A seemingly simple question is put to a professor who has been teaching for more than fifty years. What would you do differently if you were in your twenties again? Douglas Davies, Professor of the Study of Religion at Durham University, does not need much time to think. Not very much, he replies. He considers himself fortunate, partly because he was able to attend university without paying tuition fees. He wishes students still had that opportunity today. His concern goes beyond the financial accessibility of education. It also involves the way paying for education changes the relationship between students and universities. Education risks becoming a transaction in which students pay and institutions are expected to deliver something measurable in return.
Then Davies says something that immediately strikes a chord with me. Knowledge can be transferred within such a transactional relationship. Wisdom cannot be exchanged in quite the same way. When asked about the difference between knowledge and wisdom, he offers an almost disarmingly simple explanation: “It’s knowing stuff to understanding yourself in relation to all that stuff.”
It sounds almost childishly simple, with that repeated use of the word stuff. Yet those few words contain an entire world of meaning. It is about learning to understand yourself in relation to everything you know. About how that knowledge changes the way you see the world, how others perceive that same world, and how you subsequently relate to them. It is an ongoing process of discovery, questioning, challenging and understanding things anew. To me, Davies touches upon the very essence of education.
The Boundaries of What You Know
For years, I have used an image to explain my thoughts about knowledge and wisdom. It is an idea that has gradually developed through countless conversations over time. Imagine that all your knowledge is contained within a small cube measuring one centimetre by one centimetre by one centimetre. Everything you know, understand and have learned exists within that cube. Its volume is one cubic centimetre, and its six outer faces have a combined surface area of six square centimetres. Those faces represent the boundary between what you know and everything that lies beyond your knowledge.
As you learn more, the cube grows. Imagine it expanding to two centimetres by two centimetres by two centimetres. Your knowledge has now increased eightfold, while the surface area where your knowledge meets the unknown has quadrupled to twenty-four square centimetres.
The more you know, the greater the surface area on which you can discover how much you still do not know.
And this is where things become interesting. Those outer faces represent the boundaries of your knowledge. Wisdom emerges from the way you deal with those boundaries. From recognising that your knowledge, however extensive, can never encompass the whole of reality. From being willing to ask questions, listen to others, examine your own convictions and accept that someone looking from a different perspective may arrive at a different conclusion.
Wisdom therefore also means knowing that you do not know everything. It means being willing to challenge yourself continually and reconsider your understanding. And for that, you need knowledge. A great deal of knowledge, in fact. Without substance, the cube has little meaning, and the foundation for discovering connections is missing. Knowledge is therefore an essential condition for developing wisdom, while wisdom ultimately determines how you use that knowledge.
What Are We Actually Teaching?
When I look at education today, I often feel that we are primarily concerned with filling the inside of that cube. We accumulate knowledge, define learning objectives, test what students have remembered and assess their performance through grades. All of this serves an important purpose. At the same time, I wonder how much attention we devote to what that knowledge ultimately does to a student.
Take history. Of course, students need to know when the Second World War took place, which countries were involved and how events unfolded. That knowledge provides the foundation. Its significance becomes much greater when students also understand how the First World War, the Treaty of Versailles, economic circumstances and political developments during the interwar period contributed to the conditions in which National Socialism could flourish.
History then becomes more than remembering events. Students discover how uncertainty, fear, propaganda and the identification of scapegoats can influence a society. They learn to recognise connections and can begin asking what those insights mean for the world they live in today. Wisdom also requires careful judgement. Not every development today can be compared with events from almost a century ago. Recognising both similarities and differences is precisely what makes historical understanding valuable.
The same applies to physics. Students can learn equations about energy, heat and radiation. That knowledge is essential for understanding how our physical world functions. When they subsequently discover how these physical principles relate to climate change, that knowledge acquires a broader significance. They begin to understand how something works and can reflect on the consequences for society and the responsibilities that follow.
A language teacher can teach grammar and spelling while also helping students discover the influence words have on people. How language can connect, persuade, hurt and exclude. This relates to my blog Words Matter, which explores precisely that human dimension of language.
In all these examples, knowledge remains indispensable. The real depth emerges when students begin to understand what that knowledge means for their relationship with themselves, with others and with the world.
The Bible Is a Book of Fairy Tales
Almost forty years ago, I attended a Protestant Christian secondary school in the Netherlands. One of my teachers was Bert Terwel, who taught religious education. Initially, of course, he was Mr Terwel. After a memorable walking trip from South Limburg in the Netherlands to northern Luxembourg, together with our German teacher Bram Vermeulen, he became Bert. That change in how we addressed him already says something about the relationship he managed to build with his students.
Bert had a remarkable way of teaching. Every week, he would give us a statement to think about. We would discuss it during the following lesson. These were questions for which you could not simply find an answer in a textbook. He wanted us to think for ourselves, examine our convictions and learn to listen to different perspectives.
Until one day, he gave us the following statement:
The Bible is a book of fairy tales.
At a Protestant Christian school, that apparently went a step too far. Students took the statement home, parents reacted, and eventually Bert was told that this approach to teaching was not acceptable. He tried to explain that he was not imposing a personal belief upon us. It was a proposition intended to make us think. The discussion that should have taken place the following week never happened.
My father supported him. He thought it was wonderful that a teacher challenged students to reflect on faith and their own beliefs in this way.
What has stayed with me about that incident is that the school presumably wanted to protect its Christian identity, while Bert wanted to help his students understand that identity more deeply. Those two intentions need not be mutually exclusive. You can believe in something profoundly and still be willing to examine the foundations of that belief. In fact, I believe a conviction gains its true significance when you are prepared to examine it critically.
Bert wanted us to reflect on why we believed what we believed. He invited us to explore the boundaries of our own cubes of knowledge. And at that moment, the space to do so was restricted.
Little Blobs of Insight
During the conversation, Douglas Davies offers another beautiful description. He explains how wisdom develops throughout a lifetime through small moments of insight that gradually accumulate. Little blobs of insight. Small fragments of understanding that may seem insignificant on their own, yet eventually come together to form something valuable.
It reminds me of MIMS, Meaningless Important Moments. Those seemingly insignificant moments in our lives whose true importance we often discover only much later.
Bert Terwel’s statement was one of those moments.
I no longer remember which chapters we studied in his lessons. I cannot reproduce the learning objectives or recall the grades I received. What I do know is that almost forty years later, I still remember the way he taught. His willingness to ask questions, his genuine interest in our thoughts and his conviction that education should extend beyond the transfer of information.
I remember him as one of the best teachers I ever had. As a human being, too.
And then I realise how remarkable it is that a conversation with another educator, Professor Douglas Davies, helps me understand more clearly why Bert Terwel made such a lasting impression on me. Both have devoted themselves, through their respective fields, to religion, beliefs and the meaning people give to their existence. Both demonstrate the importance of connecting knowledge with the way we understand ourselves and others.
A teacher from almost forty years ago and a professor whose words I hear today come together in a single thought. That, too, is a small moment of insight.
What Remains of Education?
Davies tells his students that many of them will go on to hold important positions in society. Some will become leaders, carry responsibility and make decisions that affect other people’s lives. For that, he believes, they need more than information. They need wisdom.
As far as I am concerned, this applies to every student, regardless of the education they pursue or the position they eventually occupy in society.
We need people who possess knowledge while recognising the limitations of their own perspective. People who can make connections, who are willing to examine their convictions and who take responsibility for the consequences of their actions. People who understand that someone with a different background, experience or belief may look at the same reality from an entirely different perspective.
This requires education that goes beyond the transmission of knowledge. Education that allows room for doubt, curiosity and uncomfortable questions. Where teachers challenge students to think independently and where examining a conviction is regarded as an opportunity to develop a deeper understanding.
It also demands something of teachers and educational institutions. Anyone who genuinely wants to teach students how to think must accept that they will ask questions for which no immediate answer is available. That they will challenge established views and occasionally reach conclusions we ourselves had not anticipated.
It is precisely there that education can find its greatest significance.
I think once again of Bert Terwel. Of that single statement he gave us and the discussion that never took place. Almost forty years later, I am still thinking about it. His lesson was interrupted at the time, yet the thought he planted in our minds has apparently never entirely disappeared.
And that brings me back to Douglas Davies and his seemingly simple words about knowledge and wisdom.
A diploma can demonstrate what someone has learned. It tells us far less about how that person has come to understand themselves in relation to that knowledge, to other people and to the world.
To me, that is where the true meaning of education lies. Helping students fill their cubes with knowledge while teaching them how to engage with the world that exists beyond those cubes.
And if a teacher can contribute a few small moments of insight during a student’s education, those moments may continue to resonate throughout an entire lifetime.
