Ernest, 4 years old, was about to put his finger to a candle flame. His mother warned him that he would get burned. He was curious and wanted to know what it felt like. So, when his mother left, he put his finger to the candle flame, and immediately jerked it away.

The mother’s warning is theoretical wisdom. Ernest burning his finger is experiential wisdom. Ernest learned the hard way, but the lesson is deep and permanent. He will never do it again. He will never forget. Theoretical wisdom is easily forgotten. Experiential wisdom is mostly permanent.

Ernest saw his uncle sitting by a fence. He warned the boy the barbed wire was electrified to keep wolves from preying on their sheep. Ernest was once more curious. He wondered what it would feel like to be electrocuted. So, he urinated on the wire and got the shock of his life. As his uncle laughed, Ernest thanked him for the lesson he learned.

Joanna lived in the Bay Area. She was No. 1 in her class, and was proud of it. But whenever her alcoholic father would come home dead drunk, he would maul Joanna and her mother. So, Joanna told her mom she had enough and would run away. The mother loved Joanna, so she let her go to look out for herself.

Joanna ended up in Morocco. There, she wandered around and met a Bedouin boy in the market in Marrakesh. The boy told her that Bedouins were desert nomads full of wanderlust. They roamed the vast desert and would go crazy if they settled down in one place. Joanna was fascinated. The boy introduced her to his family that sold giant black desert scorpions for a living. The family got to like Joanna and invited her to join them in their desert treks.

Joanna stayed with the Bedouin family for three months. They got to love her because she taught the boy how to read and learn mathematics. After her wonderful desert experience, Joanna returned home. She embraced her mom and dad. When she told them about her desert experience, her dad was so fascinated that he decided to look for a job. He found work as a cook for a soup kitchen for alcoholics. He never drank a single drop again. And he never mauled them again.

She applied to be a teacher at her former school.

DEAN — I understand you were No. 1 in class in this school. But you left for a long time. What makes you think you will remember all that you learned to become a good teacher?

JOANNA — I lived with the Bedouins in the Sahara desert. What I learned from them in three months is much much more than what I learned in this school in eight years of high school and college. Theoretical wisdom is nothing. Experiential wisdom is everything. The wisdom I learned from nomads with no schooling is so awesome, it is mind-boggling and heart-rending. I want to teach the students about life not found in books, but real life.

Joanna was hired on the spot to begin an experimental class in experiential wisdom. She immersed her students in the real world, telling them to write compositions about the poor and the old folks that she told them to meet. Students flocked to her class, until she had to break them up into four classes of 40 each. She taught other teachers her approach to learning.

One day, a bunch of journalism students approached Joanna, asking for help. They had this armchair professor who taught journalism from an American book not applicable to Filipino culture. Joanna talked to the armchair professor and convinced him to divide his class into teams of five and immerse them in television and radio, and newspapers. They interviewed radio announcers, news editors and television directors of talk shows. Then each team made a presentation in class, on camera, which they showed to other journalism students.

ARMCHAIR PROFESSOR — Joanna, I want to thank you for teaching the experiential wisdom approach. I ended up learning journalism from my students. I am compiling all their presentations into a journalism textbook.

JOANNA — Wow. Great.

(Continued in Part 2)