The Map Is Not The Territory

The late Catholic priest and psychotherapist Anthony de Mello in his book The Song of the Bird recalls a story of an explorer who returns to his people, who are eager to know about the Amazon. There is no way he can convey in words his experience of the beauties and dangers of his journey, so he urges them to go and find out for themselves. To guide them he draws a map of the river. The people eagerly study the map and become experts on all the information contained within the map. They eventually come to believe they know everything about the river.

We would do well to remind our students that what they learn in the classroom is merely the map. The best way to do this is to give them the opportunity to experience the territory for themselves. Experiential exercises, internships, service projects are some of the ways students can gain direct experience of a field.

Those of us who teach also need to regularly venture out into the territory to test our intellectual knowledge against experience. It is when we teach from our own experience that our teaching becomes authentic.