Posted by Theoretical Exams or Practical Applicability of Law: What Really Matters After Five Years? By Heena Narwani
“Education is not the learning of the facts, but the training of the mind to think.”
When it comes to knowledge there are different types of knowledge and different ways of acquiring each kind. On one side is theory and on the other side is the practical application of theory. Both types of knowledge are important and both makes you better at whatever you do.
I think those who advance the furthest in life tend to be those who acquire knowledge at both ends of spectrum and acquire it in a variety of ways.
- Theoretical Knowledge:
Theoretical Knowledge may be attributed to the theoretical clarity of a particular topic or subject, wherein person has quite an understanding about the things going around, and principle of their working, but cannot control the things. For Eg: If a person studies about a car and its engine parts in a classroom from books and presentation slides, he would of course have knowledge about what are the parts of car, and what is the principal of working, but he would lack practical knowledge of it. In the absence of this practical knowledge, the usefulness of car for him is zero. He cannot drive that car without proper knowledge, he cannot repair it in case of some fault, and he does not know anything about its machinery. Theoretical knowledge may be something that would help an individual to gain a good grip over practical knowledge. Knowledge is incredibly important to any career and life in general.
Why do we need theories?
Well-developed theories are important to us in three ways:
- They help us know what causes a certain event to occur. If the event has a positive impact, then we will know what to do to cause it to happen. If the event has a negative impact, then we will know what to do to prevent it from happening.
- They also inform us about the necessary circumstances that have to be present before our actions can cause a certain event to occur.
- They serve as take-off points for analysing failures. Sometimes, failures occur even when management does exactly what the theory says. A well-developed theory provides practitioners and researchers enough information to conduct a focused analysis that can lead to refinements of the theory itself.
- Practical Knowledge:
Practical knowledge is also very important to understand how things actually work. Practical Knowledge leads to a much deeper understanding of a concept through the act of doing and personal experience. Practical knowledge is found to be much useful in our day to day work. There are lot of things that you can learn only trough doing and experiencing; no matter how hard you try to learn that through theoretical means. For Example, if you try to learn how to drive a car by theoretical means, you’ll probably spend your whole life to learn, and still won’t be able to drive without proper practical training, and hence practical is must. Where theory is taught in the ideal of vacuum, the practical is learned through reality of life. Practical experience is not the opposite of theory; rather it leads to the development of theories. Coming again to the example of car as mentioned above, a person cannot learn to drive a car within the four walls of any classroom by theoretical means. He has to use that theoretical knowledge in practical life in order to learn how to drive a car. Similarly, a law student cannot merely by studying sections and articles gain knowledge unless and until he’ll go to the court and see the practical applicability of those sections and articles which he was taught in a classroom. Both of the above are important. You won’t survive in any career unless you can bring results and to do that you need practical knowledge. There is no avoiding of any one of these. At the same time learning how to solve a specific problem only teaches you how to solve that same problem again. Practice can only take you so far. Theory helps you to apply what you learned solving one problem to different problems. And practical is the application of theoretical basis in real. The basic difference between theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge is that, theory teaches you through the experience of others, and on the other hand in practical you tend to with your own experience without with the particular task.
Conclusion:
It is very important for every individual to possess sufficient knowledge to lead his life smartly and successfully. It does not matter if you are a student, professional or a businessman. Knowledge is something very important in the life of an individual. Gaining theoretical knowledge is important but without practical knowledge it is of no use. Practical knowledge empowers an individual to achieve something that he has been studying about. It is worth noting that not only in professional life; you need have in good practical approach for your life in general. Hence, it becomes really very important for proper growth and utilization of your knowledge that you have a practical edge too, otherwise there is no point having theoretical knowledge also, when you can’t apply that knowledge in practical life. Therefore, both practical and theoretical knowledge is important. Both will help a student after five years to appear in court and deal with the practical situations.
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