Nothing Worth Knowing Can Be Taught

For most people, all throughout their lives they become familiar with certain phrases. They could hear them from teachers, parents, and even peers. Many of these popular phrases start off as a quote from someone well known. “Nothing worth knowing can be taught”, seems to be a common phrase that most have heard. It was first said by Oscar Wilde, who was an Irish playwright, poet, and he composed essays and novels. While it may seem obvious on the surface, what does this quote really mean when it is thoroughly analyzed? While this quote can be viewed in many ways, the general idea of this quote holds a truth but can be disapproved in many situations Rachel Carson is well known for writing the book, Silent Spring. This book, which was written

But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road — the one less traveled by — offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth.” (Carson 209) People cannot be taught by someone else how to make the right decision, instead people have to go with how they feel. People are constantly told not to make the easy decision but to make the right one. It is not hard to decide what the right decision is, the hard part is deciding if putting the work into the right decision is worth it. You cannot be taught by a test, to put in effort to making the right decision. You develop that skill throughout your lifetime. While Wilde’s quote does hold some face value, it is not completely true. Most do not know his exact thoughts around this saying people can interpret this in their own way. Many people think lessons are only taught in a classroom, but this is far from the truth. All throughout people’s lives they are constantly being taught different lessons that stay with them throughout their lives, and almost known of them are learned in a classroom situation. Wilde says, “Nothing worth knowing can be taught.” While valuable life lessons, such as satisfaction, making the right decision, and being

Everything worth knowing can be taught by going out into the world and meeting new people and doing things that a person has not experienced for themselves. Oscar Wilde is right in certain circumstances, but he is also wrong. While valuable knowledge is not gotten from a textbook we have to get it somehow. Nobody is born knowing everything they do when they are at the end of their life, so if nothing worth knowing can be taught, how would anybody