What getting too close to an elephant teaches me about knowledge and thinking.
We know that elephants are big. Powerful. Intimidating. That’s propositional knowledge—something we can state, describe, and pass on.
But you don’t know the butterflies in your stomach until you’re right there. Close. Too close. When its presence becomes more than a fact—it becomes a feeling.
That’s something else entirely.
This kind of knowing goes beyond the head. It imprints on the body. It lives in your gut. It stays with you.
That’s why the future of knowledge acquisition can’t just be about absorbing concepts. It must be about experiencing them. Students need to take global ideas and live them out in local, meaningful ways—through community-based projects, field observations, or encounters that shake their core, even a little.
Because real knowledge isn’t just what we think.
It’s what we carry.
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