The value of understanding

Education usually means knowledge in the form of "questions and answers." Students neither get to formulate their own questions, nor investigate their own answers. In this form, knowledge becomes just a cache of remembered facts. What we need is more understanding.

When we internalise what we observe, it becomes understanding, which can be applied to novel situations. Understanding is not the same as having answers to a 1000 questions. That's just pretending to understand while plugging all the holes with memorised data.

True understanding feels like "nothing." Which is why you're not always able to "explain" what you really understand. What you should do is address situations (which I define as misunderstood areas) with your understanding to come up with solutions. You'll soon realise that although you feel that you don't know a lot, but you're still able to do a lot. And that's what matters.