be applied.
For example, you can have information about food shortages in your community. That awareness is not knowledge. It is information.
Now, if you feel that because you are aware of this, you can solve the problem of food scarcity while benefiting from the opportunity, that information is now knowledge.
You are now applying the knowledge if you research and find out where to source produce and livestock to solve that problem.
Then, when you start analysing whether it is worth taking a loan from a bank or your family and friends to start a business solving the problem you identified, you have now moved into the analytical process of application, which is evaluation.
And evaluation leads to the highest form of knowledge, which is Phronesis. Phronesis is what the Ancient Greek philosophers called the discipline of discernment, which leads to right judgment that, if acted upon, helps you determine how to achieve your goals with the least effort and the most rewards.
Sadly, the preponderance of Pentecostal and Evangelical Christianity had made many Sub-Saharan Africans confuse laziness for faith, making them think that they can only achieve Phronesis as a gift of the Holy Spirit. That is not true. And even The Bible testifies that such thinking is fallacious.
In Hebrews 5:14, Paul said:
“But strong meat belongs to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”
What is that verse teaching us? It is letting us know that we attain Phronesis ‘by reason of use’ and through ‘senses exercised to discern both good and evil.’
In other words, the more you utilise your senses (your natural abilities to acquire information and convert it to knowledge), the more discernment you will have. And the more discernment or judgment you have, the more you can make the right analysis for applying knowledge, which will then create success for you.
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