July 25, 2009 05:07:07
Posted By Ted Baumhauer
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![]() I've been thinking more, and talking with my friends, about what I wrote on July 15 about how students and participants in workshops, sometimes struggle with putting theory into practice. A friend suggested I should consider the word praxis. So I looked it up on Wikipedia. From Wikipedia
In Ancient Greek the word praxis (πραΎ±ξις) referred to activity engaged in by free men. Aristotle held that there were three basic activities of man: theoria, poiesis and praxis. There corresponded to these kinds of activity three types of knowledge: theoretical, to which the end goal was truth; poietical, to which the end goal was production; and practical, to which the end goal was action. Aristotle further divided practical knowledge into ethics, economics and politics. He also distinguished between eupraxia (good praxis) and dyspraxia (bad praxis, misfortune).
Those ancient Greeks were pretty smart. This description fits exactly with what I’ve observed. This isn’t a new problem with education; it is an ongoing labor in education. Teaching is a process of transferring both knowledge (theoria) and skill (praxis). Theory without practical application is of little use. To use a catch phrase…at the end of the day it isn’t enough to know how to pay the bills, you actually have to pay them!
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