Racking my brain, I scan and collect the entirety of my knowledge of the Indian subcontinent. Even after nearly half an hour of jotting scribbled points on a piece of a paper that now sits in the periphery of my vision, I have scarcely enough to construct a pair of desultory paragraphs I would hesitate to lay any claim to—so my focus shifts. It has become quickly apparent I know little of the vastness that is India, but why is this?
If anything truly came straight to mind when posed with the question of this blog entry, it was the sheer size of India. Not in terms of geography (perhaps living in Canada has skewed my perception of what qualifies as a big country), nor in terms of its influence for of that I know not, but in terms of people. A single country that hosts a population roughly a seventh of that of our planet—as much as that of North America and Europe combined—is known far less than either.
So when presented with the topic my first instinct, as I’m sure was the case for many, was to pull up Google and sift through the plethora of information in the hopes of dredging enough to scrape the impression that I know about something I don’t. Perhaps this is the product of years in the public school system, where the focus has always been on presenting information in a way that would score a ninety so another week could be spent with sparse thought of what I had learned. Seldom did I ask why I had learned something or how it might contribute to my greater understanding. A lack of factual information had always been addressed with a quest to find it—if merely for the grade—and little concern to the reason for the lack of knowledge was ever proceeded upon.
I suppose that that is the difference between knowledge and information. Information is abundant in our society: more readily available and accessible than ever before. Knowledge, however, only seems to have expanded marginally with many, and the yearning to improve it is arguably declining—especially in youth. The inherent assumptions of knowledge, a desire to learn and a consequential learning experience, seem to have ebbed in an education system that puts more emphasis on test scores and funding dollars than on how they shape the student. I think that is what I hope English 123 might provide for me. If I can be driven beyond the desire for information into the realms of the pursuit of knowledge and in doing so learn something—however small—about myself I will have succeeded irrespective of my grade.
For now it seems that I know little about India, time and effort may change that—and conceivably me as well.
